Skip to main content

July

School starts in 12 days and for the first time since returning to work 4+ years ago I'm not quite ready for summer to end.  Almost, but not quite.  I've hated summers in recent years due to the stress of childcare and feeling sad and guilty about not being able to do fun things with the girls, plus enduring all of the 80-something to over 90-degree days without A/C (we at least have them in our bedrooms now).  But with my shorter commute and more PTO they are getting better.  Next summer should be the best yet because I will work from home 2 days a week, Paul will take most Mondays off and the other 2-3 days a week we will just let the girls stay home alone and I will come home on my lunch break to check on them, plus there are plenty of neighborhood moms (that either are stay-at-home or work for the school district) that can keep an eye out.  Also I will finally have enough PTO built up that I can maybe take a whole week off and not go anywhere but just hang around home and go to the lake and what-not (in addition to other time off for our regular summer vacation/Crescent Bar, etc).

Anyway, I usually recap our summers week-by-week, but just never got around to it this year.  Instead I'm going to break it into July and August.  So here was our July:

We spent the 4th of July holiday hanging around home most of the day but in the late afternoon we went to our neighbor’s for a barbeque.  There were fireworks for the kids (all of whom are now old enough to shoot them off themselves with adult supervision) and then at 10:00 our community has a big fireworks show every year at a park, so we went to that.  The next day we went to Crescent Bar and stayed through the weekend.



July 5th was Kona's 1st birthday!



She got some birthday treats which she didn't even like :(


A few weeks later the girls and I went camping with a few friends.  Just moms and kids, no husbands, so Paul had a weekend to himself.  We went to a campground only 25 minutes away with a nice pool.  It was a fun little getaway but I don’t think I took a single picture.

A few days after that our sitter went on vacation so Paul took those days off and took the girls and one of their friends to Crescent Bar.  I still had to work, but I enjoyed having the house and time to myself in the evenings.  They got back on Saturday the 28th and then on Sunday the 29th we left to go camping.  We went to Lake Cushman and it was so beautiful with the Olympic mountains all around.  We swam and floated in the lake a lot and they had a cool rope swing the girls enjoyed.




Other than losing Kona for about 20 minutes it was a great time!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Luther Burbank Park

Last summer a friend of mine introduced me to this cool park on Mercer Island.  When we went, we only played at the swimming beach and never explored the rest of the park or played on the playground.  So yesterday, we finally went back with a picnic lunch and checked out some more of the park (there's still another section we didn't get to, so maybe next time).  The playground was really cool with all sorts of nooks and cranies, and old-fashioned metal slides and ladders.  They girls loved it. View from our picnic spot A pyramid with slides on the other side Lake Washington beyond Chair swings--never seen these before I-90 bridge over Lake Washington Trail along the lake leading to the swimming beach Should have brought swimsuits.  They were SO sandy and wet coming home.

First Day of 10th Grade

 Today was the first day of 10th grade for the girls.  Sophomores.  I can't believe we only have two more of these.  Not counting college, of course. Kayley Kayley again Olivia It has become my tradition to take the day before and the first day off.  Back in the elementary days, the day before the first day was "meet the teacher day", so I would always take them to that, then in middle school we would just go to lunch or get our nails done.  Last year was their first day of high school, though, so that day was orientation and that brings us up to this year.  The day before the first day is "Wildcat Day", which is mostly a freshman and new student orientation.  Olivia is in ASB so she had to go help with that, but Kayley didn't go.  Instead, her and I took some of her old clothes to this resale store called Plato's Closet to try and sell them (it's similar to a consignment shop except they just pay you then and there and then resell them, instead of o

The Girls' Room

So it's kids' rooms this week at Kelly's Korner Home Tours.  Unfortunately, we haven't finished the girls' room make-over.  We recently transitioned from toddler beds to twins.  I would have loved to get bunk beds to save space, but the twin beds were given to us by friends of Paul's parents so we're making do.  They were wood-colored (oak, maybe?) so we painted them white.  It was challenging to figure out how to arrange their furniture because of the alcove/nook thingie on one side.  I couldn't do the obvious two beds perpedicular to the wall with a nightstand in between configuration, so I had to compromise. There are lots of finishing touches still to be done.  We need to replace their dresser, get a nightstand, put up a shelf (ledge) or two and some wall art, and curtains.  We're also going to paint.  I've had my heart set on purple for a long time, which is why I chose this bedding with some purple but not too much, but now I'm also