And just like that, its over

Sunriver. Its the highlight of our summers. And we look forward to it all summer. I see it on my calendar and get excited to start planning and packing. Then the day finally comes with much anticipation!  And then I blink.... and its over.

The same holds true of summer in general. I look forward to it immensely, longing for warm, lazy days of summer. Freedom of not getting up as early in the mornings. Freedom to go do things at any time without having to worry about schedules. Then its here, and then I blink and its done.

School starts in a couple days. I'm dreading it.

Now the season is changing again. The kids will be in school again which means to bed early and up early. It means busy evenings from after school activities.
Bleck! Yes i'm complaining a little, but winter is coming and the weather affects me and I literally dread that season. The rain. The cold. Those short days. A muddy yard. Being stuck inside. The constant illnesses.

Needless to say, I'm very grateful for the time we spend each summer in Sunriver to conclude that season of life. Such a perfect ending!

So what do we do while we are in Sunriver? Well, most of it is spent riding bikes. Riding bikes to the village. At the village, we eat food and ice cream, play mini golf, bumper cars, ride the kiddy train, listen to live music. We ride our bikes out to the airport and watch the planes take off. We go to the park and play. We eat, eat, eat. We play games. We stay up late and enjoy everyone's company. Then we wake up and do it all over again!
This year on our way up, we stopped at the High Desert Museum. That was pretty interesting. The kids enjoyed the short presentation about reptiles where they brought out a lizard, a snake and a turtle and we got to see them up close and touch them.
Then we went and listened to a half hour presentation about birds of prey. The lady who did the presentation did a very good job and was very knowledgeable and held a falcon the whole time while doing the presentation, feeding it and spraying it with water to cool it down. It was really interesting.

Now that change is coming, we are making changes at home too. We are going to start eating healthier. Avery has gotten better about trying new things..... she doesn't necessarily like them, but at least she's trying them with less protest. My menu for the first 2 weeks of school is in place. Including new items like veggie omelets and stuffed green peppers.
So a few areas we are making changes is- eating more fruits and veggies. Eating healthier cereal- which means no more sugary cereals.  Eating less carbs- which is mostly just less crackers.
One thing I noticed after a 4 day binge on less healthy food and lots of soda- last night my entire abdomen was protesting to me from my neck down to my butt, and my body felt horrid. I had quit my soda addiction a long long time ago, and only drink it when we go out or are at someones house who has it. And even when we go out I have been ordering strawberry lemonade. But this week I think I had more soda than I've had in a year!

Fun times, and i'm already looking forward to next year! Thanks mom and dad!

Summers ending already???!!

This is what I hate about summer.... it goes too fast! I'm not ready for school to start again, for being sick constantly, for the short days and the rain and cold. The only positive is that I get to do my errands by myself.
Avery's going to do tap dance. She's super excited!
Jadon's not doing any sports at this point, but he and I will be volunteering at the humane society, hopefully weekly. He's excited for that. He's also signed up for a club at the humane society and will meet monthly for some fun and crafts and of course his favorite- animal socialization!

We are thinking about getting a dog. The kids just love dogs, and we think it could be good for Jadon to have a dog in the house. However with allergy sufferers in the house we need a dog that is good for allergies. It may sound odd, but i'm looking forward to having a dog to walk every day. Why? Well, i need the exercise, and I don't like walking by myself when the kids are in school and Derek's at work.

Derek and I finally watched God's Not Dead! It was a great movie! Some of the story lines were a little lame and the acting not always the best, but the message was amazing and that was far more important than the acting.

Date night

I had the honor and privilege of going on a date with my favorite little girl last night.
 She is such a good fit for our family. She's our comic relief, and our little love bug. I'm so thankful and blessed to be mommy to this little sweetie!

She's been looking forward to a date with mommy for a long time. During the school year we have more time together when Jadon's in school, but its usually spent running errands or doing daily tasks. Last night was just for us. I asked her what she wanted to do, and she said she "wanted to go get some drinks." She was talking about going for smoothies, so the initial plan was to go to Jamba Juice. But then when we got in the car I asked her again and she said again "well I thought we'd get some drinks and then food." We had just eaten dinner, so I suggested we not go out to eat, so she decided on Yogurt Extreme.
She got raspberry yogurt, and loaded it with 3 different kinds of sprinkles, sour gummy worms, circus animal cookies, those jelly ball things, and pretty much any candy. Basically she had as much candy as she did yogurt. It looked...... well to me it looked gross. Like a belly ache waiting to happen. Even the guy working there mentioned how "yummy" it looked as he had watched her pile on the candy.
Let me tell you, that girl can really put away her sugar! She ate her entire bowl of yogurt and candy!
And after that she wanted to go to the park, so I took her to the park where she met a 7 year old girl and played hide and seek with her, as well as spun on the tire swing together.
After the park she said she wanted to go to two more places, but didn't know where and wanted to drive around looking. Well, it was getting late and I wasn't going to drive around looking for something to do, so we decided to go to Home Depot and I let her pick out a few plants for another flower bed in the works. She loved the idea of being able to pick out whatever plants she wanted. I steered her towards perennials so that they would come back every year and I told her everytime we'd look at the plants we'd remember our date together. We have a couple super hot days in the forecast, so she and I will be planting them after it cools a bit. I think she picked well. She picked a hydrangea (my favorite, cant go wrong with hydrangeas!) and a couple others that I don't remember the names off the top of my head.
Starting her love of gardening early on :)

I enjoyed my time with my precious little girl. I'm so blessed to have her.

Weather

Since we've been in our house, we've had some pretty intense weather. We've had some SIGNIFICANT snowfall a couple times, we've had some torrential downpours that left us with a huge pond in our backyard, and last night we had quite a lightning and thunder storm! It rolled right over the house and left the walls shaking. The lightening continued for probably around 2 hours, and it was a spectacular sight! Power flickered on and off and left my oldest in a crying panic yet the littlest slept through the entire display!

It. Was. Amazing! :) It was like a good Florida storm and it was beautiful!

My pictures are not spectacular with my phone, but at least its something. I also got a few videos, but there's a nervous little boy talking constantly through them.

On a different note, have you seen Kid Snippets on youtube? The kids love them and us adults are pretty fond of them also. Really amusing :)
Here's a few of my favorites. Avery likes hair salon because the girl has long pretty straight hair.... and Avery likes long straight hair. ;)

Co-pilots
Hair Salon
Slushies
Wedding Jitters
Drivers Ed