A Six Week Recap

Now that it's mid-to-late July, how about a blog post about June?!  I was more vigilant about taking pictures in June/July thinking, "These will be great to put on the blog!"  And then I promptly neglected to blog.  So instead of a smattering of posts about all these different things, you get one BIG, LONG, SUPER-SIZED post instead.  Yea for you!

Fun Things We've Done So Far This Summer:

1) The beginning of June brought us four weeks of "Jumpstart to Kindergarten", a summer class through the school district.  From 8 until noon, Monday through Friday, Everett got to RIDE THE BUS (Believe me, the excitement is worth the all caps) and learn all about being a Kindergartener.  Apparently, there is a lot to learn about the big K.  He thoroughly enjoyed it - riding the bus with Ms. Mary, his teacher, Ms. Crosby, the kids in his class, the playground, snack time, everything.  This is my child, through and through.  I adored school.  The night before the first day of school was something akin to Christmas Eve for me.  The class ended just before the 4th of July and Everett is super excited for Aug. 16th to roll around for his first official day of school.

Here's Everett on his first day of summer school with his little shadow who HAD to put on her backpack as well:

To celebrate his first day of "school" we headed over to Chick-fil-A for a lunchtime treat.  Chick-fil-A's are fewer and farther between in St. Louis than they were to Atlanta, so we have significantly cut back on our visits there.  We've been 3 times since we moved here in April, so Everett was actually really excited about going.

The big kids enjoyed their iceDream cones.

And Giselle enjoyed stuffing her face with Cheerios.

2) One day some friends invited a bunch of us to tag along with them to Grant's Farm, a 281-acre farm owned by the Busch company that at one time was the home of Ulysses S. Grant.  This place included lots of free-roaming animals:

As well as a petting zoo w/goats, a carousel, an elephant show, camels, Clydesdale horses, and SNOW CONES(!).  All kind of random and thrown together, but the kids had a great time.  Juliana was especially cute feeding the baby goats a bottle of milk.

3) Swimming.  We didn't join a neighborhood or city pool this year, so we haven't been as often as last summer, but I've still gotten some quality swimsuit shots.

4) Will took Everett and Juliana downtown for Marine Week.  Will's a bit of an Armed Forces aficionado, so to say he was stoked about this event is a bit of an understatement.  Some of the events included taps in the morning, mock water to land assaults or something, something with helicopters overhead, lots of equipment, etc.  I'm doing an absolutely terrible job explaining this, but this is way outside my realm of understanding, and apparently, vocabulary.  Point is, the kids and Will had a great time, especially Everett.  He's still talking about Marines this, Marines that.

5) My parents drove up for the the 4th of July weekend and were fortunate enough to bring Mackenzie, Kurt's daughter who lives in Tennessee with her mom.  E and J adored having someone just a bit older than they as they both enjoyed copying everything Mackenzie did.  We loved having Papa and Mama here with us, even if was only for a couple of days.

6) Our kids have a regular bedtime.  It's not often we bend the rules and let them stay up later (mostly b/c I don't like to deal with the repercussions the next day or so).  Call me mean, but 4th of July doesn't make the list of exceptions.  Since it was still too light outside to do real fireworks, Will got the popper kind.  Oh my goodness, the kids LOVED it.  Juliana especially ran around like a crazy girl.

The kids were fascinated pulling the strings and "popping" the "fireworks".  Ahh, to be so easily entertained and pleased!

7) Swim Lessons:  In an effort to have children who can swim and enjoy the pool and not drown, this is the second summer we've gotten swim lessons for them.  Everett is enjoying them and doing just fine.  Juliana, who has been water-adverse since the day she was born (bath time has only gotten tolerable for about a year), hasn't really taken to getting her entire body into the pool.  In fact, her first lesson only lasted about 10 minutes (instead of 30 mins.) and she's refused to go back.  This picture is about as good as it got for my Juliana.  Notice Everett diligently kicking in the background.

And since Giselle didn't have a lesson, she was supposed to calmly sit with me by the side of the pool and generally be cute.  Unfortunately, she didn't get the memo and instead used her face to stop her fall out of a plastic pool chair.  Poor girl.  It really looked like it hurt.

8) One of the local malls has a carousel.  The kids are fans.

9) We're attempting to have a garden this year.  It's only marginally successful.  But we did get this squash.  

10) I helped Will cut his hair!  This is big news since I vowed way back when we had only been married a couple of months that I would never help him again (it's a story he still likes to repeat - I was reaaaaaly terrible "help").  Yes, it was just with the clippers.  And yes I used the same guard all over, but progress is progress and I'm all about taking credit where credit is even slightly due.

My boys with their new, short hair cuts (Ok, Will with his short hair cut.  Everett's is always about this short):

11) With a heatwave settling itself over most of the country and humidity in the 80-90% range, I figured what better time to visit the zoo?  Seriously.  I don't know what I was thinking, but the kids were on board, so off we went.  Entrance to the zoo is free, but this time we paid a little to go to the children's petting zoo, ride the train and ride the carousel.  The kids had a great, sweaty time.  And Giselle lasted just long enough to get back to the car and then promptly passed out.

Goodness!  I'm done.  Finally.  Three weeks until school starts and I promise (more to myself than anyone else) to post more regularly.  This post was a beast to write.  Kudos to you if you made it through.