Nothing like summer!

Ah, summer! Nothing like the unfettered schedule and endless hours of freedom. It sure can lead to some incredible feats of imagination, like this puppet show...

or this adorable Red Witch...

And it's definitely hot enough to spend time in the water! We were so happy to be able to go to Typhoon Texas again.

I guess 'unfettered' isn't exactly correct, since the kids still went to swim team practice every morning. Hadley's practice was at 7am once there was no school, and she diligently set her alarm every night to wake up earlier than she had to for school. Talk about dedication! Adjustments were made to have 'virtual swim meets' where each swim team swam at their own pool and then compared times with another team swimming at their pool. It still required a lot of volunteer efforts from parents, as we had 4 competitive meets and someone still had to setup/clean up, herd the age groups back and forth to the pool in the right lane, time them, feed them, etc. Here's what it looks like on Swim Meet Day.

H swam 6 races (freestyle relay, 4 strokes, and medley relay) at each meet this year, and O swam 7 (added the IM), so they racked up a lot of ribbons! Owen also bumped up to race with 11-12 year-olds, and had to swim 50m distances this year (down and back). At least meets were on Thursday evenings (slightly cooler than Saturday mornings?), though kids were there from 4:30-10pm.

Also, with my new full-time working gig, we sprinkled several summer camps in our schedule to stave off workday disruptions and sibling fights. These included basketball camp, art camp, Camp Invention (STEM), and dodgeball camp (at church). Here's Hadley with her week of 'under the sea' themed paintings from art camp. She still loves painting!

Throughout the pandemic, (well, starting in the fall of 2020), my MoMs group held small group meetings to continue our support of each other through this trying season of life. We met in our mentor mom's backyard once a week to talk, pray, and commune with each other when we didn't have a lot of other face-to-face interactions with people. It was a lifesaver! We got the kids together one afternoon once school was out. Notice how my kids tower over the other kids - I guess we're at the end of random playdates, although mine still enjoyed the water slide in their clothes!

We saw the cousins a few times. Here, they're all watching a movie together, and Will actually fell asleep right where he was sitting.

Lastly, June is for fathers, as we all know. We love this guy, and we're always up for cake!