Third Week of Summer

We had a very different kind of week. After his swim meet last Saturday, Boogs left to spend the week with my mom. Every summer, she teaches VBS at her church and invites all of her grandkids to spend the week with her and attend VBS. This year, four of the grandkids stayed with her.

While Boogs was enjoying time with his Nonnie and cousins, my husband and I took a belated ten year anniversary trip. Our anniversary was on June 7th. We decided that we really did not want to deal with the hassle of the airport and picked a place close to home to visit. We spent three days at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa. It is about an hour drive from our house. My husband booked some time for both of us at the spa for our first day there. It was amazing!

My treatments started with a spa pedicure. After that, I had a 60 minute facial followed by a 30 minute cucumber mint sugar scrub and body wrap. While I was wrapped up like a baked potato, I had a scalp massage that almost put me to sleep. The last treatment of the day was a 60 minute relaxation massage. My husband had a body scrub and a massage then he checked us into the hotel while I was finishing up.

The view from our room.

We had dinner on the balcony of the Stories Restaurant. At 8 pm, the resort had a blazing fire in the fire pit for guests to roast marshmallows. We skipped dessert with our meal so that we could make S'mores.

We spent most of Wednesday enjoying the sunny (HOT!) weather. The resort had bicycles for the guests to borrow. We rode about 5 miles on the borrowed bikes.

We returned the bikes and went hiking. A little less than two miles from the resort is the entrance to McKinney Roughs Nature Park. We hiked a few miles on the trails. We saw lots of lizards and deer.

It was 101 degrees Wednesday afternoon. We took advantage of the pool area to cool off and have a refreshing drink or two.

After dinner, we went back to the fire pit for another S'mores dessert.

YUM!

Thursday morning began with a trip to the spa. We each had another massage. It was heavenly.

There was a small game room with a few pinball and arcade games. I beat my husband on the Addams Family pinball machine on Wednesday so we had to have a rematch on Thursday. He creamed me on Thursday and got the 3rd highest all time score on the machine.

We spent part of the afternoon kayaking on the river.

We finished kayaking, cleaned up, packed up and headed home. It was wonderful to spend uninterrupted time together for a few days. We have not taken the time for just the two of us to go somewhere alone for about six years. We really do need to do it more often.

Wednesday was my birthday. My husband gave me a card that ended with the following question, "How about some sky diving for your birthday gift? Tandem." Looks like I need to get ready for my next adventure.

Second Week of Summer

Boogs was in a camping mood this past week so we set up "tents" inside and outside. Neither one of us were able to get much sleep. I was a little nervous while sleeping in the tent in our backyard. In the past month or so, there has been a marked increase of nature activity in our neighborhood. Several cats have gone missing because of a couple of coyotes. We have found three large scorpions in our home and one on the back porch. Our next door neighbor killed a rattlesnake in his front yard. And, there are many other creepy crawlies around.

Under the dining room table

In the grass

On the back porch because of the rain

Unfortunately, Boogs did not do a lot of this

Good morning 5:40 a.m. (UGH!)

This is one of the scorpions I found inside. I put a bowl over it and was going to try to slide the cardstock paper under the bowl to carry it off the carpet because I did not want to squish it into the carpet. This scorpion was fast and mad! I decided it would be better to wait for my husband to take care of it. I did not want my husband to accidentally knock the bowl and release the scorpion so I wrote a helpful, eye-catching note. I know, I am all kinds of fun to live with. :-)

Boogs really enjoyed playing with Winter this week. He put a Playmobile boat in her cage just to see what she would do.

We spent a little bit of every day this past week at the pool. Two more meets until this season's swim team is over. Boogs said he will miss having swim team practice every day. His plan is to continue practice throughout the summer. He told me, "We can go to our neighborhood pool every day at our regular practice time. I will get in the pool and do 100 meter freestyle, 50 meter backstroke, 50 meter butterfly, and 50 meter breaststroke. Then we can just go home because I will feel like I had a pretty good practice session." Sounds like a good plan to me.

Boogs also enjoyed park time, playdates with friends, going to the movie, and working out with me. Several days this week, he rode his scooter while I jogged on a two mile route through the neighborhood. We continued to have daily morning skill review, writing time, and reading time. The only thing I felt like we missed this week were our regular story themed lunches. We are enjoying our summer. This coming week, Boogs will be spending the week at my mom's house with his cousins. I know he will have a great time (and so will I).

This post is linked to the Country Kids from Coombe Mill outdoor fun weekly linky party.

Wahoo! Fun First Week of Summer

GM, here is how we spent our first week.

Boogs and I had a good first week of summer! He had a swim meet last Saturday (6/8) then spent the rest of the weekend at Nonnie and Poppa's house. We had a little bit of a rough start to our Monday. Last summer, I found a daily review of skills calendar for entering 1st grade. This year I made a calendar of skills for Boogs. Monday was the first day to use it. The day's task was to fill in a hundred chart using his best handwriting. He said he wanted to save it for afternoon work, not morning work. He told me if it were afternoon work then we might just forget about and get to skip a day. He completed it but he tried all kinds of negotiation tricks to get out of it. Last summer, he did a daily review task without a single complaint. By the end of the week, he no longer had a problem with doing morning work and was thrilled to find that the calendar was blank on Saturdays and Sundays. The tasks are not difficult and do not take long. We are doing other learning activities as well as the calendar.

We were busy this week. Monday - morning work, menu planning, swim practice, library book fair, grocery store, Father's Day gift shopping, and cooking. Boogs is helping me with our weekly menu planning for the summer. His job is to plan and cook dinner for us every Wednesday.
Tuesday - morning work, swim practice, card making, playing with friends. Wednesday - morning work, trampoline place with friends, picnic and play at park, splash park, Boogs made dinner. Thursday - morning work, swim practice, movie Epic with friend, friend over to play, library to get a new book on cd for the car. Friday - morning work, watched Princess Bride, swim practice, shoe shopping, and quiet afternoon at home. Saturday - 5:30 to noon swim meet, lunch with Daddy, lazy afternoon. 

Early in the week, Boogs told me, "You are ruining my summer. I thought I would get to sit at home, play on my Wii, DS, and computer and watch tv all day for the whole summer."

Swim Meet

Morning Work

Water Fight with Momma

Splash Park

Air Hockey at the trampoline place

Rock climbing wall at the park

Watching the movie Epic

Ready to swim!

Boogs won his first heat ribbon. 1st place in his heat for backstroke. Wahoo!

We have spent a lot time together reading and hanging out this week. Only 10 weeks left of summer.

Lunches June 10 - 14

This was our first week of summer. I made Boogs breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day this week but only got around to making one story themed lunch.

I Know Here by Laurel Croza

This is a sweet story about change and transitions. A little girl lives with her family in a trailer in Saskatchewan. Her father has been working on building a dam. When the dam is complete, they will move across the country to Toronto for her father's next job. The girl talks about the things she knows and loves as she draws pictures to take with her to her new home. The teacher, in one of the other eight trailers on their road, marks their location with a large yellow circle and places a big red star on Toronto as she prepares her student for the coming change.  Boogs and I discussed what things he would draw for his memories if we had to move. His first response, "Would my hamster get to come with us?" Then he said he would miss his friends on our street, his school, his swim team, and Texas.
In the lunchbox: pb&j trailer with cheese circle for Saskatchewan and red star for Toronto, pretzel &  broccoli tree, apricot flower buds, green bean for green fields, and blueberries for the creek.

Boogs asked for a "snacky" lunch: ham, cheese, Ritz crackers, blueberries, yogurt, carrots, and ranch dip.


I did not take pictures of any of his other lunches this week. Instead I was taking pictures like these from Wednesday: 

Picnic and play at the park

Water fight in the backyard

Bouncing at a trampoline place

Playing at the Splash Park

I LOVE SUMMER!!! We have been busy having fun and throwing in a bit of learning, too.

Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.

Last Week Of 1st Grade Lunches June 3rd - 5th

Boogs' lunches are inspired by the books we read at bedtime the previous evening. Each night, Boogs reads one book to me and I read a book or a chapter of a book to him. I usually post his lunches once a week. Click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post to see lunches from previous weeks.

I am soooooo happy that we have made is to the end of the school year. I am looking forward to having Boogs home and not working for the next 9 weeks! Boogs will still eat lunch every day (of course) but I will not be making story themed lunches every day, I will try to have at least one a week.

Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers by Cynthia Rylant

Boogs has started reading books for several different summer reading programs. He enjoyed reading this Henry and Mudge books because mysteries and secret codes are fascinating to Boogs. In the story, Henry gets a spy kit then sets out to discover interesting things around the neighborhood. He finds a note written in secret code. He and Mudge break the code and leave a return message. Eventually, they meet the code writer, another neighborhood boy who bought the same spy kit. In the ELB lunchbox: secret code cheese letters (I told Boogs it said 'have a great day'), almond butter & jelly Mudge with a mustache and magnifying glass, Babybel Henry with glasses disguise, blueberries, and salad.


Hamster Chase based on the character by Ezra Jack Keats, written by Anastasia Suen and Allan Eitzen

Boogs has been a pet owner for two months. He plays with his hamster everyday and is very interested in reading facts and stories about hamsters. He chose to read this book for his summer reading program. I love listening to Boogs read. He was reading this book to me in the car while we were driving to his swimming lessons. He got stuck on something and paused for quite a while. I asked if he wanted to spell the word to me so I could help him out. He replied, "Just a minute, I am developing my thoughts before I read the next part." He makes me smile. In the story, Amy sneezes and scares the classroom hamster out of Peter's hand. Peter and his friends come up with a plan to lure the hamster back into his cage. In the ELB lunchbox: cheese ACHOO, boiled egg hamster, sneezing Amy zucchini muffin, carrots with hummus, kiwi, strawberries, and yogurt.


Animals of Australia by Creative Edge

This is another book that Boogs has chosen to read for his summer reading program. It is a collection of facts about several different Australian animals. In the ELB lunchbox: pb&j kangaroo sandwich, ham & cheese crocodile, cheese stick poisonous snake, mango, and broccoli.


On Thursday, Boogs had his student-led conference. Since I had to miss work to attend, I went ahead and took off for the day and ate lunch with Boogs at school. He asked if I would bring a Happy Meal for his lunch. Once a year won't kill him.

Mrs. McBloom, Clean Up Your Classroom! by Kelly DiPucchio 

This was the perfect book to read the night before the last day of school. It is an adorable book. Mrs. McBloom has been teaching for 50 years and will retire at the end of the school year. She has not cleaned up her classroom for the past 45 years. There were giant sunflowers, green bean vines up to the ceiling, all of the science animals roaming around, and even an apple tree growing in the middle of the room.When people asked her to clean it up she always replied that it was on her to do list. The teacher that was to get Mrs. McBloom's classroom wanted to start her teaching career in a clean classroom. For homework, Mrs. McBloom assigned her students the task of figuring out a way to quickly clean everything up. Boogs thought Mrs. McBloom should hire a large crane to haul everything out of the classroom and take it to the junkyard. In the end, every citizen of the town pitched in to help clean the classroom and organize all of the stuff into a gigantic yard sale. It was a success. Boogs spent at least half an hour flipping pages back and forth to see all of the details in the drawings. He loved this book! In the ELB lunchbox: pb&j squirrel sandwich, cheese frog, fruit leather "clean up" note with extra letters in the yellow muffin cup, carrots, rice & beans for the dirt spilled on the floor, grapes, and blueberries.



Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.