Summer

I'm so sad to see summer come to an end.  We started off with a long list.  We all contributed ideas, thought I will admit that a lot of them are mine.  We never get around to making popsicles, reading day, ice blocking,  grandma lunch, or math camp. But 45/50 still made for an awesome summer. 

Jane has gone down to one nap, which means our mornings are now free.  Which means lots of bike rides!!!

I've also taken some time to help Caleb and Lily learn to ride bikes. They are great at pedaling and balancing, but still need some work braking and starting on their own.  Hopefully next summer we'll get it down.

And of course, nothing says summer like parades.  We rode in one for the 4th of July, and rode to one for the 24th. 

We hung out with my brother Daniel a few times.  We loved the air show and seeing all the planes.

There was a TON of water time.  I am determined to get these kiddos all solidly swimming by next summer.  

William has it down, so he's mostly just learning various strokes now.

It wouldn't be summer for us without the library reading programs and events.  We LOVE all the fun shows and activities.  After the ballet performance, Lily now wants to be a ballerina. Yay!

One of the non-negotiable items in the Garff family is the Cabin. We spent about 10 days up there this year. Jane was a fan of her first time.

Something new we tried this year were summer "camps".  These were basically themed weeks with various activities to keep everyone entertained. 

Cooking Camp:

Star Wars Camp:

We also had a princess camp, science camp, and Lego camp.  I'm pretty sure we'll repeat them all next summer. It was such a blast!

We spent a Saturday at Liberty Park with Steve.  We rode our bikes there and went on the rides and played in the water features. It was a blast.

We had dinner at Grandma's with all the Garff cousins.

Graduated from summer and into year 2 of Mommy Preschool.

We ran a family race.  Caleb was the fastest Garff with a 5k time of 45:47.  I ran 12 miles earlier that morning so was definitely ok with his pace. 

We hit up Odgen's Dinosaur Park.  It was a lot cooler than I expected.  Plus, the tickets were free since I won some at a twins' club activity. 

The kids had fun pretending to be scared of the dinosaurs. 

 

And Jane just liked crawling around.

We were so busy with fun activities all summer, we never got around to watching much of the Olympics. So we sat and watched pretty much the entire men's marathon.  William was captivated.

Maybe one day he'll watch one of my marathons, too.

We also ended up getting a zoo pass when we went with the Garff cousins. My kids always love the zoo. Almost as much as I do.

It's been harder than I expected to get back into a routine. It's been about a month since school started, and I just now am feeling like we are settling into our routine of preschool and homework and extracurriculars. We miss the fun and freedom of summer, but it is good to have that structure back.  This was an epic summer and gave us some great ideas for next year.