Vacation Day One-Driving

Are you ready for a whole slew of vacation posts? We were gone for nine days so that's  a lot of stuff to cover! Let's start with the drive down. There was a pretty good amount of screen time and a lot of snacks. Our stops weren't too long though and we made good time on the drive. Looking out the window after it got dark I noticed a couple of very bright stars that seemed unusually placed and after a quick google search found out they are actually the planets Venus and Jupiter! Apparently it's a very fun time to see them because they're moving closer and closer together until Venus is going to pass up Jupiter to reach the star, Regulus. The kids picked out new neck pillows for the trip (Paige has been wanting one since our last Florida trip 3 years ago!) and that helped them fall asleep. We ended up stopping a couple hours away from Orlando to sleep for the night because we weren't meeting up with Pat's family until around noon the next day.

This was near the beginning of the drive-happy faces!

Sad face? What happened?!

Owen reorganizing his Pokemon cards

This is a very shaky picture of the planets I took while Pat was driving

Finally asleep!

Owen was out too!

Statue of Liberty

"Mom! Take a picture! I look like the Statue of Liberty!"

Gymnastics!

Paige looooved dance class but she was very interested in trying a gymnastics class this summer so we decided to sign her up. She's only been to two classes so far but she loves it. Her energy level was through the roof! When Fall rolls around she'll have to pick between dance and gymnastics so we'll see what happens!

Safety Town

Paige is going to start Kindergarten in the Fall so you know what that means...she gets to attend Safety Town! She's been learning all sorts of helpful information for the past two weeks and has even made some new friends! She was super excited to share what she learned about how to approach dogs with our neighbors-ask the owner if you can pet the dog, let it smell you, then pet it! Or if a crazy dog is running at you-stand like a tree with your arms crossed and your hands on your shoulders. Let's be honest though...I'm pretty sure the best part of Safety Town is riding around in the miniature city.

Muffins!

We received a new-to-me item in our CSA bag last week-spelt flour. I didn't think much of it until I started doing some internet sleuthing on the topic to figure out if it worked the same way as regular flour and, of course, it doesn't. Because of that, I thought it best not to just put it in place of regular or whole wheat flour from a recipe I've made in the past. I didn't have blueberries so I used chocolate chips instead to make these Blueberry Banana Spelt Muffins. Were they good? They were super good. Was it because they were made with spelt flour? No clue. I also cut the sugar in half and used pecans instead of walnuts. Wondering what the kids said about them? Paige wandered sleepily into the kitchen while they were still baking, was not impressed, and asked if I would make her some pancakes while she waited for them to bake. Owen woke up some time later and was of the opinion that they would have been even better with blueberries instead of chocolate chips.

Cousins!

Shoes!

So. I was getting a little worried about how Owen's reading had dropped off by the end of the school year because things had gotten so busy but he is back to devouring books again! Case in point-we stopped at the library last Saturday morning and when we came home we needed to get ready for a trip to see my family. Owen wanted to go read in the car while he waited so we gathered our things, joined him in the car and drove the hour or so to our destination. He stayed buried in his book (and Paige in hers!) until we pulled in the driveway. As we got out of the car Owen realized he had forgotten to put on shoes! It was the most surprising, ridiculous and funny moment! Because a lot of our day was going to be spent outside, we ended up driving to a cheap shoe store to buy him a new pair and they've been his favorite ever since:)
This is already in the running for best moment of the summer.

Frittata

It's CSA time! We got eggs and spinach (among other things) so I made a frittata for our first dinner. Super easy and everyone loved it although next time I'll add more cheese!

Last Day!

Owen had one more day of school after Paige so she was already celebrating summer when we picked him up:) They had an ice cream party at school but we went out for more ice cream afterward anyway. Paige and I still needed some after all:)

Preschool Picnic

Summer vacation is in full force over here but I still need to wrap up the school year! Paige's last day of preschool (ever!) was a picnic at a local park. The kids had so much fun playing on the playground and it was fun to see how Paige interacted with everyone. This class was interesting because there were 5 girls and around 15 boys but at this age no one worries too much about sticking with their gender. I think I saw Paige interact with almost every kid while we were there.

I made them stop to take a picture before we even left the parking lot because I wasn't sure I would get them to stop long enough to get another one!

But then I made them take this one too! I did not pose them like this, however, they were already in this position!

Paige with her preschool teachers

Pile-up on the slide-on purpose:)

Go USA!

The women's World Cup started already but the U.S. has their first game today! Paige and I made this collage last week in preparation.

Fun With Dad

Pat took the kids to a special Dad event last weekend and the kids had a fantastic time. These are the only pictures he took but they did a ton of activities. The pictures are of the velcro wall but they also did dodgeball (Pat won the Dad's only round!), swam, played basketball, ate pizza and watched a movie.

Check out those muscles!

Wait...that's not Pat! The guy that was running the inflatable helped out.

Friends

I mentioned in a previous post that Paige has a couple friends moving. Well, Owen does too! Actually they're siblings so they're moving to the same place. One family leaves and both of my kids lose a friend. So sad. Nobody is dwelling on the sadness though, look at these faces!

Rain Rain

Here's what we do when there's a downpour right before a soccer game. We sit in a hot, humid car and entertain ourselves while we wait to see if the game will go on. It did! And we were cold and wet!