Summer: Week 2

Whew! Another week down.
Here is how Jason kept the kids busy this week:

(Every morning Casey played wii. Every day the kids did one hour of school work-- workbooks, reading, Compass Learning.)

Monday:
Soccer camp (Marcie)
A trip to urgent care for Tate after Casey knocked him in the eye with a wii-mote. (No stitches required, thankfully.)
An afternoon at Grandma S.'s (no need to take them all to urgent care, right?)

You can see the small mark on his right eye, above. It was fully healed by week's end.

Tuesday:
Soccer camp (Marcie)
Playdates for Casey and Marcie with kids from the neighborhood
Tutoring (Casey and Marcie)
Mr. Popper's Penguins (Casey and Marcie)
Special "Mommy time" for Tate (during which we danced, played with cars, practiced sommersaults, enjoyed tickling each other and ate ice cream)

Wednesday
Soccer camp (Marcie)
Library visit (Tate, Casey and Casey's friend)
San Diego Fair

At the peeting zoo at the fair.

Thursday
Soccer camp (Marcie)
Costco shopping
Afternoon at community pool

Friday
Soccer camp (Marcie)
Cleaning out the garage (and finding all sorts of toy treasures for Tate!)
Barbecue and pool party at Casey's friends' house
Sleepovers (Casey away)

Tate insisted on sitting IN the bins and throwing all the toys he found out.

Another busy, busy week. . .

Happy Father's Day!

Here's how we spent our day:

• We brought home an everything bagel after church.


• We opened presents (flip flops and Season 3 of Dexter).


• We visited the aquarium (dads were free!)




• We ate lunch at Wahoo's Fish Tacos.


• We spent a couple hours at the Super Show (of reptiles).


• Jason and Casey napped while I took Marcie and Tate grocery shopping with me.


• We ate ribeye steak and fruit for dinner, followed by Neopolitan ice cream sandwiches for dessert.

I hope your day was everything the special dads in your life hoped it would be!

Summer - Week 1

How do you keep the kids busy all day, every day?
Well, here's how Jason did it during Week 1 of summer:

Every day: video games before breakfast and one hour of school work (some days this was workbooks, some days flashcards, and some days Compass Learning).

Monday:  Library, Subway and bike riding at the park.

Tuesday: Swimming, tutoring, and a playdate for Marcie.

Birthday dinner celebration at Red Robin (yum!) for our nephew/cousin.

Wednesday:  Playdate for Casey, trip to Costco with a pizza snack.

Thursday:   Viewing of Back to the Future.

 

Bike riding at the park and a special dinner treat (McDonald's and frozen yogurt)

Friday:  Legoland Sea Life (thanks to our friends for sharing their free passes with us!)

Ice cream sundaes for dessert and a sleepover for Casey.

By the time I get home, the kids are wiped out. Not sure how Jason does it.

Summer

This is our first summer "home."


Well, not exactly-- I mean up until I left teaching in the classroom, I had every summer of my life technically "home." But not so for our kids. For the past few summers, they have either been in year-round preschool or Extended School Services (ESS), which is basically daycare for school-aged kids. The ESS program is really well-organized and sounds like a lot of fun to me-- swimming, a movie, and a field trip every week. But our kids wanted absolutely nothing to do with anything called "camp" this summer. (I did talk Marcie into one week of soccer camp and Casey into one week of baseball camp.) So home it is.



Jason "negotiated" one hour of schoolwork each day (he started the "talks" at four hours per day). They came home from the school year with incomplete workbooks, so that's where they are starting. Then they will move onto the workbooks recommended by our school (to keep them up to speed, not to get ahead). I told Casey I would pay him to memorize his addition, multiplication, and subtraction tables through 12. I told him I'd pay him $1 per number to learn them. (It will be $36 well spent.) And the kids will work with a tutor once a week this summer.

Today is day one of summer:

Today I went to work.

Today the kids: cleaned their rooms, completed one hour of schoolwork, went to the public library for story time (and to check out books),and went to the park to play with friends. Tate took a little tumble and banged up his nose. (The coloring is not great, but you get the idea.)

After Tate's nap, they went to our neighborhood park with their bikes. Marcie is now training-wheel-free!

By the time I got home from work, the kids were completely wiped out.

I hope Jason keeps his sanity this summer.

William Heise

We try to get out to go camping at least once a summer.  Two summers ago we tried RV camping at the beach (we discovered it was akin to extreme tail-gating).  Last year we went camping at a private camp ground, where there was lots to do, but not a lot of individual space or privacy.  So this year we headed up to the “mountains” of nearby Julian.

 

We went with the usual gang, and last year we remarked at how difficult it seemed for the other two families with little ones.  This year Tate definitely kept us (and everyone else!) on our toes.  It was very cold at night.  That didn’t stop us from having a campfire and enjoying hot chocolate, hot cider and s’mores.

It was super cold in the tent, and Tate was not going down in his pack n play, so he joined us.  In addition to Tate waking me up twice, Casey and Marcie each needed a trip to the bathroom.  And I was coooooold.

This is what Casey and Marcie looked like sleeping.  Did I mention it was cold?

It warmed right up for us on Saturday, though, and we headed off to the Smith Family Ranch for a tour of their gold mine via train, along with panning for gold and some ropes work (you can see the rope bridge behind the horses).  It was a beautiful day.

  

The kids spent the day exploring the woods, playing various games with their stuffed animals, and playing freeze tag.  The Sky Hunters came in the evening along with a falcon and a couple owls and did a presentation at the campground.  And we were close enough to town to get ourselves another sleeping bag to keep us warm the second night.  Casey and Marcie still woke me up to go to the bathroom, but at least I was warm in between trips to the bathroom!

We have a couple more photos on the iphone, but this gives you the basics.  It was fun.  We had plenty of space.  There was stuff to do.  And I think (hope!) it gets easier as Tate gets older.  All in all, another fun summer camping trip!

Good-bye May

May went fast. Too fast.

Casey’s First Communion.

Our last day with Pugasus LaRue. The kids knew it was coming and made peace with it. Here’s our last photo with him. . .

Grown-up weekend get-away to Palm Springs to help a couple of friends celebrate their pending nuptials.

Celebrating my mom’s birthday—on the left with my dad and their San Diego grandkids. On the right with two of my siblings. (The San Francisco clan couldn’t join us.)

And Memorial Day Weekend—we spent a day at Mission Bay, where I apparently took no photos. And then we went on a walk near Lake Hodges across the relatively new ribbon bridge. Later, the kids cooled off at home.

Despite these few glimpses of sun, it was a gray May—I hope we dodge the June gloom around here!