After a week off, it’s time to start 3rd and 1st grades! I really can’t believe it.
Since it was Day 2 of my new job, I wasn’t able to be home that morning for pictures and their send off. But Matt snapped a few of for me.
I love these of them looking at each other. Was that staged, Matthew??
She doesn’t love her Bubba (or her Avocado as she was calling him this morning) much, does she???? I love the look on his face!
Good luck, Will & Avery!! Knock their socks off!
We headed east for a nice long weekend at the coast for the holiday weekend. Yes, it blew like crazy, but we still made the best of it. Looked up showed up at NaNa’s house just a moment before we did!
He gets loved on just a little bit, believe it or not. Ha!
The first morning Avery was up at the crack of dawn, whining to go to the beach. I guess the girl needed some salty air and sandy toes. Uncle Matt came to the rescue FINALLY (her words, not mine!!!). We headed to a shoal behind Bird Shoal and spent a fun day throwing the cast net, swimming and eating!
Bubba threw this cast net no less than 3,000 times over the course of the weekend. I am not sure he ever caught a single fish. He didn’t get the “cast net” gene from Uncle Matt, that’s for sure.
This little one caught fish with a scoop net, threw the cast net some, swam, ran and generally had F-U-N!
This little guy has the cutest little boat and he had fun in the water. The best part was when he had his hands on the steering wheel and was making motorboat noises with his mouth.
Then he had to take a nap!
Speaking of taking the helm, this girl was our captain all weekend! She did such a fine job too! Hearing her banter with Uncle Matt as he made he drive through marshes and over shoals was so cute!
We also introduced the kids to sparklers. Only I made them go to bed at their normal time so we had during the daylight sparklers, which isn’t nearly as fun! But they don’t know the difference.
The next day we headed out again, but with a smaller crew. Mr. Will was the cast net king again. Avery did her usual.
I caught the only fish of the day! My dad would be proud. Well, maybe not of a lizard fish!
“Official” 4th of July picture!
We hosted a 4th of July cookout that evening for some family and “fr-amily” (friends that are like family!!!). We played a great game of “Pass the Baby” and “Watch the Baby”. What on earth did we do before Sir Walter arrived??
We ended the night sitting at the west end of Ann Street, watching the Beaufort fireworks. We also ended up having an awesome view of the Morehead and Atlantic Beach fireworks! What a cool place to be.
I feel like the kids just started 2nd grade and kindergarten and I blinked my eyes and the school year was over!
Because I wasn’t working at the end of June, I was able to walk and get the kids each afternoon, including the last day of school (which was on a Tuesday which just felt weird!). Aunt Liz made a surprise visit, which was a lot of fun for me and the kids. Love this picture of the three of them!
Later that afternoon we met Tiffany and her girls at the pool. Every time I think about my friendship with Tiffany and how it has evolved over the last 20+ years, only for us to be inseparable besties again with kids literally almost the exact same ages (as in there are only a few days between the birthdays of each set of our kids!!!), well……
The next day I told the kids to pick an adventure and we would make it happen. They had the option of each picking something and I told them I would fun about $10/pp for each adventure. They jointly decided on Frankie’s Fun Park. We went to Target first to pick out a “back to school” outfit for each of them and then we had fun!
Putt-putt….my kids are really bad at putt-putt. But we had a lot of fun and thankfully it wasn’t crowded at all so we were able to take our time and go over the 5 stroke limit on each hole. By like 15 strokes but who is counting. If they would stop putting in an ambidextrous manner, they would be much better!
Stopping for a dance break when the sound system belted out “Everybody Dance Now.”
Us 3 Musketeers!
They each chose an attraction (or subtraction as Avery kept calling it) to ride. Will chose this spinning, swinging thing that makes me want to barf just looking at it. He was the only kid on it too! After it started going I never could get another picture of him as the ride was spinning and swinging so fast. I got lots of great pics of empty seats on the ride though!
Avery chose the go-carts, which was really, really funny. I am not sure she has ever driven one by herself before. Maybe once. And she was sooooo funny. Pushing the gas and brake at the same time and basically not letting the 2 little boys pass(lap) her. She even ran one of them into a wall. She was just a laughing the whole time!!
Getting love from her number one fan when she was done racing!
They each brought their own money for the arcade. Avery spent $10 and her prizes were 13 small pixie sticks and a dum dum lollipop. I need to teach her the finer points of economics of a fun park vs the dollar store!
They picked McD’s for lunch…surprise, surprise. Then the next day we had some water balloon fun. I’m adding water balloons to my list of things that were much more fun when I was a kid. Also on that list are the Snoopy Sno Cone and the Game of Life. But we really did have a lot of fun with them…..just filling them was a pain with my 3 helpers but I finally convinced the boys to throw baseball and Avery and I got into a good rhythm with them.
While we love year-round school so much and find it to be a great kid for both kids (but for different reasons), this little glimpse of summer vacation was fun and made me long a little bit for a traditional school calendar. But, it was not a typical year since I am normally not off for days on end for these activities so summer vacation isn’t something our household would really have regardless of the school calendar with me working. I am so thankful for the time I had off in June between jobs. I loved being with the kids so much.
A great weekend at the beach is next!!
