Since we got home from California (July 05th) we have been working hard on our Summer fun list. From July 05th - 18th is the longest stretch of consecutive days we will be home for Summer this year. We have a good long stretch planned for the 2 weeks before school starts but its been a busy 5 weeks. It hasn't been all fun and games though. Since we got back from California we have been trying to get all the loose ends tied up on our basement, yeah its still not done. But its so close! Hopefully by Monday it will be done and it looks great! We are waiting on carpets to dry or I would be working on it right now!
Back to the list, in the last 9 days we have checked off 8 items and added in some other fun outings. I really enjoy making these Summer lists. I often feel overwhelmed by the length of Summer break. The idea of all this empty time stresses me out. I don't like to do so many things every day but I like to get out or have some structure in the day and it helps us all make fun, pretty easy memories together. We started with a bike ride and water hike last Saturday. It was a beautiful 79 degrees no humidity day. We were so grateful for it. We actually started the day at our ward pancake breakfast. Mark went to the church early to make sure everyone was good and we when got there later I was so surprised that they had set everything up inside. I guess people were concerned about the wind? It was a fine activity but I was anxious to get outside. There were really a lot of people out of town plus so many people have moved. I'm interested to see who else is coming this Summer and how our ward will be in the Fall. Back to the list again.
We went back to Sugar Hollow as we know its an easy hike with great rewards. Anytime I've gone there I've thought, "we should totally bring our bikes here." I was really excited we were finally doing it but Lydia has lost all of her confidence in her bike riding skills. She fell off her bike in April and while I'm sure it hurt it wasn't so awful but since then she has been very opposed to bike riding. We made her go anyway, she did not enjoy it but toughed it out. Hopefully with some good practice this Fall in the nicer weather she will find joy in riding bikes again. We biked and enjoyed the beautiful scenery then headed up the road to the hike. This is a really popular spot and with the beautiful weather we knew there would be lots of people there. There is a parking lot but it was all full by the time we arrived. The street becomes a narrow one way road when the lot if full so finding a spot to park took some good skills on Mark's part but he did well. Parking was a whole lot easier than trying to leave. More people had arrived and more people were leaving so lots of people had to back up to let cars through. It was kind of a nightmare but at the same time people were really generous and patient and helpful. It was great to see people not freaking out. Last time we must have gone on a weekday. The actual swimming hole was not that crowded at all, just a few families enjoying it. There are other hikes people can go which we haven't done which helps spread people out. Maybe next year we will try the longer one. It was a great outing.
The following Monday we drove up to Staunton to go swimming. The pool at Staunton is our favorite local swimming pool. It's so well maintained and feels so clean. It never feels too crowded and the slides are great. We stopped to eat at the same diner we went to last year and had a great day at the pool. This is the pool where Lydia learned to dive last year and she did a great job here again too. They are both great swimmers but she will stay in the pool for as long as possible. Jared spent some time laying on the side bit in his defense he was getting over a cold he picked up in California.
It's fun to order our food over the phone.
This place really doesn't seem to have changed since it opened in the 50's.
The same family still owns and operates it.
Tuesday started with Mark and Lydia going on a date to pick peaches at Carter Mountain while Jared attended a computer camp offered through the school district and I stayed home and painted door frames and baseboards in the basement. Mark really wanted to go pick peaches but they are in between picking sessions. Lydia just wanted peach ice cream so they headed up to Carters to find some. Once she got her ice cream (at 9:30 in the morning) a member of the staff came over and told Mark about the Children's curiosity activities. At 10:00 on Mondays and Tuesdays they read a story, do a craft, go on a hay ride, pick 5 peaches and get an ice cream cone. Mark decided it would be worth it and they had a great time. I think he or I will take Jared on Monday.
The camp Jared attended is called Coder Dojo. It offers kids a chance to learn all kinds computer skills. Coding and 3-D printing and adding music to things (and some minecraft playing which Jared (and myself) really know nothing about). All those things I think you are supposed to expose your children to but neither Mark nor I are particularly interested in or have any background in. Lots of STEM opportunities. There are lots of cool classes offered from what I can tell. I had Jared go after he finished Kindergarten and it was way over his head. So we skipped it last year. After talking to a friend I decided to have him try it again and he had a more useful/pleasant experience. He loved taking apart the computers and learning what they are made with. He got to smash one with a screwdriver which was his favorite activity. I still think he kind of missed the point of learning some skills and how its useful but he is not really all that interested in computers at this point and I good with that. I am glad he was exposed to some new ideas and if he wants to go next year we will let him its just not a huge interest or part of our lives.
Throughout the week kids are encouraged to make something out of the computer parts. Then on the last day families are invited to see what they made. He took off all the keys and put them in alphabetical order. I am certain there is a reason why they are in the order they are, word spelling and combination of letter usage or something but I love that he decided to change it to make it more in order. I think he has a little bit of me in him. He had a good week but I think he wold have been fine with 3 days instead of the 4.
One happy girl.
After lunch we headed downtown to watch the World Cup. Belgium was playing France and the theater down there was broadcasting the game for free. Mark loves soccer and hasn't been able to watch too many games and really wanted to see this one. I didn't think Lydia would make it though the whole game so we took two cars and she and I left at half time. When we walked into the theatre a woman from the local news station stopped us and asked Lydia if she would be willing to answer a few questions about the match. She agreed and really did a nice job. She asked her who she wanted to win and why and she said: "Belgium because my Dad wants them to win." It was cute. I can't find the official clip but here she is. They sadly did not win but she wasn't too phased by it. It was nice to go down there, we hadn't gone downtown in a good while and I love community events like that. Not always sports just people getting together and having fun.
Wednesday we unexpectedly did a lot of cleaning up downstairs in the basement. We needed to empty out our storage room and get it organized and to do that we needed to find new homes for a lot of items. We have pretty much used that space as our "garage" and not cared too much how organized it was. To be able to organize it we needed to put stuff in our shed and to do that we needed to clean out the shed. It gets super dusty in there with lots of leaves and wasps nest so it was a big task. It was so great to get it organized. For the last 2 years Jared has been collecting and storing aluminum cans in there. We finally loaded them into the car along with their old bikes and donated the bikes and recycled the cans. He had 15 pounds of cans (about 5 garbage bags worth) and earned about 6 dollars. When Mark handed him the money he quickly without being prompted gave Lydia 1 dollar. She didn't collect too many cans but did help and I was happy he recognized that and gave her some of the money. It was also 7-11 so we stopped at not one but two stores for Slurpees. It is one of Jared and Lydia's favorite days of the Summer. We don't really ever go to get Slurpees during the year which makes it more special.
Thursday we met up with friends at Ivy Creek and then headed down to UVA for the All Comers Track meet that evening. We have gone every year since we moved here so now 4 years in a row. It's always a fun community event. At first Lydia said she only wanted to run the 100m which was perfectly fine but in the end it was nicer weather than we expected and at the last minute she decided to run the 200m too. Jared originally said he was going to run the 100m 200m and mile but opted out of the mile. They both randomly placed 5th in both of their races. Jared was disappointed but happy he participated. He said that next year he was going to run 2 miles every day leading up to the event. We will see.
Friday was mostly basement stuff and house organizing. I have had to find places for so many things. Its been fun to organize it all but I am grateful we are almost done. Something that has been really amazing this Summer is how much fun Jared and Lydia have had together. We are fortunate that they are never really consistently awful to each other but they definitely know how to bug the heck out of each other plenty. This whole Summer they have been great friends. They can't wait for the other one to wake up and play Harry Potter for hours or Barbies, or go in the sandbox or play in the water table, or read books individually but on the same bed together, whatever comes to mind. Its been beautiful to watch and hear in the background. And they have been so patient while Mark and I have worked on the basement.
Saturday we went downtown to try out a new donut shop, Sugar Shack. It was awesome. It is our new favorite. They have great flavors and their staff is super friendly. We got red velvet, maple, Samoa, and "party time" donuts. Party time were for Jared and Lydia. They have Oreos, M&M's, chocolate chips and sprinkles on top. They were super impressed. We ate them up and then headed down the street to "City Market", a popular, well established Farmer's Market here. There are actually quite a few Farmer's Market's here but this one might be the oldest. I like Farmer's Market's just fine but am always a little baffled when I read about people saying going to the Farmer's Market was their favorite Summer activity. To each their own. We tried our best to fit in amongst the goat cheese, all organic produce, Kombachu, and local honey (mostly just by carrying around our reusable bags). Lydia was the only one who bought something. A middle school girl had a table with some cute little stuffed animals she had made and Lydia got a mouse. They quickly named it Scabbers after Ron's mouse. (Harry Potter has been a HUGE part of our Summer and I am again so grateful to J.K. Rowling) After the market we headed over to the downtown branch of the library and looked around there for awhile.
He is a good looking kid.
And the donuts look pretty good too.
That afternoon we made it over to Chris Greene Lake to meet up with some friends from Lydia and Jared's classes last year. A mom in Lydia's class organized it and Jared and Lydia did have fun seeing their friends but were mostly just really happy we finally made it to the lake. It was closed the first 2 weeks or so of Summer due to harmful Algae bloom but the tests came back clear so it re opened. I was slightly apprehensive about going but we had a good time. We took one of our kayaks and Mark and Lydia went out and then I went out. We haven't gone kayaking in a long time and it was nice to be out again. We had fun jumping and diving off the dock. Lydia is a great diver and Jared is almost back to where he was at the end of last Summer. They re both really proud of themselves for figuring it out. Diving is really a hard thing to try teach. At least it was for Mark and I. Taking kids swimming when they are competent swimmers is pretty great.
We've really tried to make the most of our time at home. We leave Wednesday for Iceland and are excited to have another adventure (albeit an expensive one, sheesh! I can't imagine ever going if Mark didn't have family we could stay with and a car we could drive while we are there). It's been really nice to have this time at home and do some of the things we love here. I say it all the time but Charlottesville is really a great place to be. It has been an adjustment to have so many of the people we hung out with leave but we are figuring it out and love this area so much. Next week will be our 4 year anniversary of living here. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. They seemed so little when we got here.
Here is our first day here and first UVA race We are so thankful for the memories we have made here.
