One Week Down…

Today you get a true ‘Friday E-mail’. Just like back in the beginning, before blogging was the thing to do, when I’d send that bulk e-mail out on Fridays. Enjoy my friends!

Last Friday was the kids’ last day of preschool for the summer. Well, for Jack it was the last day ever, he’s moving on to greener pastures named kindergarten, but you know what I mean. It was a tough decision for me. See their preschool runs year round. Granted the numbers drop and the classroom time is a little more lax in the summer but it’s still there as long as you are willing to pay tuition.

Looking at how our summer schedule is rapidly filling, and considering it might be good to make a clean break with Jack before transitioning him to Kindergarten, not to mention the savings from not paying tuition all summer, we made the call to pull the kids at the beginning of June as soon as my half marathon was finished.

This was our first week of ‘summer vacation.’ So far its going pretty well. In typical FS field season fashion Kevin was gone Monday to Wednesday so we added ‘single parent’ stint to the mix for kicks and giggles. Monday we did our normal thing as the kids have never had school on Monday’s anyway. That involved Library story time and a quick visit to the park. While at the Library I signed the kids up for the summer reading program. These two have a 50 book goal for the summer. It’s a 10 week program so it works out to 2 books/day 5 days/week. No biggie, thought I am reading a lot of books about tractors, cranes, bulldozers, semi-trucks, etc. Thankfully, I also have a child who likes storybooks so it evens out.

Tuesday morning we went and walked the walking path at the hospital campus. Halfway around we discovered Jack’s bike had picked up a goathead and was going flat. That meant we didn’t get the second time around like I’d hoped. Instead we detoured to Wally World and picked up a new inner tube (self sealing this time). Jack was pretty put out about that at first. He really wanted to go to the ‘tire store’ (Les Schwab) to get his tire fixed. It took a lot of explaining to convince him that they probably don’t fix bike tires as Les Schwab…he was still pretty disappointed.

We also went and picked out some new fish for our tank. Our older Tetra went belly up a few weeks back and our Plecostomus had gotten so large that I felt sorry for him in our little 10 gallon tank. A friend with a 100 gallon tank was kind enough to take him, but that left our tank with no algae eater types. Picking out two new Tetras and a algae eater (a true algae eater this time – they don’t get near as big) was not to big a problem. Convincing Emilie that Tilly has enough tennis balls and doesn’t need 15 more was an entirely different issue. “But she needs a PINK one!” I was told. “She has plenty of balls sweetie. Besides, dogs are colorblind, she can only see shades of gray.” Emilie wasn’t really convinced but I let her stuff her pockets with a couple of dog treats from the dish on the counter to take home to Tilly. I’m pretty sure Em, ate the treats during the car ride home and Tilly never got one, but that’s a whole different issue.

Wednesday morning Jack asked if he could go to preschool and play with his friends. Twist the guilt knife in my gut a little more kiddo….. I told him we’d have some of his friends over to our house on Thursday but today we were going to the park. We took the bikes (yep, fixed Jack’s flat all by myself) and rode the bike path. Then the kids played on the playground while I tried to get some exercise in using playground equipment. Jack even lucked out and met a little boy to play with. He tells me the kid’s name was ‘Frisbee’ which I’m guessing is not the case. However, said little boy was calling Jack ‘Fruitcake’ so I think it was a fair exchange. Frisbee & Fruitcake….sounds like they could fight crime…..

After the playground was exhausted the kids wanted to go run up and roll down the big hill. I practiced my power walking (my next big ‘race’ is a walking relay from Portland to Seaside) on the bike path since I can see them the whole time I’m walking at that location. Then the kids convinced me to roll down the hill with them…twice, and I spent the next 45 minutes feeling dangerously queasy. Apparently rolling down hills is another of those things that becomes harder to handle as an adult.

Thursday our friends came over to play as promised and Today we are going to head to the park and then hit the Summer Reading Program’s Friday event. Today a guy from the airshow is coming to talk about being a pilot. There is also a paper airplane craft and paratrooper game. Sounds like fun to me.

So far we are keeping busy (but not too busy) which seems to be the key to a fun summer. I’m trying to plan things in the morning when it’s cool then we just do whatever tweaks our fancy in the afternoon. I still have my ‘chores’ like tending the garden, lawn mowing, and laundry. The kids are each doing either a worksheet or some other ‘school’ activity for 30 minutes to an hour each day. We also try and spend some time in the kitchen. This week we baked cookies. Getting my regular exercise in has been the hardest thing. However, I’ve been researching exercises I can do using playground equipment (yes, I’ll be the nutty mom over on the monkey bars doing leg lifts while the kids play) and with Jack’s bike working I can do some short jogs/power walk IF (and that’s a big if) Emilie agrees to ride in the stroller. If she’s on he trike and I’m pushing her the intensity of the workout drops, but hey, exercise is exercise and I’ll take what I can get.

Onward to week two!