Married With Instruments: First Week of Summer

Phew Summer is just flying by! My weeks with the kids have been so action packed I've decided to just do each week as it's own post otherwise each week will end up with 4-5 separate posts, so here goes week 1!

On our first official day of summer Brooke and I had to take Jake to the "new" park (ie Blandair Park in Columbia, MD). It is pretty cool although when we first got there I felt bad for Jake as there was noone his age. Never fear though because after we had been there about 30 min one of Jake's classmates showed up! The kids ended up having an absolute blast especially once Olivia and her brothers showed up.

Olivia with her twin brothers and Jake and Brooke all crammed on!

Brooke and one her friends from Pre-School!

Relaxing in the shade!

As always my budding photographer (Brooke) stole my camera for some shots....

Day 2 started with a karaoke performance by Brooke with backup dancing from Jake....

Then we moved onto the Swing Park where we very quickly accomplished one of our goals for the summer.....teaching Jake to pump himself on the swing!!! I was *soooo* proud. It was so neat to see both of the kids finally pumping themselves....

While at the swing park we took a walk to "Rockstone Heaven"...a name we came up with to describe essentially a stream surrounded by a bed of small rocks. The kids always have a blast wading in the water and seeing how big of a splash the different rocks can make. Today ended up being a little special since there was actually a class party going on at a nearby pavilion and they had a D.J that we ended up being able to hear from the stream. It was so cool to have a music in the background while they were playing.

Ker-splash!!!!

Doesn't she look like a little ballerina?

She is intentionally trying to dip her hair in the water

Day 3's adventure took us to the sandbox park where everything was going fine until it was almost time to leave....I was reading a book on the bench as Jake and Brooke were playing together. I heard Jake say "Okay Brooke it's ready" and I didn't think much of it until Brooke started complaining about not being able to find her flip-flops. At this point Jake explained that he made her a scavenger hunt in the sandbox for her flip flops, his monster truck and a little plastic cup we had brought with us. I told Jake that he had to help his sister find all that since the sandbox was big and she was getting frustrated. In return he gave me a blank stare and said he didn't remember where he had buried each thing. We found the flip-flops fairly quickly however it took us a while to find his monster truck. We were eventually successful although we had to give up on the plastic cup. By the time we were done here is what the sandbox looked like.....

In exchange for the cup we did find a few other "treasures" to take with us....

Cup..where are you????

After that outing at the park I needed a drink....okay in reality all the Moms from Jake's Kindergarden class had already planned an outing that they kindly invited me to! It was the first time Tracy and I had gone out drinking together (that took way too long to happen) and since Wednesday night happens to be half-priced bottle of wine night Tracy and I split a bottle.

We had such a fun time out, hopefully we can do another one before I move!!

Thursday of that week found us at our usual spot...the mall for Miss Julie's storytime. Overall Jake decided he was "too cool" for most of it however I eventually got him to participate at least a little!