School is officially over and summer has officially started!!

Had the kids stayed in school, today would have been their first full day of vacation. Against my better judgment, I decided to take them to the pool after we unpacked and ran a few errands. Ugh. WTF was I thinking on the first day of no school when it’s finally 80°? 🤦🏻‍♀️

Too many people. No seats in the shade but lots of shaded seats taken up with bags and towels. The kids didn’t pack a towel for me so I’m sitting on Katie‘s towel on the ground in the shade and ants keep crawling all over me. Am I having fun yet?

I guess this is my repayment for being a good mom?!

And it only took a matter of HOURS for me to be annoyed by the kids. 🙌🏻 What do I win?

They were complaining that we were leaving the pool early. REALLY? After I had told them we weren’t staying long? And after I just took you on a five day vacation to a house WITH AN INDOOR POOL where you got to do whatever you wanted and eat whatever you wanted and play with your cousins then we came home and I TOOK YOU TO THE POOL!! But that’s apparently not good enough. 🤦🏻‍♀️

So I went to Sam’s Club and bought them their summer workbooks. Ha. I’ll show them. 😂

How’s your summer going so far?

Vacation house, Day 3

Random pics aplenty!

Cousin Gabby made some gorgeous flower crowns.

Kathryn and Izzy tried some lipstick!

Filipeks made an awesome taco bar for lunch and ice cream bar for dessert!!

We spent the afternoon chatting on the deck and then dinner was delicious cheesy shrimp and grits!

And then the annual pics!

Cousins!

The kids, then and now.

Aunt Marie put together an amazing escape room/box for the kids. They had a blast!

Then there was card playing and video games.

Vacation house, Day 2

We were sleeping in an awesomely dark and quiet basement room so combined with a late bedtime, we all slept in! I was up at 7:30 (technically 6:30 CST) and just waited for either kid to wake up. Owen finally got up about 8:30! I stayed in bed to enjoy the quiet and when I finally came upstairs, this is where I found Owen.

And I decided to have a fully relaxing no makeup day.

The kids spent most of their day in and out of the pool. Spending time with Uncle Jim was super fun and they even had a cannonball contest!

While the kids were (still) in the pool I got some work done. Not a bad view.

The kids were finally out of the pool and playing hide and seek while we were getting dinner ready. Uncle Marcus and Uncle Jim we trying to confuse Katie as she counted.

The birthday kids!

And tonight was a campfire and sparkler night!

And it was a momentous night—Katie actually asked to go to bed!!!

Vacation house, we are in you.

The kids really wanted to get in the pool the minute we got to the house but I was a mean mom and made them look through the house first and then actually put their suitcases in a bedroom and not just leave them splayed open in the middle of the living room.

Watching intently as I opened the pool cover.

It’s like this pool house knew I was coming.

They might already be in the pool and I might have bought them an inflatable unicorn. 🦄💦

Ahhhhh.

We had a bit of time before everyone else got here. It was quite a steep journey to the water and fire pit.

Dinner tonight was shish kebabs from the Coes. They were delicious!

I’m at my summer happy place.

This is what I look like on opening day of pool season when the storms never materialized and you realized it’s 80° and humid and the kids are driving you insane for no good reason so you give them five minutes to get their suits on because the pool closes in two hours and you can’t find your old passes so you have to get new ones before 5:00. 😂

Hurricane Harbor for the first (and likely last) time!

We were supposed to meet friends at Six Flags water park (Hurricane Harbor) after the play date. Let’s just say things didn’t go quite as planned and I didn’t have the fun time I expected.

  1. It was hot and humid.
  2. It was super busy. As in we got there about an hour or so after they opened and there were still about 200 people in line ahead of us.
  3. Everywhere you looked it was just a sea of wet and/or sweaty humanity. Not my thing.
  4. There was nowhere to sit. I managed to snag one chair in full sun (totally not my thing) and baked there for about two hours while the kids swam.
  5. The person we were meeting ended up being about two hours late but hadn’t really kept me updated so I hadn’t wanted to move too far from our meeting place…or even get in the water. But honestly even if I hadn’t been meeting anyone I wouldn’t have wanted to get in the water…I just hate that many people.
  6. I finally had to get in a line for food around 2:30 because we were starving (the plan had been to eat lunch there) but all the lines are crazy long and move sooooo slowly. The kids and I bypassed the nachos at the place close to us in the hopes of pizza or something but those lines were even more ridiculous. So the kids decided nachos were fine. So even in that short line of about six people…it took almost a half hour. Just asinine. And for crappy food. Not my thing.

My friend eventually made it and we headed to the wave pool…which was an even bigger mess of humanity with less place to sit. And by this time we had three adults and eight kids. We tried to sneak into the new VIP section (since it was practically empty) but got called out within minutes.

The kids loved the wave pool and I let them swim for about half an hour but I was long done and we past rest to get the hell out of there. I have zero desire to go back and told the kids I hoped they entire it because we were going back. (And I was even looking forward to the lazy river.)

Camp Cadillac

We spent the day in Cadillac with Tom’s extended family at a local campground where the kids enjoyed meeting new friends and playing in the pool.

Katie liked the animals. (Yes there were animals there. She especially liked the goats.)

Maggie didn’t bark once all day…until she got in front of the goats. At which point she thought she was ferocious.

After some visiting I just amused myself. There might have been margaritas involved.

As much sun as I could stand before I had to scoot my chair over.

Today was Father’s Day swim day at the water park so we all went and had a great time. Of course I didn’t manage to get one single picture of Tom or us with the kids. So this picture of me will have to suffice. 🙂

Also? Your Tip of the Day? Don’t expect to stay mostly dry if you go down a water slide in a tube with your husband. I got totally dunked, drank a bunch of water, and came up coughing up a lung. But my makeup and lipstick didn’t budge!

Someone got a timeout at the pool today.

One of the rules for going to the water park and being able to run around on their own is that they MUST come and check in at each safety break. These happen every two hours and are announced on the loudspeakers—and they clear the pools. We’ve had a few issues with them not remembering and they’ve been given warnings. Today was the last day for warnings, so Katie had to sit out for 15 minutes (past the end of the safety break, for a total of 30 minutes). I figure that’s small payment for the stress she caused me having to go hunt her down (and not finding her on the first go-round).

My view for five hours today.

Water park, Day 1: Opening Day

👍🏻 Pros?

💦Two miles from home.
💦Lots for the kids to do.
💦It took Katie five minutes to find a friend.
💦The kids are both old enough to go out on their own.

👎🏻 Cons?

💦 Lots of people.
💦 The lounge chairs are not comfortable.
💦 Not nearly as relaxing as the Lorton Valley pool.

I took one of the very last seats in the shade and kept busy doing work (gotta love being able to run most of my business from a phone) for five hours while the kiddies played.

Our last July 4th cookout at the pool

We went to the pool just after it opened at 10am so it would be less crowded (I like less crowded) and it gave me a chance to get some good pictures of the kids.

Tom helped set up and then man the grill for two hours.

This is more what it looks like when it gets crazy…which is the time we leave. I cannot stand the pool to be that busy and loud. 🙂

Another afternoon at the pool…

Getting sunscreen on…

When Owen gets the camera…

When mom gets the camera back…

And yes, I actually got in the pool. It was HUMID. And then the sun came out and I got HOT.

Our good friends…

Their toys had gotten sucked in but they were both to scared of the bugs in there to reach in. 🙂

Sitting out during the break (the last 10 minutes of every hour) plotting their next move in the water gun war with the opposing team.

A new hand-me-down suit from our neighbor Maddie.

Cuddling with Daddy

The kids went to a new pool!

Heather and Eric invited us over to their pool today, but I had a LipSense party scheduled and Tom really needed to work in the garage…so they offered to take the kids for us!! And they had A BLAST! The pool is much bigger than our AND has a real deep end with a diving board so Owen was THRILLED—he’d never been on a diving board before! Heather said he was so cute—he must have gone on it 30 times!

These are some of the friends we are REALLY going to miss…

We got rained out at the pool!

It was so hot and humid at Owen’s Field Day that we had decided to take the kids to the pool when Owen got home. Tom was home as well, so we all went down…and it started sprinkling almost immediately. It was fine for a bit and then it started raining harder. Tom stayed with the kids as they were already in the pool while I went to sit and wait in the car (it was chilly in the rain). They didn’t last too much longer. These are the pics (and video) I snapped before the rain started.