Fourth Week of Summer Part 2

We ended our week with lots of family time and the last swim meet of the season. Boogs has really enjoyed the Typhoons Swim Team this year. He said he wants to continue swimming on the Typhoons until he ages out at 17.

 Daddy made it to this swim meet. He and Boogs explored the creek near the pool after the meet.

 We went to a friend's pool party for the rest of Saturday. I did not happen to take any pics of the kids in the pool.

Family time with Monopoly. We started this game on Friday and finished it on Sunday.

 Daddy and Boogs made homemade pizzas together for dinner.

Daddy was home four days in a row without working. It was amazing to have so much family time together. We really missed him when his work routine started back up on Monday.

Fourth Week of Summer Part 1

I can't believe we are already into our fourth week of summer. I want time to slow down a bit. Boogs was pretty tired this week. I guess hanging out with his cousins last week wore him out. My niece took a few pictures of their adventure with an inflatable kiddie pool in Town Lake. Looks like they had a fantastic time.

Last Saturday, I had to wake Boogs up at 4:50 to get ready for his swim meet. He was so tired but he still wanted to go. He swam all of his heats slower than any other meet this year and had a great time.

We had a slow-paced, relaxing Sunday. We spent most of the day on the back porch playing games. MasterMind has turned into one of our new favorites.

 The rest of the week went by quickly with swim team practice, playdates, car shopping, and celebrating the 4th of July. Boogs' cousins helped him get over his fear of being bitten by Winter. Now, he can hold her without wearing ski gloves.

 We had a great day at the Quarry Splash Pad with friends.

After spending 4 1/2 hours at a car dealership, Boogs was ready to hit the 4th of July Festival.

He loved being in the giant hamster wheel. Now he knows how Winter feels in her hamster ball.

 Daddy and Boogs had a wrestling match while waiting for the fireworks to begin.

 This is how Boogs always watches fireworks - with his ears plugged.

We had a wonderful time. And, the week is not over yet! This post has been linked to:

4th of July Lunch

Happy 4th of July!

Today's lunch was inspired by The Great Cake Bake by Helen Ketteman

Boogs thought this book was incredibly entertaining. During the week we have had it checked out of the library, I have read it three times to Boogs, he has read part of it to me, and he has read it a couple of times to himself. In the story, the town of Danville is getting ready for the 4th of July Cake Contest. Donna Rae loves contests. She wanted to make the most spectacular cake she could imagine. Unfortunately, her ideas were just a little bit too ambitious. Donna Rae made a Boston Tea Party cake first. She wanted the cake to have a punch bowl fountain. She asked the mayor to come by and see her cake surprise. The punch sprayed all over the mayor's face. Next, Donna Rae made a Statue of Liberty cake that she hooked up to the tank on her gas barbecue grill. Donna Rae invited the mayor over to see her latest surprise cake. She asked the mayor to help her out by lighting the statue's torch. The flame set off an explosion that blew up the cake and blew off the mayor's mustache. Donna Rae's final cake was a Paul Revere cake where she intended to ride a real horse on its cake cobblestone road. Of course disaster struck again.  Boogs laughed at the mess this cake attempt made. The story ends with Donna Rae dreaming of plans for making her own wedding cake. Boogs asked me to check and see if Helen Ketterman had made a sequel to this book. Sadly, she has not.

In the ELB lunchbox: pb&j Statue of Liberty mini-sandwich with tomato flames starting to explode into a giant cheese FLASH, salami under the cheese, lettuce & broccoli with a Statue of Liberty pick, flag fruit - red raspberries, white(ish) strawberries, & blue blueberries, mini muffin with frosting & candy stars and candy USA letters.


Shared on: BentOnBetterLunches' 4th of July linky party.



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.

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.