A Great Summer Day

I don't really have much to talk about; my heart is just full (a happy full!) after a really pleasant summer day. I feel like this summer is shaping up to be so much of a better summer for the kids than last year was. This time last year, we in the middle of Week 1 of about three straight weeks of temperatures over 100. It was weather that would make even Satan say, "Okay, that's a bit much." We slept in the living room at night because the sweltering heat was too oppressive in the bedrooms; by day, it was too hot to even go swimming. Widfires were raging in the area all around us, I was exhausted with newborn Cici, Adam was juggling a full-time job with marathon training, and we were broke after dealing with Cici's hopitalization and then traveling to New York for a family wedding. It just wasn't a very exciting summer for the kids, I'm afraid.

But this year has been so nice! The weather has been much more temperate, so the boys have been spending hours outside every single day, digging in the dirt, climbing trees, and watching the birds and bugs. They have a weekly standing playdate with my cousin's kids. They have a schoolroom with interesting activities. And Cici is actually cognizant of what's going on! So she's getting to explore mud and grass and all that good stuff. Today, all three of them were playing in the sprinkler all afternoon and into the evening. Nobody, not even fourteen-month-old Cici, looked for me for over an hour, which is unusual-- they were all three just having too much fun!

Not to say that it's all roses. I have been struggling all summer long with the laundry hydra. Wash one load, two more spring up in its place! It still feels like Adam is a bit scarce. But otherwise, we are having a good summer.

Daddy's home!

Ticks and Torrents: All Part of the Camping Experience

Memorial Weekend has always traditionally been a time for my family to go camping. The past few years, I've missed out because I live half a country away, so I was thrilled when my sister, recently relocated a few hours away from me, enthusiastically agreed to have our own camping trip down here.

We met up Sunday morning at a state park and spent the day swimming, playing frisbee, and eating hotdogs. We looked and looked for the park ranger station so we could pay our tent fee, but this park was weird in that we couldn't find a station. "Oh well," we said, and hoped that no angry campers would show up at our camping spot, having paid for it!

My Sweetie and Me, catching some waves!

The sun went down, and instead the sky was lit up with a neat show of lightning far away. As Adam and I bedded down in our sweltering tent, Adam said, "I hope we get a little of that rain. It'd cool things down a bit!"

The next thing I know, I'm awakened by a CRASH! BANG! CRASH!!! and what appeared to be a strobe light party outside. Rain was coming down in torrents, falling so hard that it was penetrating right through our tent!

Somehow, we had managed to go camping on the one night in the entire week that a massive storm rolled through. Of course.

We huddled together in the tent for about an hour, hoping the storm would pass. The wind was blowing our tent flat, we were progressively getting wetter, and the thunder was crashing close by. Adam was really cute-- he was holding me close and (I found out later) trying to shield me in case a limb fell off the tree we were camped under. That's a comforting thought, for sure!

Finally, the storm let up just enough that we made a run for the van. And there we stayed for the entire night. I'm glad we never paid the tent fee, considering we never actually got to sleep in it!

We didn't stick around too long the next morning. We were beat! We were ready to go home! So we bid my sister adieu and spent the rest of the day sleeping.

A few hours later, I get this text from my sister:

"Ewwwwws, I just found two ticks on me... Make sure you check yourselves!!"

Thank goodness Memorial Day is once a year!