Woohoo, We Got Out of the House!

I have not been out of the house since Sunday and Lily has been cooped up since Friday. We like being home, but there is something about not being able to go out that makes a person a little stir crazy. So first thing this morning (for Lily at least- she didn't wake up until 10) we counted $3 out of the change jar for each kid and I took them to a surprise destination. Ryan came up with all kinds of guesses as to where we were going, so many I feared he was going to be disappointed with our destination. I was really only planning on taking them to 5 Below. I figured in a store full of stuff for less than $5 they were bound to find something that would be exciting for them. I'm glad I counted out the money before we left because I was tempted to give the each a few more dollars a couple times. Lily was so excited about so many things and Ryan really liked some of the $5 items. I did tell Ryan he could use a couple of his own dollars if he wanted something bigger. He is such a miser though, he wouldn't part with his money. As  matter of fact when we counted out the money this morning he asked me if they had to spend it. I told him he did. What kind of kid doesn't want to spend free money?! My kind I guess. He gets it from me. After all I'm the girl who didn't apply to Hopkins because it had a $50 application fee and I might not even get in. Ugh, I know. I realize now how silly it was. I really want to teach Ryan about value and using his money for things he values instead of squirreling it all away for no particular reason. It's funny the things you think about when you're a parent.
We went through the whole store. Lily found a necklace and bracelet pretty early on and though she saw some other things she liked nothing topped the necklace and bracelet. Ryan took a little longer to decide, that might have something to do with the extreme girlie-ness(is that a word?) of the first area we explored. He eventually found a soft, Nerf type sword that he could use to fight his brother since he has a similar one that came with his Playmobile knight set. Yep, that seems about right, dress up girlie stuff for Lily and weapons for Ryan. I was a little surprised he didn't want a USA soccer ball, but he does already have like 3 soccer balls and I'm sure he'll get another one when the fall season starts. All in all a successful outing.

update?

Why am I so bad at keeping my blog up to date? Maybe it's because I have too many blogs. Maybe it's because I don't have anything to say. Maybe it's because I don't make the time. Maybe it's because I spend too much time on the computer already. Maybe it's because Facebook requires less thought. Maybe. Yep, that's it- all of that.

We've had a good summer. The kids have been great at entertaining themselves when we're home and we've had enough stuff to do outside the house to keep a nice balance. It's a nice balance for me anyway. I like to keep the scales tipped a little more toward being home than some people. I like our house. It's comfortable. On a side note, our neighbors had a baby boy last week. His name is Ryan :-)
 
I'm really enjoying the summer pace. The kids sleep in, I sleep in. We go places if we want to, we stay home if we want to. It's good. I really liked our vacation a couple weeks ago when Jay got to join in our summer days. I really like that the vacation house was on the bay situated in such a way that I could get sunset silhouettes near the water. The kids really enjoyed the pool at the house. Ryan's swimming lessons really paid off. He was all over the pool. He's really excited to start camp next week. I suppose it's time for some structure to re-enter our lives. Luckily camp doesn't start until 10, so we still get to sleep in. I may end up having to wake Lily up though as she is still asleep right now and it's about the time we'd have to leave.
I'm really excited for Ryan. I think he's going to really enjoy camp.

Let's see, what else has been going on? We've made some decisions and our fall plans are not so up in the air anymore. That means I get to keep doing some activities at church that I wasn't sure about at the beginning of summer. That brings a lot of peace of mind.

I've had just about the right number of photography clients. Enough to keep me busy and bring in a bit of spending money, but not so many that I'm feeling like I've shorted my kids.

My garden is doing fairly well. I think I over planted it though. Next time I might just have to plant the vine plants in a different spot with a bigger, sturdier trellis.

I probably should have bulleted this post, but I wasn't really planning it that way. It just sort of happened. Consider it stream of consciousness.

That's My Lily

Lily with a hand full of CheezIts says, "Can I have these?"
I say, "Yes."
She starts to run off and I call after her, "But you may not run around the house with them."
Sounding disappointed she says, "I know."
Then with a glint in her eye (as she galloped across the room looking over her shoulder at me) she says, "Can I gallop?"

Best of Both Worlds

We've been going to this really great church that we love. Lots of other people seem to love it, too because it's been growing, growing, growing for years now. Thousands of people every Sunday and that's great. We feel pretty firmly grounded in the church because we know enough people to see people we know often, though with that many people it's not always easy. There are lots of programs and events we are able to have because we have so many members. On the other hand there are lots of things we just can't do any more because there are too many people. Recently some of us broke off to go to a satellite campus. The purpose of the campus is to reach new people who are not close enough to our main campus to want to go "all that way" to try church. The fringe benefit for those of us who attend the campus is that we are small enough to do some of those things the main campus is too big to do now.

Today we had a church picnic at the local playground. It was great. We sat under the pavilion and ate lunch, played on the playground and had a water balloon toss. It was fun to hang out with new friends.  It seemed like the whole campus was there. It happened to be a very hot day, so we only stayed for a couple hours, but it was great while it lasted. I should have taken pictures, but sometimes it's better to just be fully in the moment with everyone else. So you'll just have to imagine a bunch of cool families hanging out together at a really cool playground;-)

History

So I'm watching this series called "America, the Story of Us" and it's really interesting. I think if history had had this much life in school I might have liked it better and might even know some of it. Maybe this is more of a Facebook post than a blog post.