Late Summer Outside

As summer winds down and school starts again, morning begins a little earlier each day mostly for the sake of routine and not due to needing to catch a bus.  But it makes for viewing very beautiful sunrises. 

Our false sunflowers are loving the heat and height of summer. 

We'll have to get in here and thin the herd sometime soon. 

Gigantic and armored moths are a thing here. 

I know the caterpillars have stripped my mighty dill to nothing now. 

The evenings are still warm enough to insist on staying out a little longer. 

And days are vibrant. 

And we'll enjoy the color and warmth for a little longer, while we start to think about dormant grass and autumn fires against cool evenings here soon. 

Summer Camp Outing

We went out to eat in a real restaurant!

And man, it was the best chicken pimento cheese sandwich with fries ever made. 

The rest of the family were clearly not quite as excited as I was to be out in a restaurant. 

A day off for the cook was the best start to summer I could imagine though. 

Summer Camp Cafeteria Food

The cook at summer camp makes a mean make your own nachos bar. 

She's pretty great.

Summer Camp Learning

We grew some broccoli, 

and some cabbage, 

and some purple cauliflower, 

and we really don't know what this is, but when Patric uncovered it under some mulch he about jumped out of his skin. 

And the dill.  It's gone unchecked a little too long now.  

Summer Camp Activities

Preparation for hunting season has begun. 

Helps with interest when you have an ogre to shoot at. 

It's Hot Around Here

Now they tell us. 

So, when you don't have a community pool, you make do with gymnastics mats, a tarp, duct tape, and a hose when you are 12. 

And then you run and jump. 

Beach chairs in place, that is fun for an afternoon. 

We're waiting anxiously at this point for False Fall. 

The Weather Here in May

It rolls in fast and big.

And this was welcome water for the new yard.

 

But it was intense. 

Those are not frosted glass windows.

There it is: hail.

We will not escape frozen weather yet, it seems.

Every Day

That we'll take them, we'll head to the pool.

(At least we might fade out that hair)

 

Even Nicholas can be drug out of the house from time to time.

More Expected

Summer activity that we expect: catching frogs. 

That it came from Elaine, unexpected. 

That she is wearing gardening gloves to do it, how we know this is Elaine.

Day 1 Summer

Up at 6 am. 

Fighting over a game of Monopoly by 7 am. 

Refusing breakfast by 7:30 am. 

Bored by 8:00 am.

At the pool at opening at 10:00 am.  

By noon, all tricks used up. 

By 2:00, Nicholas was sent to his room, where he fell asleep and took an hour nap while he was waiting for me to come fuss at him. 

Luckily, we only scheduled a week of freedom before we start our summer of scheduled activities...

Adult Swim

Still as painful to sit through for them, as it was for me when I was this small.

In the water, so much more at home. 

Swim Meet One

Go Purple!

It was the year to change teams amongst all of the participants.  Nicholas was very relieved that we Stubers remained on the purple team again this year. 

The night before the first meet, Aldia says, "Oh mommy.  I wish tomorrow wasn't Saturday.  Purple is going to lose.  We're not so good."

I was just glad to have daddy in town for a meet finally.  The 6 am wake-up and get to the pool by 7 am Saturdays are a little easier with one more adult.

Alida taking off for her first race of the season--she did great!  And even though a coach swam the lane with her, Alida just took off past the coach with purpose about half-way through.

In character, about half-way through Elaine stopped.

She is a mental jumble when it comes to competition, because she swims like a fish if she's just in the water to have fun.

The boys competing in the middle two lanes there.

Looks like there is still a super-hero take-off happening again on the right. 

The only reason for going I think they think, to buy flavored cups of ice. 

Pool Open Last Weekend

So long pasty white skin; hello freakishly tan trying-too-hard middle-aged look.

Swim team started yesterday afternoon.

Background: CRAZY kid birthday party with inflatable slide, ice-cream truck rented just for the party, a smoker team arrived on a trailer, balloon animals floating everywhere.

"I know mom, that's not my party."

They still wound up with ice cream and balloon animals...

Sure is Humid Out Here, Huh?

Summer

If you can't beat it, join it.

Youth Hostel

It's been 100+ degrees; the heat index has been 100+ a million-some degrees.

Our upstairs air went out late Saturday afternoon.

Since it was so hot up there that the thermostat couldn't even measure the temperature anymore, we let them camp downstairs with us.

Believe me, it took some deliberation to make this decision...
We're a happy family.

Mommy, Watch This! This is going to be AWESOME!

Think I'll just close my eyes son.

Wet Weekend

Swimming on Saturday with Cynthia. I'll just say that I have three kids that once all water-winged (thanks for filling out our stock of wings Cynthia), were belly-flopping and dog-paddling all over the place like they belonged there. For once, I'm not too disturbed that Nicholas is the one who isn't naturally the best at something. He claims I let him sink and was still talking about it this morning. Ben put his wings on when we got in the car this morning, hoping we were headed back.

Then it rained. So we did what any responsible person would do and grabbed our umbrellas and hit the slide.

Then Sunday JB Anon came over to witness the chaos that is water play in our backyard. And now she must abandon us for retirement play in another state. She got in her last snuggle with Elaine, and Elaine got in her last iPhone lesson. Very symbiotic those two.

And Sunday evening at the mention of bath, for some unknown reason, they were all standing there ready for me to turn the water on before I even got up the stairs.

I Very Did It

Amazing how many time Nicholas came down that hose last weekend that I didn't notice.

(Some day I'll remember not to turn the camera sideways.)

In My Own Defense

What was fun last weekend, has begun the inevitable spiral toward make-it-into-something-new-and-dangerous.