First Day

It is the day I dream of starting the second week of summer vacation!!!!  THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!  Don't get me wrong, I love my children.  But in between all the fun stuff we have been able to do and all our activities, they have spent much of the summer harassing each other and pushing buttons I didn't even know I had.  I am thinking year-round school which usually has shorter vacation periods throughout the year might be the way to go, but since no one at the county level (or really anyone) has asked my opinion on that (you get it for free) we are likely going to do the August to June thing for a while.

Anyway.

We dumped the five gazillion glue sticks and 30 notebooks at school last week during Meet the Teacher night, so hopes were high and backpacks light this morning.  And then I fed, or tried to feed, Josh breakfast.  And that is when the you-know-what hit the fan.  I really, really, truly, madly, deeply wanted that battle to start a little bit later on.  Like maybe the second day I made his breakfast since summer (during which Jason takes over breakfast duty).  But no.

Those are the moments when I am pretty sure someone else, anyone else, would be better equipped for this job than me.  I may consider accepting applications soon.

In any case, we all got out the door and spent the time waiting for the bus (only 15 minutes late today) taking pictures.

Yeah, Michael is feeling the love.  And love can really squish you sometimes.

Here are the school boys on our side of the street.  Little Ben gets to join them next year!

Speaking of Ben, after the boys all got on the bus, I asked him to show me his sad face because his brothers left him.  This is what I got.  He looks devastated, right?

To cheer his clearly not-too-disappointed self, we spent the day at the park with some of his buds.

And everyone had a great day.  Until the boys got home and found out that Ben got to ride on a carousel and then they wanted to ride one too and wanted to know if we could go do that right now and how come Ben gets to do fun stuff when they are at school and all they get to do is work and that is so not fair and they wish that they were in preschool again........

More Horses!

Finally Michael's mom got around to scheduling the 1 hour horseback riding lesson that Nana got him for his birthday.  Someday that woman needs to get her act together!

On Friday we headed up north a little bit and Michael got to spend an hour with a lovely lady named Ashley and a lovely pony named Apollo.  First, Ashley taught Michael how to brush Apollo.  Please note that Michael is showing a great deal of respect for the pony's mouth and teeth by staying further back.  Ashley tried to explain to Michael that Apollo is just like a big puppy.  Michael wryly noticed that Apollo is much bigger than a puppy.

But Apollo was a nice, calm pony (albeit one that was prone to stopping frequently until cajoled into further movement) and Ashley was a very encouraging, calm teacher.  Michael got to spend about an hour on Apollo working on his (Michael's) skills - mostly stopping, going, turning left and right.

In the meantime, Josh and Ben took turns playing on the DS (aka the electronic nanny) and rode the rocking horse.

It was pretty cool and I am so glad that Michael has had the opportunities to spend time riding horses this summer.

Beach

Below are pictures from our beach adventure.  And by beach, I mean the sandy area near the edge of a lake at a state park.  And by adventure, I mean what we did for 3 1/2 hours during the peak sun time of the day with only one application of SPF 50.  Yes, we're having an aloe vera fest over here:  Michael and Ben's faces look like little cherry tomatoes and Jason (who declined the use of sunblock on most of his body) is just red all over and I think he, at this point, probably wishes that it wasn't customary to wear shirts in our culture.  I won't tell you what I look like because I haven't found the right color in the crayon box to describe my skin.

But the boys had a great time in the water and in the sand.  This is such a change from the early years when at least one of the boys wanted nothing to do with either the sand or the water or both.  This time they paddled around like little fishes until their lips turned blue and dug in the sand until we had to drag them away to go home.

Now may the sun burn gods have mercy on our souls.

Swimming Hole

I have this really cool friend who is always finding really cool places to go to.  So when she asked if we wanted to go on a little adventure and find a swimming hole she found on-line, I said YES!  

Which was, it turns out, the only right answer.  We filled the van up with kids, towels, life jackets, granola bars and water bottles and off we went!

This wasn't just a swimming hole, however.  It was a swimming home with a swing.  And swing we did.

 Pretty much everyone took a turn (no photographic evidence of my turns however) and Michael and L kept coming back for more and more and more and more.

Ben was a little more hesitant.

But Jason eventually got him in the water, too.

There were also rocks to explore so the kids spent a good deal of time scampering all over those.  Josh preferred them to the swing (no surprise there), so he spent most of his time exploring and even found a clam.

Family picture time!

This hasn't been the hottest of summers and today was definitely not the hottest of days, so there was also some sunning on the rocks going on when teeth started chattering.

Here are the boys and their friends.  I think I can safely say that this was an outing where everyone had a good time.  

Now if only I could remember to take the SPF 50 out of my bag every once in a while when we do these activities......

Rocko Update

The bearded dragon currently known as Rocko is still with us.  I don't know why that should surprise me.  Maybe it has something to do with my inability to keep plants alive and the fact that the boys are so skinny it worries me (even though, yes, we DO feed them) that I assume I don't have the knack of keeping living things alive.  

Maybe he is still kicking because Jason and Josh do most of the lizard care.  Josh has taken to feeding Rocko worms by hand and even caught some crickets at a friend's house to supplement the ones we buy from the pet store.  And yes, it kills me that we are buying bugs.  

In any case, Rocko's "birthday" is June 8th so he is coming up on two months in our house.  To document the occasion, we took some pictures before his weekly bath (of which he is not fond).  The red towel did some nasty things to the pictures I took with my camera, but we did get a few close-ups and one next to a tape measure so we can track his growth.

Friday Fun

Today was equal parts errands and adventure.  Errands because it is tax-free weekend here in Virginia so we did our back-to-school shopping and are now that much poorer.  Adventure because we rented a boat and puttered around examining local wildlife this afternoon.

After the glue sticks (all flipping 16 of them) and new shoes were bought, we stopped off at the house to pack a picnic and head to the park.  After the boys inhaled their lunches (literally - I don't think Ben took one breath while eating his PB&J), they played frisbee for a bit before we headed over to the lake. 

Here is Josh almost catching the frisbee.

And Ben thinking that he is so much bigger than he really is.

And Michael chowing down on one of our pick-your-own peaches.  Yum.

And this one, well this one is for Aunt Rachel.

While Jason took our picnic gear back to the car and retrieved the life jackets, I took a moment to try and take a nice picture of the boys.

In any case, we rented our boated and donned our life jackets and headed out on the water.

In a boat with oars but no engine.

That didn't last too long.  After a trip back up to the rental place, we headed out in our jonboat WITH motor and a much happier Jason.

And if I could get the boys to all look at me at the same time, you could see how much they were enjoying themselves.  As it is, you'll have to take my word on it.

While we were out we saw a few blue heron.

  

And we were visited by a very friendly butterfly who kept coming back even after we scared it (he? she?) away.

We got nice and close to a sunbathing turtle.

And not so close to another heron and more turtles.

Really a lovely way to spend a Friday afternoon.