Three Months of Summer

As my bike bounced down the gravel road with beach cottages on each side, I felt like the ultimate tourist. With my huge sun hat on my head and a bag over my shoulder filled with a beach towel and a book, I had everything I needed. Well, almost everything. A basket in front of my bike filled with baguettes and cheese would have been nice. I parked my bike at the top of the stairway and made my way down the bluff to meet my family on the beach for another beautiful day full of sunshine and swimming.

Sunflower summer vacation

As school begins and fall approaches, I always feel as though summer flew by and it wasn’t nearly long enough. But when I look back at all the fun things we did, I realize that we packed a lot of activity into those three short months. In June, we celebrated Ed’s 50th birthday party with a big bash in our back yard. Swim team started for both Lily and Emmy. I helped lead Vacation Bible School at our church and taught one of the preschool groups. And we drove up to Madison, Wisconsin to see my sister’s painting and drawing exhibition in the student union at the University of Wisconsin.

Heather's exhibit

In July, Lily had her own artwork on display though a community outreach program in our school district. Several local businesses displayed various student artwork this summer, and Lily’s painting was on the wall at Dunkin’ Donuts. July is when we had our week at the beach, and we also celebrated Emmy’s 8th birthday!

Lily's artAugust was not quite as busy, and the girls and I took advantage of our lazy summer days by going to the pool, visiting Brookfield Zoo and Wagner Farm in Glenview. It was also the month of preparing for school. Both Lily and Emmy cleaned their rooms (which were disasters!) and I ordered each of them a small writing desk. They now have their own private space to do their homework!

How did you spend your summer vacation? Link up your summer posts here and be sure to visit all our Spinners!


NEXT WEEK: This prompt may be a stretch, but next week on Thursday is National Eat an Apple Day and Apple Dumpling Day. Saturday is Johnny Appleseed Day. So your prompt is APPLES. Share a recipe or a time you went apple picking. Perhaps your kids made an apple craft in school. Share it with us! Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? Share some ways you try to stay healthy. Or make up your own way to write about this prompt!

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Kicking Off!

It’s the first full week of summer! Lily and Emmy have been out of school for almost three weeks now, and we’re slowly adjust to summer’s routine. I should write “lack of routine,” which is both freeing and horrible at the same time. We can sleep late, there’s no homework, and we can watch TV in the middle of the day. And we can also lie on the floor moaning about how bored we are and how no one will play with me, watch TV until we’re zombies and then not want to go to sleep at night because we’re not tired, and whine at the grocery store even though the cupboard are completely bare at home.

Yes, summer’s wonderful!

Our summer routine includes:

1. Swim Team for Lily. She has two hour practices every day, which wore her out at first. She’s becoming a stronger swimmer and has been working on diving off the block and flip turns. She was really looking forward to her first swim meet last week. Unfortunately, dark clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped into the 50’s, so it was cancelled. We were looking forward to her second swim meet on Wednesday…and then dark clouds rolled in and the Thor guard went off, and it was postponed. Ah, summer in the Midwest! Finally yesterday, Lily was able to swim in her first swim meet!

Lily swimming with her team during warm-ups.
Lily swimming with her team during warm-ups.

She was so nervous, but she did fine! It was a home meet, and the coaches asked for parent volunteers to time the swimmers. I’ve never done it before…but I volunteered anyway. I figured if Lily was brave enough to do something new that made her nervous, I’d go ahead and do the same thing! It turned out to be an easy job, and I was able to meet one of the other swim team moms.

2. Vacation Bible School was this week! This was the first year I was not the VBS director, and I have to admit it was a welcome change. I can’t stay away from VBS, though, and I was the Bible Story Teller. When I started helping with VBS, I was pregnant with Emmy. Now both my girls are in the oldest groups for VBS! How did that happen?

Emmy VBS
Emmy came down with “leprosy” during VBS.

3. Daily Visits to a Playground: This was one of my goals for the summer, and while weather and schedules have interfered somewhat, we’ve gone to the park a lot! We’ve also been trying to eat plenty of ice cream to make sure we have energy to go to the park.

How are you kicking off your summer? Link up your summer posts here or tell us in the comments!


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