June began with a week of Vacation Bible School for
Audrey. Having just gotten finished with her school year, she wasn't
exactly rarin' to start something with the title "school" in it, but
when I picked her up at the end of the first day she said "Mom! That
was AWESOME! I can't wait to go back tomorrow!" :) I'd
made sure she was in the same class as her little friend Kaelyn and they ended
up having a wonderful time making crafts, playing games, singing songs, and
watching Bible lessons told through fun skits. Hearing about it kinda
made me wish I could've attended, too.
That week also included a visit from my Aunt
Jill, who was down from Virginia. She and my mom came over for the day
and hung out with us. After I put Luke down for nap, they took Audrey out
to a local bakery that has GF cupcakes and spent some girl time with just her
while I did my conference call for work. She had a blast and it was a
great visit.
The next week we left for our annual trip to New
Smyrna Beach with David's parents and his mom's side of the family. The
ride down went extremely well and we had a great week full of family memories,
excellent weather, and good food. On the last day Audrey spiked a 102
fever with no other symptoms. We kept her dosed on Tylenol and stopped by
an after-hours pediatrician's on the way home to make sure she didn't have a
UTI or ear infection, but both were clear. I guess it was just one of
those weird virus things that last a few days. Thankfully no one else
came down with it. (And yes, if you're thinking someone always spends
some portion of our NSB trip being sick, you are correct. Last year we
stopped by the after-hours place for Luke on the way home because his cough
sounded like tuberculosis.) Anyway, aside from that, it really was a
great time and we enjoyed ourselves. For the sake of time and keeping you
awake, I've bullet-pointed some highlights at the end of the post.
When we got back, all focus shifted towards
preparations for Audrey's birthday party. I'd told myself months earlier
that I was going to keep things a lot more simple this year. Instead of
having lunch, we decided to just do cake and ice cream and put the money
towards a magician. I'm not entirely sure how I thought that switch would
lighten my load a ton, but for some reason, I made that assumption. It
didn't really dawn on me until about two weeks out that I still had a bunch of
work left to do (cleaning, decorating, finding and putting together favors,
figuring out a small craft, etc.) I ordered several things before we left
for the beach and got to work on them when we got back. I really did
scale back quite a bit from what I've done in the past and not having the
pressure of a meal was huge. I'll write more details of the actual
day/party in a separate post, but to spare you the suspense, I'll go ahead and
tell you it was a hit and the kids had a ball (some of them literally...it was
one of the tricks! Ha!) And I now have a SIX year old. What on
earth...
The next week began daily swim lessons for both
kids. I was kind of on the fence about Audrey taking them since this
would make summer #4 for her, but I figured it really couldn't hurt. She
was pumped, but Luke was definitely apprehensive. In fact, on the first
day, he kept shaking his head "no" at everything the coach asked him
to do and even started crying at one point, which is very unlike him to do for
someone else. (He usually reserves his disobedience and stubbornness for
David and me, which is annoying, but the way we'd prefer it if we had to
choose.) My heart ached for him, but I stayed out of sight and prayed for
his bravery. By the end of the lesson, he had jumped off (okay, maybe it
was more like he'd been pulled off) the side, gone under water for the first
time, and practiced both floating and how to pull himself up out of the pool
from the side. He got out, ran over to me, and yelled "Mommy, I did
it! I'm so proud of myself!" I was too...big time! I fed
him lunch while Audrey did her lesson. She worked on floating, freestyle,
and backstroke and did really well at all of it.
The rest of the week went mostly the same, with
Luke gaining courage and Audrey gaining skill with each lesson. The first
two nights when we put Luke to bed, he cried in anticipation of the next day
and even woke up once with a nightmare, but by the end of the week he was
looking forward to going. He still wasn't ready to conquer the water
slide (even sitting in my lap), though we tried on two different days at his
request. We'd climb the stairs, wait in line, and then he'd get scared
and decide he wasn't ready. I told him that was fine and he didn't have
to. He HAD to do swim lessons, but I'd leave the slide up to him to
decide when he was ready. I'm not sure it'll happen this year at all, but
he'll get there. Audrey, on the other hand, couldn't be pulled away from
the thing. I humbled myself and even joined her in the fun about a half a
dozen times one of the last days.
At the end of the month, I began giving in to
this enormous urge to purge I'd had going on for weeks. Something about the extra time that quitting work plus the lack of outside of commitments during summer offers makes
me want to frantically clean out every drawer and closet in my house and
reorganize it all before August. I feel like everything has just piled up
and piled up until I'm ready to pull my hair out. I tackled my craft room
and "event planning" closets first and got rid of a ton of stuff that
I no longer need. I realized that I needed to shift my focus away from
keeping things that are for gender-specific kids' birthday parties and only
stash the stuff that'll help with the parties I do for the kids' classes.
If and when I ever do start my event planning business again (not likely,
but who knows...), I don't think I'll have any desire to do kids' birthday
parties, so there really wasn't any sense in holding on to stuff like tea pot
party signs and Happy Birthday train-shaped banners. It was hard to let
it go given how much time, energy, and effort (and great memories!) I had
invested, but I was able to sell some stuff and donate/gift the rest, so that
helped ease the pain.
The other big project we took on this month was
removing the laundry room sink and replacing it with a hall tree/cubby/bench
storage unit thingy (that's the official name for it) for the kids' backpacks,
coats, etc. David did a fantastic job building it and I even helped with
the wall repair and cosmetic side. It looks FANTASTIC and I am so very
pleased with how it turned out. It'll serve us well for years to come...much
more so than the nasty dirty sink that I only used to fill up the watering can
or wash out paint brushes.
So that was June! A busy but fun start to
our summer, for sure. I'll leave you with the highlights I promised:
Highlights of our NSB Trip:
• Our
annual Crab Hunt! I cracked open some glow stick necklaces and bracelets
and we headed down to the beach just as it was getting dark. We enlisted
the help of David's cousin James again this year, since he is a master hunter.
After about 30 minutes, we'd managed to collect 22 crabs of various
sizes. We circled up, took a picture, and then let them go. (Poor
crabs are probably still trying to figure out what happened to them.) The
kids had a blast!
• David,
Luke, and I had our very first Mommy-Daddy-Son date. We went out for ice
cream, which he loved, and then took him to pick out a souvenir. He chose
a plastic blue shark and immediately named him "Bones." We took
a stroll on the beach and let him talk or ask about whatever he wanted, which
was mostly questions about sharks.
• We
also had our annual Mommy-Daddy-Daughter date. We did get to have Dairy
Queen, but had to forego the lunch part and the cone. She couldn't decide
between a hot fudge sundae and a M & M blizzard, so I got one and she
got the other and we shared. David got a banana split with strawberry
syrup (I will never understand his preference for fruit in desserts.)
Afterward, we drove to the same souvenir shop that we'd taken Luke to
earlier in the week and she selected a pink plastic shark and named her
"Sarah." We walked around for just a little bit and then headed
back to the condo.
•
On the last day I woke up
super early and couldn't get back to sleep. I crept out of the condo and
walked down to the beach to see the sunrise. Though I've seen plenty of
sunrises on the beach while running by, I haven't actually stood to watch one
from start to finish in a very long time. I'd forgotten how amazing it is
to see a giant orange ball of fire appear straight out of the water.
God's creation is just awesome.
• David
and I got in some personal hobby time, too. He got in three rounds of
golf with his grandfather and uncle (which brought his total rounds of golf for
the year to three, so that was a big deal!) I got to read two books and
finish a huge blog post PLUS we got to do a date one night.
• We
went to visit my Great Uncle Ben and Great Aunt Bonnie for an afternoon.
I've said it before after past visits, but it's just so important to me
to spend some time with these sweet people. They keep the memories of my
paternal grandfather alive and connect my kids to that branch of the family.
Hearing his voice and watching his mannerisms are bittersweet, as they
are so similar to my late grandfather's.
• I
made it to "the rocks"! Our first morning there, my
mother-in-law and I got out and ran down to the area we call the rocks, which
is 6 miles round trip. It was great to accomplish that on day one and to
have her company and uninterrupted conversation time with her. I ended up
getting in four runs on the beach during the week (one with her, two with
David, and one solo) and logged 15 miles. Running alongside the ocean is
so therapeutic for me and did my soul serious good.
• We
celebrated Audrey's 6th birthday down there with a little "Beach Birthday
Bash." Everyone came over to our condo (which she had decorated with
precious signs) and ate pizza. After presents and cake, we played Catch
Phrase for a minute and then Headbandz.
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