I can't even believe it's the last week of June. This is the first summer in a long time that I've felt like I just need to hang on to my mildly luxurious bed linens and my sleep mask for dear life in an effort to stop time. These days are just going by sooo fast! It's depressing! I am so enjoying my carefree days sans alarms and frantic lunch packing. I can't bear to think we've nearly said goodbye to 4 good weeks. Where does the time go?
I still can't quite grasp how one day suddenly your life passes by at warp speed while you are still trying to recover from the hangover of your 21st birthday, yet, prior to the tender age of 21, the days are like never ending mundane cycles of repetitiveness with an occasional frat party thrown in for good measure.
So as the days of summer fly by I've tried to keep the kids somewhat entertained by ways that don't include Nick Jr. marathons. Yet somehow, I've still managed to give myself a good dose of that motherly guilt we all force feed ourselves (please tell me I'm not the only one that does this).
Always seems like we aren't doing enough ultra fantastic arts & crafts or roasting enough marshmellows while singing campfire songs on our deck during our 95 degree evenings. We are 4 weeks into summer and we haven't had story-time at the library or went to any museums. I'm completely off track for teaching them Arabic via Rosetta Stone this summer too. How quickly I forget my ambitious plans.
Nonetheless, we've all managed to rack up some killer potential skin cancer via our tans thanks to our neighborhood pool and of course those friends who are kind enough to let us pool crash at their house as well. (We are such pool mooches).
We also squeezed in a baseball camp for Hudson that he brilliantly survived in the 107 week long temps. All three kids also attended VBS, as they do every year, at our church while I volunteered to teach a class (which I had to be convinced of since my first inclination was to hang out at Starbucks for the week planning our Arabic lessons).
Earlier this month we hit the Lost Lagoon at the Flying L Ranch. This little gem of a water park is pretty small and about a 50 mile drive from San Antonio for us. Totally worth it because the older two kids are able to walk around without a GPS micro chip in their necks and I still feel fairly confidant I'll be able to find them (with the understanding that I will actually want to find them come departure time) all the while I can frolic around with little P man, which contrary to popular belief, actually requires substantially less energy since the little dude area is so small. This is my kind of water park people and the kids love it.
We've had a few other fun activities this month. My sister in law Kathleen took them to paint pottery one afternoon and we've had some fun parties and playdates with friends which have helped to round out our month and kept me from really worrying too much about those Arabic lessons.
This week we are planning to hit one of the free summer movies in town and spend the rest of the days prepping for the departure of our vacation on Friday. I've got a couple portrait sessions to squeeze in and a mountain of laundry to contend with. Hudson also has baseball practice and if I want to impress Mark I should try to get the oil changed in the car before he reminds me. I always love when he asks me to do something and I can say, "oh i did that last week." Somehow it makes me feel so superior...and we all know how superiority plays such an important role in a good marriage.
Thought I'd leave you with one of the shots we did for Mark for his Father's Day picture. Of course, we ran out of time and so it didn't exactly turn out as what I'd been envisioning but then again...it rarely does. Mark loved it but really the kids loved doing it more. They felt so much more involved in the gift giving this year. :) Yay me! Maybe this can counteracts the mommy guilt I've been having?
