Ahhhhh..... the perfect bliss of this late June weekend. Yes, it was hectic. Yes, as usual, we had too many places to be and things to do. However, somehow, it managed to encompass all the best elements of summer. (Ok, all the best elements short of "cottage life" at Bear Lake - come back in August to read about that.)
Friday evening we stayed home and watched my cousin's kids while they went to a wedding. Everyone was in fine form and drawn to outside play. A few extra neighbor kids joined in and we achieved that perfect level of total chaos. While six children aged seven and under ran around shrieking, playing tag and hide-n-go-seek, we sat on the porch with neighbors and solved the problems of the world. Or perhaps just Lakepointe.
Saturday dawned --- and yes, pretty much we all practically saw dawn, or so it felt --- with both a swim meet and a softball tournament on the horizon. John took my oldest to her tournament, complete with coffee, a book, folding chair, and a mini cooler fool of string cheese to share. The younger two and I hopped on bikes and headed down to the swim meet at our park. While they agonized over which strokes to swim, I chatted with some of my favorite fellow parents and cheered them along. My youngest daughter swam competent (if not super speedy) 25 Free and 25 Breast. My son inched his way nearer to a dive to replace his signature belly flop start.
I spent time in the garden, weeding Saturday and a little planting Sunday. I sorely neglected my garden the past two years, so I can only face a patch at a time in my quest to take it back. Ok, I'm exaggerating, I can really only face about 6 feet of garden at a time. By Fall, I should have it right where I want it. And then it will all die.
I "slept in" Sunday until 8:30am. Am I the only one who finds that annoying when people tell me they "slept in" until anything before 10am. I know many of you are super overachievers, amazing early birds who save the world before 7:30am (or at least manage a work out, healthy breakfast, load of laundry and possibly dinner prep - same thing as world saving in my book) But, people, SLEEPING IN is only legit if it's 10am or later. Anything earlier is just being human like the rest of us.
But I digress....
While I indulged in an extra hour and a half of sleep Sunday morning, John and my son snuck out to fish for a couple of hours. They returned just in time for all of us to pack into the minivan and head back to the softball fields for single-eliminination tournament play. I won't bore you with the play by play, but the day was packed with all kinds of play - great hits, pitiful strikeouts, amazing catches, poorly executed plays, everything under the sun. Our team showed fantastic perseverence. We won our first game and went on to a second (unexpected by me). We threatened making it to the Championship game (which would have meant 10 hours on the field for the day, 21 hours for the weekend) Sadlywe lost. Not in any sort of spectacular way, just in a hard fought but outplayed kind of way.
The truly delicious part of the weekend was in the finale of it, however. As we debated heading to a local fireworks show with our enormously tired and cranky kids in tow, we received a call from friends of ours to join them at their parents lakeside home for a bonfire and our own personal fireworks show. We eagerly accepted.
The company was enormously fun. The fireworks were enormously illegal. The chaos was enormously --- well ---- chaotic. In the roots of that chaos my favorite moments were born and they were absolutely the essence of Summer.
My youngest begged us to let her jump into the lake in her clothes with the other kids (and a life jacket) of course. Seems pretty mundane for most of you, I'm sure. But my older two are (over)cautious in nature and I love to encourage they youngest's edginess and bravado in a positive way. As predicted she balked at the seaweed at first. And then we had to force her out of the water eventually because everyone else was done.
My son lit his first firework. Again, probably something that seems run of the mill (or possibly horrifying, depending on your perspective). But he is one of the aforementioned (over)cautious ones. It was an exciting big step and made him "one of the boys".
And seriously, just to hear the carefree joyful laughter at the fun and fesitivities from my oldest when she had been brooding just an hour earlier about her hitting slump, made the evening more than worth the price of admission (a bottle of wine and two lawn chairs, if you're curious).
As if that were not all enough, I am thrilled to be heading to bed (too late, of course) with my hair smelling of the heady bonfire scent and the heat of a little too much sun on my skin. Monday doesn't look quite as daunting as usual.
Friday evening we stayed home and watched my cousin's kids while they went to a wedding. Everyone was in fine form and drawn to outside play. A few extra neighbor kids joined in and we achieved that perfect level of total chaos. While six children aged seven and under ran around shrieking, playing tag and hide-n-go-seek, we sat on the porch with neighbors and solved the problems of the world. Or perhaps just Lakepointe.
Saturday dawned --- and yes, pretty much we all practically saw dawn, or so it felt --- with both a swim meet and a softball tournament on the horizon. John took my oldest to her tournament, complete with coffee, a book, folding chair, and a mini cooler fool of string cheese to share. The younger two and I hopped on bikes and headed down to the swim meet at our park. While they agonized over which strokes to swim, I chatted with some of my favorite fellow parents and cheered them along. My youngest daughter swam competent (if not super speedy) 25 Free and 25 Breast. My son inched his way nearer to a dive to replace his signature belly flop start.
I spent time in the garden, weeding Saturday and a little planting Sunday. I sorely neglected my garden the past two years, so I can only face a patch at a time in my quest to take it back. Ok, I'm exaggerating, I can really only face about 6 feet of garden at a time. By Fall, I should have it right where I want it. And then it will all die.
I "slept in" Sunday until 8:30am. Am I the only one who finds that annoying when people tell me they "slept in" until anything before 10am. I know many of you are super overachievers, amazing early birds who save the world before 7:30am (or at least manage a work out, healthy breakfast, load of laundry and possibly dinner prep - same thing as world saving in my book) But, people, SLEEPING IN is only legit if it's 10am or later. Anything earlier is just being human like the rest of us.
But I digress....
While I indulged in an extra hour and a half of sleep Sunday morning, John and my son snuck out to fish for a couple of hours. They returned just in time for all of us to pack into the minivan and head back to the softball fields for single-eliminination tournament play. I won't bore you with the play by play, but the day was packed with all kinds of play - great hits, pitiful strikeouts, amazing catches, poorly executed plays, everything under the sun. Our team showed fantastic perseverence. We won our first game and went on to a second (unexpected by me). We threatened making it to the Championship game (which would have meant 10 hours on the field for the day, 21 hours for the weekend) Sadly
The truly delicious part of the weekend was in the finale of it, however. As we debated heading to a local fireworks show with our enormously tired and cranky kids in tow, we received a call from friends of ours to join them at their parents lakeside home for a bonfire and our own personal fireworks show. We eagerly accepted.
The company was enormously fun. The fireworks were enormously illegal. The chaos was enormously --- well ---- chaotic. In the roots of that chaos my favorite moments were born and they were absolutely the essence of Summer.
My youngest begged us to let her jump into the lake in her clothes with the other kids (and a life jacket) of course. Seems pretty mundane for most of you, I'm sure. But my older two are (over)cautious in nature and I love to encourage they youngest's edginess and bravado in a positive way. As predicted she balked at the seaweed at first. And then we had to force her out of the water eventually because everyone else was done.
My son lit his first firework. Again, probably something that seems run of the mill (or possibly horrifying, depending on your perspective). But he is one of the aforementioned (over)cautious ones. It was an exciting big step and made him "one of the boys".
And seriously, just to hear the carefree joyful laughter at the fun and fesitivities from my oldest when she had been brooding just an hour earlier about her hitting slump, made the evening more than worth the price of admission (a bottle of wine and two lawn chairs, if you're curious).
As if that were not all enough, I am thrilled to be heading to bed (too late, of course) with my hair smelling of the heady bonfire scent and the heat of a little too much sun on my skin. Monday doesn't look quite as daunting as usual.
2 comments:
That picture of Owen with the Garfield literature is to die for!He's such a philosophical child, pondering the negative ways of this disheartening feline. Not to mention the turbulent relationship with that Odie. So cute.
Hmmmm..... Makes me wonder what you would say about his penchant for The Simpsons - also on his Must Read list.
Post a Comment