Summer's a-Comin'

Wow! Time is passing so quickly! School here is out June 12th. According to my son, that's 17 more school days. It seems like after spring break I get all excited for summer and start making plans. This year's a little different as I'm planning to be out of commission for a bit of it, but as of today, I'm realizing that I'd better at least get a bit of a plan together.

I went and found the schedule for the free movies. They're Tuesday and Wednesday mornings starting at 10am. It looks like there are only a few we'll miss this year. I'm hoping Z will pick up where I leave off with taking the kids. I'm also hoping that T will be able to sit through them this year without too much extra work. It always seems like it's particularly hard between 1 and 2 years; at least it has been for my other kids.

One of the kids brought home a flyer from the school district for their free summer lunch (and breakfast) program too. This is actually what got me thinking about making plans. We started doing this when it was at Z's school one year. It has carried over. This year it's at Z's school again. It's open to anyone in the community and has been great for my preschool kids to learn how to get lunch at a school so that when they start school it's not any big deal for them.

So, in years past, we have had a regular routine for our summer days. One day a week we'd go to the library (and the fountain next to it); one day we'd go to a different park in the area; two days we'd go to the movies; for part of the summer Z has Friday's off, so we'd either take a family day trip or go to the zoo or OMSI. I'm just a spaz that doesn't like to be home when the sun's out. So, we get our jobs done and head out the door. It's also been our tradition to go get workbooks for the kids to work on to keep up on their skills when they're sitting around in the afternoon saying they're bored. I'm foreseeing a lot of these times with a new baby and a recovering mom.

Oooh, just thinking about these things makes me excited for summer! A couple other things we like to do--berry picking and jam making, running through the sprinkler, eating lots of popsicles, etc. We're awaiting a new basketball hoop for our backyard. The last one got trashed; we'd had it since G was 3-ish. He's now 13, so I figure that's a good life. I'm sure that'll be a big hit for the little boys.