Thank goodness for cement ponds! We are totally willing to trek to Henry's house in Lithia to cool down.
And of course the kids aren't bored at all. Not even one little bit. I'm sure boredom had nothing to do with Carigan inventing a genius book-storage contraption, wearing a Walmart sack like a sumo diaper. I took a video of her and her very infomercial sales pitch goes like this: "Oh, were you expecting me to read a book? One book, ordering up - Cha-Ching!" to which I reply, "That's Amazing!" and C matter-of-factly retorts "I know" and walks off reading the book.
Thank goodness a new friend is here to help cure our boredom! Wynn (daughter of Michael's new hire that we met back in May) and her family spent the month of June visiting family in Nicaragua, and then officially moved to Lakeland. Paula surprised Wynn by telling her they were going to walk the lake and then when she walked outside, Anna Kate was standing there! These girls are so excited about being at LCS together this year! We've enjoyed many walks around Lake Morton and Lake Hollingsworth this summer. I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing such beauty... we are so blessed to live in Lakeland!
Several times we rendezvoused with Wynn and Lucas at LCS to take AR tests, working toward summer reading goals. And treats are always in order afterward. Burger King and its $1 Icees and 50 cent ice cream cones has been my best friend this summer! The girls celebrating by putting their name up in the front office when they finally reached their goal:
Wes and I finally got to go on a Mother/Son date night. He's had it all planned out for awhile. He wanted me to take him to Glory Days, a new sports bar type restaurant that opened in Lakeland that his friends told him has a gazillion TVs and a speaker on every table where you can pick which one to hear. We had cheese sticks, buffalo chicken nachos, and shark blood kids cocktails (think a very violent version of a Shirley Temple, complete with a toy shark in a keepsake cup). Then we went to Game Stop and bought several used DS games for cheap. We had planned to go to the movies, but the movie we planned to see had left theaters, and there was nothing else kid-friendly that we hadn't already seen. He was super bummed at first until I mentioned that we could have Dad see if he could figure out that whole VidAngel thing Gabe told us about in Gatlinburg. You can pay to stream censored versions of movies at home, and then return them. You can set the filters as strict as you want. Michael figured it all out and we came home and watched Pixels, (a movie that's rated PG-13 but obviously geared towards little kids, which is my pet peeve) through VidAngel. Wes was in Heaven, finally getting to watch a movie that all his friends have been allowed to see. This opens up a whole new world for us!! Now Wesley will never want to go anywhere... he just keeps begging for more family movie nights!
We went to the Shelley's and got to see their (FINALLY!!!) completed home! It's beautiful!!! And I'm so sad that we couldn't bring the drum set home with us:
Marianne's birthday present to Anna Kate was an art lesson at Art Centric Studio in Dixieland. They painted creepers!
I took the girls to Claire Hames' birthday party just 'round the lake on Success, and I was quickly told to summon Wesley to play with the one other boy tagging along at the party. So I had Michael drop him off. He got there right as the Kona Ice truck was pulling out, but I gave him my cup. What a party that was! Susan plans the most over-the-top parties! Every kid got a $5 gift card to Yogurt Mountain and a certificate for a free kids meal at Chick-Fil-A as a party favor. That made for two more summer fun runs to help cure the boredom. Thanks, Claire!
Wesley has been begging for months and months to get the Geotrax out of the attic. We had to pack them up when we were getting ready to sell our old house, and they've been stored away ever since. I think Wes actually forgot about them until we potty trained Tate and then Wes remembered his first Geotrax set being his reward for filling up his potty chart. Tate is about the age Wesley was when we had that most magical Christmas of all when Santa brought a million Geotrax! I wish we could wait until Christmas and amaze Tate like Santa did Wesley that year, but the big kids make that problematic. So we just pulled them down from the attic and started filling everything with batteries. Tate was pretty excited when he realized we've been sitting on (or living under) a gold mine this whole time!
This boy loves his Anna Kate! And this my friends, is how you survive summer!
