Well.....

School is sneaking up on us again

As most of you know I'm a huge planner.  I plan things months in advance and like to have everything organized and as ready to go as I can.  I know it's only August but I also know that my husband will be travelling for work 5 of the 6 next weeks which means I will have to look after all activities for the boys.....sign ups.....preparations etc.  So last week Jason and I went out and bought the boys their school bags and lunch containers for next year.  We let each of the boys pick their own.  Mathew was quick to make a decision on a Mario one (it was a decision between mickey mouse, batman and mario for him), Zachary on the other hand took at least 15 minutes looking at all the bags and finally came to the decision that he too wanted a Mario just slightly different.  I started to get the school supplies off their list and started organizing what else we need (labels, backpack tags, what clothes, shoes hats etc) and that's when it hit me.....the boys are starting the second year of school.  How can this be?  Are they not still babies??  They are growing so fast it feels like if you blink you miss it sometimes.  I'm happy that they are excited to return to school, it's great to see how much they are learning and how many friends they have made.  So I will continue to organize things, purchase items and get ready but it seems like just yesterday I was still preparing the diaper bag with soothers, diapers and extra clothes!

Here fishy fishy fishy

A favorite after dinner activity while we are camping is going down to the dock to catch rock base and sunfish.  I think the boys may know way way more then I do about the names of different fish and tackle and lures.  I thought it was all kinda the same but nope they have informed me that's it's imperative to talk about your tackle in your tackle box almost daily, look at it as often as possible and drool over new tackle at the stores.....wow sure glad Jason likes looking at that stuff cause this momma can only spend so long in the tackle isle talking about tackle.  They have fishing hats, rods and their own tackle boxes.  Every night they get so excited to head down to the dock.  I think we might actually catch the same fish every night (because we release them) but they don't seem to care and yell and scream with joy every time.  It's cute to see....and very relaxing just sitting there in the quite enjoying the calmness of the lake.

Learning how to put the worm on

Going on a lion hunt

Well I think this was the third or fourth time that we have taken the boys to the african lion safari and they have a great time every time!  Each year it's crazy to see how much they have grown from the previous year.  The first time we took them they barely spoke and made mostly animal sounds, the next few times they named the animals but this year they wanted to actually learn more about what the animals ate, where the lived etc.  It's great to be able to see their intellectual growth.  This year they loved helping to drive the truck again.  The animals did come right up to the truck as they always do but no monkey's climbed on the vehicle this year.  It was an extremely hot day so we also took advantage of the nice water area they have there for the kids.

They thought it was soo cool that that they didn't have to wear their seat belts and could help drive.

Splash Pad

While visiting my sister she told us about the splash pad that she thought we would enjoy during the hot days.  It's crazy that this is located just in their community park.  It was a scorching day and we had a nice little picnic and then enjoyed the splash pad for a bit.  I'll also admit that Jason and I both took a turn taking a little run through....sometimes you just kick off your flip flops and enjoy!

 

Relaxing

One of the nice things about camping is that there is no schedule....we get up when we want....eat when we want....don't have to be anywhere at any specific time....don't have any chores to do and do just about anything we want all day long.  Every once in awhile it's nice to just kick up your heals....read a book ....or just relax!

Summer Memories

When the boys look back I hope they remember all the fun we have as a family.  I hope they remember how much we laughed and just enjoyed each other's company.  I hope they remember the little things that turned out to be soooo much fun.....like late evening swims right before the sun sets!  I know I sure will!

Heaven for little boys.....medieval times

The boys have acquired a fascination for dragons, castles, knights etc within the last year.  Last year for their birthday their pepere bought them a large wooden castle and santa brought them tonnes to knights to go in it.  We were trying to come up with some neat ideas for vacations for the summer and we decided on taking the boys to medieval times.  They absolutely loved it.  You get to sit and eat an entire meal with your hands while you watch knights on horses put on a show for you that includes games and of course jousting.  The boys sat in awe during the entire 2ish hour show and Mathew ate more then I have ever seen him eat in his life.  They cheered for our yellow knight to win and boo'd for the "stinky blue knight".  It's a great outing for adults but man was it neat to see it with the boys!  We have had to have to have the conversation since about jousting in the house though....the new rule at our house is you are not allowed to joust until you are at least 20 and you are riding a horse hahaha!  They seem to agreed with that hahaha!

Superheroes

Sometimes you just need to embrace the craziness and say "hop into the batmobile boys, we need to run out for a minute"

Our New Summer Home

Jason and I have been searching for a new house for almost a year now.  We have the plans for our dream house but we have not been able to find a lot here in town that is suitable..  We have toured soooo many houses looking for the one that is perfect for us but have been unable to find it.  Don't get me wrong, we love our current house.....great neighborhood...good space...perfect family room with toy room beside for the boys but we were just looking for more space.  The hard part is that our current house is very well set up for having kids so when we are out looking for a new house it has to be almost perfect in order to be able to convince me to move from our current house.   Well the search continued forever it felt like and we never found "the one".  We were both getting frustrated with spending so much time looking at houses and not finding what we wanted so we went totally out in left field.........we decided that perhaps we should just wait until that perfect house comes along and stop searching....we will look again soon but we didn't want to waste all of our summer at open houses so we decided that we were going to buy a trailer and do a few family camping trips.  We went out that weekend to the dealerships and started looking at trailers.......and we decided to go for a bigger trailer that we can just leave in one spot and go to it whenever we want.  We are now the proud owners of a 40ft trailer that has two bedrooms, a full fridge, an outside kitchen, TV and built in DVD, full stove and of course air conditioning.....it's definitely not roughing it but we have discovered that it was the perfect decision for our family.  We have already been out to it quite a bit and it has been absolutely fantastic family time.  Sometimes it's easy to get caught up with everything in our lives and forget to just sit down and share quality time as a family with little distraction.  I will definitely write up some more about our amazing adventures.  So we have not found our dream home yet but we still love our current home and the decision to buy a summer "home" has been fantastic for our family.  Sometimes the road takes you somewhere that you least expected and you realize this is perhaps the road you should have been on in the first place :)

I'm back

Wow life has been a whirlwind lately.  I have had so much to blog about and yet no time to actually sit down and do  it.  I have a list of about 20 blogs that I have been writing just never getting a chance to attach the pictures and finish them up.  I can actually say I miss it.  My friends and family from afar have been asking for more updates and I can honestly say that I miss writing about the new things in our family life.  So I'm back at it.  Just last week I was reviewing my old posts from last year and realized how much stuff from the boys life I have not been recording lately so I have made it a goal to be more diligent.  I'll attach just one picture right now to summarize our summer so far...

Just plain happiness and lot's of time with family!