A Summer Wrap Up (Now that it's almost fall...)

I know it's mid-September and Maggie's been in school since August 1, but this is who I am...better late than never! I was really proud of myself for completing every activity on our Summer List. We had lots of fun crossing items off as we did them.

We went blueberry picking. Later we put up lots of blueberry jam!

At the blueberry farm there were lots of fun things to play on.

And swings for everyone!

Here's another one from a story time or puppet show at the downtown library. We went a lot, but only made it through an entire one two weeks ago. Finn and Carolina would get restless after about ten minutes so we'd go in the hallway until it was over and Maggie would join us. Sometimes the little ones would play on the children's computers, too.

Here's another one from one of our trips to ride the glass elevator in the skyscraper next to the downtown library. Cheap thrills, people! Can you see the Batman Building in the background?

Finn, Carolina and I went to Monkey's Treehouse (an indoor play place) with friends one day. Maggie was mad that we went without her but let us cross it off the list anyway.

Here's a photo of Maggie and Mimi (my mom) the day that mom told her she was taking us to the beach for a special part of Cousin Camp.

Here's a random Carolina photo I'm throwing in just for fun.

We did lots of swimming. This was at my dad's house and poor Finn is wearing Maggie's old swim vest. He doesn't mind that it's pink so I don't either!

Maggie finally learned to swim this summer! She's taken multiple lessons but we didn't go swimming too often because it's craziness for me to take all three with none of them being able to swim by themselves. One of my goals for the summer was for her to learn to swim, and thanks to me persistently taking her even though it was challenging and stressful, and Grandma and Grandpa putting her in a swim lesson while she was in Texas, she's finally turned into a fish! Here she is at my dad's pool with cousin Jack.

We got some good porch swing time in (not on the list, but essential to our summers).

We weren't crazily running around crossing things off our list, either. We had lots of time for sitting around reading and playing. Maggie's reading really took off this summer. She would disappear for a while and then I'd find her, quietly reading chapter books by herself. It is possibly my favorite development this summer.

We visited Cumberland Park, downtown, several times. That place is amazing.

The water sprayers would turn off and on sporadically, and I could tell when they were about to turn back on because the water would start gently burbling for a minute. Carolina started playing with a burbling one. A great mother would warn her that she was about to get blasted, but not I. I started recording with my phone, for your (and my) enjoyment. So, enjoy!

We got Krispy Kreme doughnuts one Saturday morning this summer. On this day the sweetness carried over into the car, where Finn and Carolina decided to hold hands. I put this on Facebook but I want to repeat it here so I don't forget it. They held hands and Finn said to Carolina, "Carolina, do you love me so much? I love YOU so much." They still like to hold hands while driving around town. They are such sweeties.

We also took a fun trip to TX to visit Grant's parents. Maggie flew out a few days ahead of us with Grandpa and then we drove up with the little kids. Everyone did great. I think I'm finally over my fear of road trips with the kids. Now that they're all able to communicate, look at books, play games, etc., things have really gotten so much easier.
Here are Carolina and Maggie lying in a dinosaur footprint from the Ft. Worth Science Museum (which is super fun, if you ever find yourself needing something to do in Ft. Worth).

We went out to dinner one night with Grant's parents and grandmother and for some reason that night the kids were just antsy. After they ate I took them outside to run around and get rid of some energy (and save the rest of the diners from their squeals and screams). After a while we noticed that there were some backhoes working on a construction project so they sat happily watching them for about ten minutes. It really doesn't take much to make kids happy - room to run and some big machinery!

While we're in Ft. Worth we always try to go to/eat at Central Market, a beautiful grocery store that's kind of similar to Whole Foods but bumped up a notch. They have live music outside on certain nights and their playground was very popular with my kids.

Wow. That was a super long post! We had so much fun this summer and I definitely plan on doing a summer list every year. It really helped give our summer some structure and we never had days where we couldn't figure out what to do. I never felt stressed about accomplishing everything but I'm so glad we did! I hope your summer was great, too. Did you do anything special? Can you think of anything to add to my summer list next year?