July & August

There are so many good pictures on our camera right now!  With school starting next week, I’m feeling the need to share a glimpse of our summer life over the past few weeks.  Before we know it it we will be in the midst of carpools, school bells, homework, and fall activity filling our time.

So, back to 4th of July.  We spent the day at my parents’ house and finished with a backyard fireworks display courtesy of our own purchases and those of all of our neighbors!

I love it that in the summer the kids have the time and freedom to play and be creative together. 

We’ve also been giving Logan the privilege of reading in bed with his lamp on after we say goodnight.  His favorite books right now are the  Junie B. 1st Grader books.  Yes, the English teacher in me cringes at some of Junie B.’s grammar, but she is funny and Logan relates to her stories of lost teeth, school lunches, and friends.  These books have really motivated Logan to read independently, and I have dear Junie B. to thank for that.  Logan prefers reading out loud, and I love standing out side his door and listening to him read after we tuck him in.  Sometimes I even hear him laughing at the story. 

We also just had our front landscaping done.  Originally, the house had a big bush up front and two overgrown bushes on the side.  A local landscaping company came and transformed it into this:

Then it was off to Iowa to celebrate my grandma’s 80th birthday!  We spent the weekend at the Lodge in Inspiration Hills with my aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, siblings, and nieces.

Inspiration Hills had a playground right outside the lodge.  Logan was motivated to learn how to do the monkey bars before first grade, and he has succeeded!

My grandparents (Happy Birthday, Grandma!  Can I please look like you when I’m 80?) and all their great-grandkids.

And this is my whole immediate family.

After our time in Inspiration Hills, we headed north to Minnesota for a week at a lake house in Alexandria with my immediate family.

The cousins in the rockers on the front porch.

The place came with a pontoon boat that we used almost daily.  Logan did a little fishing and also loved to jump off the side of the pontoon boat to swim.

Emily found her life jacket to be a bit restrictive, so she found it most comfortable to just recline in the seat.

Emily also loved the beach.

Luke took the older two kids to see the Viking statue and Runestone Museum in Alexandria.  I’m sure all three of them know more about runestones than I do.

One of the highlights of my time was the evening my parents offered to watch the kids while my brothers and sisters-in-law and Luke and I went out for dinner.  It was so nice to catch up with each other sans kids.

We were also able to spend a day with my college roomates, Holli and Crystal.  Holli lives only an hour from Alexandria, and Crystal drove 4.5 hours with her kids to hang out with us at Holli’s house.  We had a great time catching up and our kids had a blast playing together.

In their pjs saying a silly goodbye…

Overall, we just had such a great time on our vacation.  It’s so fun to see my kids interact with their cousins and to watch memories being made.

Behind the lake house there was a wooden rocking seat that I thought would made a great picture at some point during the week.  The first time I tried it, though, no one was in the mood for a picture.  This shot really makes me laugh!

The second time was much better.  :)

This vacation was a fun closure to a great summer!

June

No time to update lately.  We’ve been too busy doing all things summer!  The parks, the pool, bikes, flowers, free time, cousins and friends.  We’ve had a great month!

Here are a few pictures from our first month of summer.

Cousins at the pool.



Logan started swimming lessons this summer. This is him proudly doing the freestyle with his teacher, Morgan!



Logan also loves going out on the golf course with Luke.



Chores! We started the summer with chore sticks, and they've been working really well for our family. The kids each have a jar of chores (written on popsicle sticks) and they flip the stick after the job is done. I can quickly see if the chores are done if I see all colors and no words. Their chores include typical jobs such as make bed and clean room but also things like do a puzzle, read book to sister, and play outside. Incentive to do the chores? No screen time until chores are done. Pretty simple. Logan has done his chores every day with no nagging from me. Audrey has only missed 2 days this month, and I'm ok with that because she also had no screen time those days.



This month we had a baby shower for my sister-in-law Kristen at my in-laws' house. She's due in September. We can't wait for our first Darling cousin!



My mom comes every summer to help me plant my flowers.  This year, Audrey got to help, and she was in her glory!  Dirty hands, pretty flowers, shovels, plant food, water, more dirt… she’d plant flowers every day if she could!  This pot is “Audrey’s pot” of marigolds.  She’s been carefully watering them and even kissing the flowers all month.  They’re growing with love! 



We’ve had a lot of warm, wet June days.  Perfect for raincoats and boots!





Audrey was fascinated with the storm drain.  Multiple times, she’d lean over and yell “Hello!  Is anyone down there?  Can anyone hear me?”



The kids on Father's Day.



My college friend and her husband are missionaries in Nigeria.  They are on their Home Service in the states right now and visited us on an overnight stay last weekend.  Their daughter, Stella, and Audrey are only a couple days apart in age and had fun playing dolls, “reading” to each other, and taking a bath together.



Crown Point does a Dolly Parade in June every year in which the kids from town can walk their dolls or stuffed animals around the courthouse in the town square. It’s cute, and the kids have fun.



I’ll be back again to update at the end of July!  Hope you have a fabulous month!

Kindergarten’s done

Today was Logan’s last day of Kindergarten.  He has grown in so many ways this year. We’re so proud of him!

I picked him up from school and took the the three kids to the park for a while to play.  They were having a good time until I looked toward the top of the big slide and saw Logan crying up there.  I rushed up to see what was the matter, and Logan whimpered, “I just want to go back to school on Monday.”  Sweet boy.  I never really liked summer break either.

At bedtime, Logan and I do “yays” and “boos” together.  We each think over our day and share one high and one low of the day.  Tonight Logan’s yay was “I’m almost a first grader.”  His boo was “I’m not in Kindergarten anymore.”  Sounds about right.

Train

Last weekend we took our first (and possibly our last) train trip.  I had a crazy idea that it would be fun to ride the train somewhere a little farther than Chicago, so I booked Amtrak tickets from Chicago to St. Louis to see my brother and his family.  My parents where there also (they drove) so we made it a quick trip, spending one night there and heading back on the train the next day to come home.  A train ride, a visit with relatives, and a train ride home. 

Ideally this would have been a great little quick trip.  We did have fun on most of the way there.

The kids liked the freedom to move around, use the bathroom en route, eat in the snack car, do coloring and play dough on the tray tables, and have attention from mom and dad who are usually too busy in the driver and passenger seat to play.  Emily was a little more work since she didn’t want to stay on our laps, but she was manageable and took a nice 2 hour nap in Luke’s arms.

Then within sight of the St. Louis train station, the last car on our train derailed.  Yes, it fell off the tracks.  (See the news story here: Amtrak train derails in downtown St. Louis.)  It felt like an earthquake.  The power went out, and they kept us on the hot train (no air circulation in 90 degree weather) for 90 minutes while they tried to figure out what to do.  They ended up moving everyone forward into the front three cars of the train to unhook the back two cars.  A very unpleasant end to our train trip there.

Waiting on the hot train.  This isn’t fun anymore.

At Darren and Rachel’s house we had a great time!  The kids started playing together immediately, and we had some great laughs among us adults.

Yum, we went to Fritz’s Frozen Custard for a treat.

Cousin time is the best!

We figured the way home had to be better.  No more derailments. 

Well, our train didn’t depart when it was supposed to from St. Louis.  It was an hour late in departure, and because it was late it had to make more frequent stops to allow the scheduled trains to use the tracks.  It should have taken us 5.5 hours to get home, arriving in Chicago at 8:30 p.m.  Instead, it took us 8 hours to get home from St. Louis, arriving in Chicago at midnight (in our beds at 1 a.m.).  I think we’ll drive next time.