Homecoming Parade

We hit up the streets of downtown G-town tonight to watch the homecoming parade with our pals, the Baldufs, and some of their family.  We also bumped into some of Will's classmates from school and he enjoyed that.  Oh! I forgot to mention:  the other night while we were at the Dipper getting ice cream, Will saw a girl from his class and went over to say hello to her.  Then he brought her over to us and introduced her to each of us so sweetly.  I'm not at all trying to imply he has a crush, because it seemed completely friendly and nothing more, but I just could not get over his polite and sweet introductions that he made with such pride.  He's so confident and polite and he seemed so excited for us to meet her, and her us.  It was a nice point of reassurance that our big, grown boy is still young enough to want to show off his family and confidently introduce us to his peers.  I wonder how long that will last?

 

Anyway, back to tonight.  We always get curb-side seats with our friends in front of one of their in-law's houses on Main Street.  It was sprinkling on and off but just very lightly, and it was still warm.

Will's down with the boys.  Sophie is sitting between a little girl named Lily and her mom, Holly.

I love Angie's side braid that she's got going on.  :)

Will's wearing his new hat there in the middle.

So funny.  Sophie had never met Holly before but she was quite taken with her.  Probably because Holly was very attentive to Sophie's excited announcements of various things.  And you can barely see little Lily covering her ears from the noise.  :)

Angie's daughter Addison was in the parade tonight.  I CANNOT BELIEVE how tall and grown up she's gotten.  Addison will be in the 3rd grade this fall!  She made sure to give candy to all her cousins and Will & Sophie.  We also looked for our cousin, Cora, who was in the parade as well, but didn't see her.  We saw our pal Katelyn, though!

Another big announcement to Holly:  "look, I got a sucker!"

Our kids got an insane amount of candy at this parade!  Good thing we brought big bags!  It'll all go into their individual candy buckets at home that are kept out of reach and dispensed for dessert when we don't have something homemade at the ready.  :)  Just like Halloween and Easter candy.

It's the simple pleasures in life that are the sweetest.

InstaFriday

My adult root beer float on Saturday at lunch, with baileys, Kahlua and buttershots.  Yummm.

Watching hot air balloons at sunset on Saturday night.

Snack time mid-shopping. 

Digging my Zoya Twila on Sunday.  I wore a lot blue that weekend and this confetti-looking polish was fun!

Shoppin' up a storm with my sissy.

Six ladies' damage... and there was stuff up front with us too.

"Happy Birthday, to you!!"

Doin' it big with Dominos and drinks in the hotel lobby.

Last day of Kindergarten for our eldest on Wednesday.  So hard to believe the first day/last day progression.  He is a LOT taller and looks so much older!

A little yoga in the yard after my sunrise walk with the dog before work today.  Pincha is still my favorite.  :)

Happy Friday!

Welcome Summer!

My binder full of kid stuff (magazine tear-outs of ideas for activities/crafts/food/etc) has been ignored quite a bit over the last 6-12 months.  But I did remember some cool suggestions for a last day of school surprise that came from Family Fun magazine ages ago.  So I dug it up and borrowed a couple ideas.

 

I printed off huge letters to make a little banner and took some card stock and yarn to work with me today.  Then I just quickly threw this together over my lunch break.  I'd also collected a few summery things into some sand pails that we already owned and placed them below the banner for the kids to find.  I hit up the Target dollar bins for some card games and little book report notebook for Will.  I also had a bug observer thing with a magnifying glass and view finder for Soph.  And then, because these were all the rave last summer, I picked them up each a water squirter gun for the pool/beach.  Oh, and I made them each three "coupons" good for a trip to the Big Dipper for ice cream, a bike ride at Maumee Bay and a picnic at the playground/park.

I left work a little early in hopes of getting this set up and meeting Will's bus so I could get pictures of him getting off.  They elementary school dismissed an hour early today.  Well it was a pretty windy/hot afternoon and I had a heck of a time hanging the banner.  It was going to go on our deck on the stair railing, but I ended up putting it on the garage so I could tape down each letter.  Otherwise that thing was blowing away!  As I was finishing up getting everything together, I saw the bus pull out of the neighborhood across the street where our babysitter lives and knew that I missed him.  Ah, well.  Not the end of the world.  I still went straight over when I finished and surprised them with an early pick up.  Soph was still sleeping but I decided to wake her and just put her to bed early.  I made a big show of acting surprised at "what in the world is on the garage?"  And both kids strained their necks to see through the windshield.  Will shouted "it says 'Welcome Summer!'!!"  I stopped the car a little ways back and they both hopped out and ran up to see my surprise.  :)

Another cool idea was to meet the kids at the bus stop with loaded squirt guns or water balloons and get them as soon as they got off the bus.  Haha!  Maybe when they're a little older.  They wouldn't find that too funny yet, I don't think.  :)

I decided to do this on Will's last day simply because it would be the official start of our kids' summer with a totally laid back routine starting tomorrow.  Plus, preschool is such a short day and so part time that it's not as much of a needed break when summer arrives.  I don't think Sophie felt an ounce of bitterness for this falling on Will's last day and not hers.  :)

Since I was home early, our evening was so much longer and fun/productive than usual.  Typically, our evenings fly by with all the routine stuff and it's harder to fit in the fun/spontaneity.  For a Wednesday night, this was pretty awesome!  We immediately got down the baby pool from the garage rafters and filled it with water, put on our swim suits, got the sprinkler going and grabbed three ice waters to cool off.

The kids tested out the new water shooters...

... and I got out my gardening gloves and spade with a goal of planting all of the vegetable plants and seeds I bought last week.  That's my rhubarb plant all huge and lush there in the corner.  :)

Tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers, oh my!

It was a hot day, but I was kept cool with plenty of squirts to the back from the kids new toys and they had a blast kickin' off the summer in our backyard.

Put 'em up, sprinkler.

While I was digging around in the garden, I found a couple of bugs/tiny worms and called the kids over quickly to grab the bug viewer thing for inspection.

Will was really interested in helping get the garden in this year.  I told him if he waited for me to get some of it started, I'd let him plant a tomato plant.  One of the cherries, which are his fave.

So, I gave him instructions and he did it himself, with just a little extra patting around of the dirt from me.

Then he watered all of the tomato plants for me.

Totally on his own, Will brought out his markers and a library book and got started writing his first mini "report" in his notebook.  It asks for the title, author's name, main characters, favorite part, etc. and leaves space for you to draw a picture of a part of it.  He worked for a little while on this!  Ha!  Last day of school and he's choosing to do this.

Craig gave Will a much needed hair cut before dinner and then we ate.

And after dinner, Will handed me his Dipper coupon and said "HERE YOU GO!!"  He was quite pleased and matter of fact about it.  :)  So we went!  And we ran into Casey, Nana and Stella there!  Great minds think alike.

And that was our "last day of school" and "welcome summer" celebration. 

It's gonna be a great season!