May existed, right?
Some months seem to take forever to go by and some fly by so fast I have to remind myself they were here! May was that way for us. Lots of wrapping up the school year, end of the year field trips, testing, filing paperwork, holidays and Spring cleaning in our yards.
So, June arrived and I had hoped it would go by slower, but here we are, June 12th and I'm feeling like June 1st was literally yesterday.
This year we chose to stay local for Jason's vacation. We've always gone to CA to see our families and while we love our families, we've really felt like we needed to have a STAY-cation. So that's what we did. And it was amazing! We decided we'd do at least 90% of things we've never done since moving here. Things we've always said, "oh, that would be fun to do that!" So we made a list and picked what was on the top of that list.
We did things that included Ride the Ducks tour in Seattle (a must do!), we walked most of the city, including Kerry Park and up Queen Anne hill to our favorite ice cream parlor. I have to say here, my kids shock me with how well they travel in a car and walk LONG distances. Truly amazing.
We ate at a few new places. Pegasus Pizza on Alki beach won our award for BEST pizza ever.
We toured the Rose Garden in Tacoma, took the ferry to Vashon Island and spent the day there. The Chuhuly Glass museum, Ice Cream Social with friends, the 5 mile drive at Point Defiance, some hikes, beach visits, played in our pool and hot tub, BBQ dinners, roasting s'mores over the fire pit outback - it was an amazing week! And the best part is, we still have 2 more days!
Oh, and we went to (and bought season passes to) our local theme park, Wild Waves. Such a fun family day AND my two biggest chickens rode on their first upsidown roller coasters!! Everyone but Miles did the zip line that goes across the park and flies back down over the park before landing.
The week has been really wonderful. The first part of it was a bit hot for comfort, but I'm making my peace with the fact that summer has arrived and so I will just be sweaty until October gets here.
School is technically over until September, however, we do some light school through the summer. Keeps everyone (including Mom) in the "school mode" and then we end up not shocked and horrified once the more formal school days start up again :)
The kids and I had a great school year. I get a little annoyed with all the hubbub around grades and levels and who's-the-best-at-what-crap, so I'll just say they all did well. Testing went great and seeing their scores was a relief to me, to see that I haven't totally messed them up.
Ethan will be going into 5th grade, Rachel 4th, Kara 2nd and Miles will be officially doing preschool!
However, they do a lot of school together. Kara often ends up learning 4th grade stuff because she over hears it, Miles is already picking up on phonics skills for learning how to read, and Rachel will probably have the whole family sewing by the end of next year. Homeschooling at its finest :)
Because I have a hard time keeping this blog private; Blogger keeps telling me I have too many people signed up to read it and it exceeds the 'private' setting limit (WTH?!) I don't know how many pictures will be posted here. My Instagram account is private, but I am more than willing to add anyone I know, so feel free to find me over there. I post daily (probably too much for some people's standards) and my name is 'eatsleepandrun'. I kinda felt bad for making that switch, but everyone has cell phones so my feeling is, if you really want to see pictures, you can check my IG account :)
I also may go through my list of readers on here and delete people who I actually don't think check this blog anymore. I guess if I delete lurkers that never say anything they can ask to be added back.
Anyway, that's our Summer so far. We celebrated 1 year at our church last week by doing a community service outreach at a local city park. They laid gravel for the trail to help control flooding and we pruned back blackberry bushes.
Jason is the proud new owner of a Subaru! We said farewell to the dear old Metro when it needed more work than what we paid for it.
The kids are doing well. I feel like, for whatever reason, they're all growing way too fast. I think the toddler years feel like they go the slowest because, for me, they're the harder years. I have a hard time with the constant teaching, reminding, repeating myself, handling new emotions and the like.
Miles hit the terrible 3's and has been a mixture of "sweetest boy ever" and "demon child". He is mostly an awesome little boy who keeps all of us laughing and wanting to kiss his cute cheeks, but he's literally throwing a tantrum next to me on the cough right now because Daddy said he couldn't have a band aid on his leg where he has no boo-boo.
Life.
Ethan departs for a week (A WEEK!) of summer camp in July. He keeps telling me how much he's going to miss us and I keep telling him he will probably have a blast and forget about us, while I'll sit at home and cry buckets of tears, wondering why we allowed him to be gone so long. The truth is, I'm thrilled for him. Its a camp at our church and I know he'll have a great time and I'm already praying he meets amazing kids and comes back with lots of new friendships.
His football team won their playoffs game and so tomorrow is their final championship game of the season! Then its NO MORE 'organized' sports for us until January!! (aside from continued swim lessons)
Rachel and Kara vacillate between highly emotional and loads of fun. They are either fighting about who-knows-what, or the best of friends. The other day they were crying because they both said the other was hurting them and 'being mean' (which is typically code for "not giving me my way about everything") and then moments later they came running out of their room, with drawings of what will someday be their home they build and live in together. I have learned to minimize my reaction when the screams and tears come and to remind them that it will soon pass and they'll be the best of friends again in no time.
Our whole family has bikes now, so we've been enjoying bike rides and exploring local trails and areas closer to home! Hope you all have delightful summers. I'm not sure when I'll be on here next, but I'll try to write more often. Journaling gets harder and harder these days so I know someday I will be SO thankful for things like this blog and my Instagram.
Oh, we are NOT on Facebook. I had a few people suggest I just blocked them and its not true. We deleted our accounts almost a year ago and aren't on there at all. Hopefully that's clear :)
Bye for now!
So, June arrived and I had hoped it would go by slower, but here we are, June 12th and I'm feeling like June 1st was literally yesterday.
This year we chose to stay local for Jason's vacation. We've always gone to CA to see our families and while we love our families, we've really felt like we needed to have a STAY-cation. So that's what we did. And it was amazing! We decided we'd do at least 90% of things we've never done since moving here. Things we've always said, "oh, that would be fun to do that!" So we made a list and picked what was on the top of that list.
We did things that included Ride the Ducks tour in Seattle (a must do!), we walked most of the city, including Kerry Park and up Queen Anne hill to our favorite ice cream parlor. I have to say here, my kids shock me with how well they travel in a car and walk LONG distances. Truly amazing.
We ate at a few new places. Pegasus Pizza on Alki beach won our award for BEST pizza ever.
We toured the Rose Garden in Tacoma, took the ferry to Vashon Island and spent the day there. The Chuhuly Glass museum, Ice Cream Social with friends, the 5 mile drive at Point Defiance, some hikes, beach visits, played in our pool and hot tub, BBQ dinners, roasting s'mores over the fire pit outback - it was an amazing week! And the best part is, we still have 2 more days!
Oh, and we went to (and bought season passes to) our local theme park, Wild Waves. Such a fun family day AND my two biggest chickens rode on their first upsidown roller coasters!! Everyone but Miles did the zip line that goes across the park and flies back down over the park before landing.
The week has been really wonderful. The first part of it was a bit hot for comfort, but I'm making my peace with the fact that summer has arrived and so I will just be sweaty until October gets here.
School is technically over until September, however, we do some light school through the summer. Keeps everyone (including Mom) in the "school mode" and then we end up not shocked and horrified once the more formal school days start up again :)
The kids and I had a great school year. I get a little annoyed with all the hubbub around grades and levels and who's-the-best-at-what-crap, so I'll just say they all did well. Testing went great and seeing their scores was a relief to me, to see that I haven't totally messed them up.
Ethan will be going into 5th grade, Rachel 4th, Kara 2nd and Miles will be officially doing preschool!
However, they do a lot of school together. Kara often ends up learning 4th grade stuff because she over hears it, Miles is already picking up on phonics skills for learning how to read, and Rachel will probably have the whole family sewing by the end of next year. Homeschooling at its finest :)
Because I have a hard time keeping this blog private; Blogger keeps telling me I have too many people signed up to read it and it exceeds the 'private' setting limit (WTH?!) I don't know how many pictures will be posted here. My Instagram account is private, but I am more than willing to add anyone I know, so feel free to find me over there. I post daily (probably too much for some people's standards) and my name is 'eatsleepandrun'. I kinda felt bad for making that switch, but everyone has cell phones so my feeling is, if you really want to see pictures, you can check my IG account :)
I also may go through my list of readers on here and delete people who I actually don't think check this blog anymore. I guess if I delete lurkers that never say anything they can ask to be added back.
Anyway, that's our Summer so far. We celebrated 1 year at our church last week by doing a community service outreach at a local city park. They laid gravel for the trail to help control flooding and we pruned back blackberry bushes.
Jason is the proud new owner of a Subaru! We said farewell to the dear old Metro when it needed more work than what we paid for it.
The kids are doing well. I feel like, for whatever reason, they're all growing way too fast. I think the toddler years feel like they go the slowest because, for me, they're the harder years. I have a hard time with the constant teaching, reminding, repeating myself, handling new emotions and the like.
Miles hit the terrible 3's and has been a mixture of "sweetest boy ever" and "demon child". He is mostly an awesome little boy who keeps all of us laughing and wanting to kiss his cute cheeks, but he's literally throwing a tantrum next to me on the cough right now because Daddy said he couldn't have a band aid on his leg where he has no boo-boo.
Life.
Ethan departs for a week (A WEEK!) of summer camp in July. He keeps telling me how much he's going to miss us and I keep telling him he will probably have a blast and forget about us, while I'll sit at home and cry buckets of tears, wondering why we allowed him to be gone so long. The truth is, I'm thrilled for him. Its a camp at our church and I know he'll have a great time and I'm already praying he meets amazing kids and comes back with lots of new friendships.
His football team won their playoffs game and so tomorrow is their final championship game of the season! Then its NO MORE 'organized' sports for us until January!! (aside from continued swim lessons)
Rachel and Kara vacillate between highly emotional and loads of fun. They are either fighting about who-knows-what, or the best of friends. The other day they were crying because they both said the other was hurting them and 'being mean' (which is typically code for "not giving me my way about everything") and then moments later they came running out of their room, with drawings of what will someday be their home they build and live in together. I have learned to minimize my reaction when the screams and tears come and to remind them that it will soon pass and they'll be the best of friends again in no time.
Our whole family has bikes now, so we've been enjoying bike rides and exploring local trails and areas closer to home! Hope you all have delightful summers. I'm not sure when I'll be on here next, but I'll try to write more often. Journaling gets harder and harder these days so I know someday I will be SO thankful for things like this blog and my Instagram.
Oh, we are NOT on Facebook. I had a few people suggest I just blocked them and its not true. We deleted our accounts almost a year ago and aren't on there at all. Hopefully that's clear :)
Bye for now!
Comments
Happy summer!
oh p.s. my hubby is trying to convince me to get a smartphone next time my old flip-phone is up for an upgrade. My mother even got a smartphone yesterday, so he said it's really time for me to graduate now. LOL. I guess I might have to learn what things like Instagram are, after all! Hah!