How we spent our summer

This summer was pretty great. It was a pretty mild weather so we only had a handful of those awful sticky melting days. Also, the bugs were never really bad either. Because of that, we were able to spend more time outside, which is what I prefer. Through our walks outside we were able to track the progress of the corn and soybean crops growing on the USDA farmland near our house.

 The conversation Jack and I had right before this picture was taken:

Jack: Let's play rock stick.

Hilary: How do you play rock stick?

Jack: You throw a rock at a stick.

Jack and Juliet have become quite good buddies. Jack is always calling for Juliet to come do something, and when she hears it she comes running with a smile. Anything Jack does or says, Juliet tries to do the same.  

 This is their rocky game.

Juliet also made friends with the tricycle. I would often find her outside just sitting next to it and observing the world.

 Typical indoor activities included playing with a lot of cars. This is our slide. It came from a leftover piece of plywood from when I extended the countertop in our kitchen. Juliet calls it the “wee”. Nearly everyday after breakfast she'd find a car on the ground and come up to me asking “a wee? A wee?”

 Another typical scene is Jack playing with some marbleworks contraption, while Juliet sits in a box.

 They also manage to make their fair share of messes. For some reason Juliet got into a small tupperware of flour and had a blast playing with it. I thankful it was just flour and not something worse.

On the occasional days when it was too hot to be in our house (no central air means misery) we would take little field trips to places we knew had a/c and where it would be ok if we hung out for a few hours. We spent a lot of time at the library, target and thrift stores to play with toys, Ikea on Tuesdays, looking at birds and fish at the mall, or hanging out at the local NASA visitors center. Then we would generally spend the afternoons in the little kiddie pool in the backyard.

For a nice summer treat to finish off the day, we were able to have free Rita's a few times due to nice mailer coupons.

And now onto our miraculous independence day. As I said before, usually the 4^th of July is pretty sweltering. But, this year it only got to the upper 70's. By evening it was actually cool! We all wore pants! (Side note- we put Juliet in footie pajamas for the first time since spring and she thought they were the funniest things ever, she kept kicking/stomping her legs saying “feet! Feet!”)

Our little city has its own firework display on the little lake, a fifteen minute walk from our house. This was our first year going so I didn't know what to expect, but it was great. It's a small enough deal that we were able to get a  spot right under the fireworks. They were as well done as any other professional show I've seen (except Disney of course). And we didn't even get eaten alive by mosquitoes.

The last miracle of the night came as we were walking home. We were walking the same route Chris takes from his bus stop and he was just commenting on how we were approaching the stretch of path that didn't have any lampposts and how he doesn't like walking though it because it is so dark. We reach the darkness and we notice all this glittering in the trees. There were fireflies everywhere. Thousands of them. This spot of path is in a small clearing with tress all around,  so the entire tall wall of trees was lit up with the bugs.. It was like someone had strung twinkle Christmas lights all over. That sight was one of the most amazing things I've seen.

 We could not get any kind of picture because our point and shoot just doesn't do that, but this is the spot during the day. All throughout the trees, was the constant glitter of the fireflies. If you ever are at our house early summer, we are taking you here.

Next to come are our vacations.