4th of July and the Time I Realized I Wasn't 10 Years Old Anymore

June came and went, and July has come in with a bang! Ball is coming to a close. We cheered Jaedyn on in  her last game on Monday, and we will watch Carter finish off the season tomorrow night. As busy as June was with flying to ball games four nights a week, I really did enjoy watching them play, so July will be a little different.

 Carter had day camp and Sawyer, swimming lessons. Anything and everything that was on my to-do list at the start of the summer is still there without a clean pen strike through it. I've been busy, but also enjoying the summer thus far, and really....I have not one ounce of shame. I should, mind you, but I don't. I have enjoyed sleeping in until the kids wake up at 10:00, even though half of my morning is gone. I can try to justify it by telling you that even though I wake up three mornings a week  (on most weeks) to go for a run or hit up body pump, come home, shower and go back to sleep until 10, it's technically like waking up at 8:00 because I was up for two hours in between. Nevertheless, half of my summer is about over and I know I need to get my butt into gear, and I fully intend to....starting tomorrow.

It wouldn't be fair, however, not to welcome July properly. Therefore, the fun-o-meter was in the red zone this week, and with there being a holiday involved, there may have been a little freak flag waving. I'll try to keep the words to a minimum, and let the pictures do most of the talking!

Monday was a fun day! I was living on about 6 hours of sleep for the entire weekend, and Amy had to work, so it was a mutual decision that we would move our Monday run to Tuesday. It was glorious to get some good rest! We spent the afternoon at the pool with some friends and then headed to Gettings' Garden to pick some strawberries once Dan got off work. I think that I had been looking forward to this bucket list item the most. There is just something about freshly picked strawberries that makes one a happy camper. 11 1/2 pounds of strawberries have made the Wolfswinkels quite happy this week! Top it off with Jaedyn's last softball game, and Monday was a successful introduction to July, indeed.

Little man definitely ate more strawberries than he picked. It's a good thing you don't get charged for those!

We've almost gone through an entire gallon of ice cream since Monday making shakes and sundaes. YUM!

Seriously. Heaven. Carter calls them "God's candy"

Fresh strawberry lemonade. Dan was in love!

We hardly tapped into our rows and wound up with close to 12 pounds of strawberries.

Took this along to Mom's on 4th of July. I'm thinking I need to make another just for us this week.

 Wednesday night was the 4th of July celebration at the Village in Sheldon. A few years ago, we went and rode the firetrucks and went on the horse and buggy rides and played a few carnival games. This year, Despicable Me 2 was playing and so we opted to go to the movie before the fireworks, instead. We did end up getting a ride in the horse buggy once before we had to go which was fun. The kids were bummed that the fire trucks weren't ready, but there's always next year.

After the movie, we headed over to what we thought was an open lot. We had watched fireworks there last year and it was the perfect place to go, not too busy at all. In fact this year, there was only one other family that was there. Turns out, that other family owned the lot, and we were totally trespassing, but they were super nice and told us we could come back again next year if there wasn't a house on it yet. Minus the mosquitoes that ate me alive, I'd say it was a pretty good night!

Thursday was the 4th of July, so Dan's four day weekend had started.  A headache pushed my run back to about 9:00 instead of 6:45, and boy, that sun is HOT. It's no wonder we wake up at 5 AM to run on most days. We packed up our coolers and swim bags and headed for Lost Island Lake in Ruthven for an afternoon of boating, swimming and relaxation. It was horribly windy, but so much fun. Days like that remind me how much I'd love to own a lake house and a boat someday. That is by far at the top of my "Life Bucket list" and so I hope that once these stupid student loans are obsolete, we can afford a small $200,000 trailer to spend our summers. :) Hey, a girl can dream!

Sawyer rules the roost. When Grandpa's not around, it is "his" boat.

A bunch of onlookers gave Dan nasty looks when they saw him throw Sawyer off the dock. We had to chuckle because if you had seen the ear to ear smile he had on his face, you would know how much he loved it!

It took quite a bit of coaxing from Jae to convince Sawyer that the dock was just like the diving board at the pool. He started of jumping off the sides as if almost breaking your legs in the shallow beat jumping into deeper water. At one point, I saw him standing on the end of the dock bending his knees and straightening his knees, watching people jump off in front of him. It reminded me of the day I broke my ankle and when he finally jumped off about 5 minutes later, I had to hold my breath as if something bad was going to happen. Of course it didn't, and he regretted not jumping off earlier as it was almost time to leave.

It was definitely a rocky beach, but there is still little better than sand in between my toes and waves splashing over my feet.

Carter isn't nearly the water baby my other two are, and he was very content sitting on the shore, making tracks out of sand for his matchbox cars and letting his dad bury him in the sand.

These two are dare-devils if I've ever seen one. Jaedyn is nearly as brave as her dad on that thing. When she was finally able to go alone, she had some air time that I couldn't believe didn't knock her over. I would have gotten some more pictures, but we were getting so wet, and with the wind and waves, my camera was best kept safe in a dry spot!

We spent that evening at Mom and Dave's house, shooting off fireworks and eating strawberry pie. We gave the kids baths and lathered them up in some Baby Magic before throwing on their PJ's and heading home. Fourth of July=Almost Perfection. If Amy and Colin would have been around, it would have been perfection for sure!

The rest of the weekend has been just as heavenly. We've spent a lot of time together hanging out, recouping from the week and enjoying each other's company. We've finished off smoke balls, spent lots of time at the pool, had family night with a Top Chef competition, watched a movie outside on the projector and "slept" on the trampoline. Today we enjoyed lunch with my dad and Dan and I saw The Heat.

As I reread this, it sounds very "glamorous". I could tell you that Wednesday night, Carter had a fit because his glo stick didn't glow, Sawyer had to be drug along on his knees because he wanted to ride on the firetrucks. The mosquitoes were so bad during the fireworks, it was hard for me to enjoy them. Thursday, Dan and I fought most of the day about nothing I can remember today, Carter and Sawyer fought most of the afternoon over who got which matchbox cars. Sleeping on trampoline, though at the top of the kids' bucket list, was miserable. Everybody rolled to the middle, my hand was in an awkward place all night. My daughter kicked me in the face, the hand, the leg; my husband asked me what time it was every hour, and nobody slept until we all came inside at 4:45 am, slept through our church alarm and didn't wake up until 10:30. This morning my back pain reminded me I am no longer 10 years old anymore, blah, blah, blah. The list is endless really. I choose not to add all that because those aren't the things I want to remember.

 Our lives aren't perfect, but hindsight is 20/20. I choose to remember the little things that will become the big things later. Sure there was bickering and fighting and back pain and messy houses, but my kids' memory buckets are filled to the brim this week. Even though nobody actually slept on the trampoline last night, my kids can't stop talking about it. And those things, my friends are what I choose to relish in. Sometimes, you do things just to leave an imprint on your children's lives.

This week, I plan on getting my nose to the grindstone. I am going to deep clean rooms in my house, work on putting pictures in albums, purge crap that isn't needed, and tie up some loose ends. I will also head to the pool, read my book, draw chalk outlines with my kids, eat popsicles, and cheer on my middle on his last baseball game of the season. It's all about balance. Ebb and Flow baby. Ebb and Flow.

Enjoying the summer things. ~Mandi