Summer!

I thought that with school ending for the summer, that I'd have more time.  I would blog, and clean my house, and organize my closets, and finish a gazillion projects that are in all stages of completion.

I do have more time, but I feel as busy as ever; it's just a different kind of busy.

We've camped with friends, put up a swimming pool, gone to a horse show, ran a race, gotten rid of a lot of junk, done some reading, taken an online class, done some baby sitting, gone to riding lessons, gone swimming, gone to Nantucket (Zeke), and are now hosting a child from NYC through the Fresh Air Fund.

I planned to do a bunch of posts, but that probably won't happen, so here are pics from our summer so far:

Ryley showed at a local 4-H show.

Her project horse is Willow, Aunt Lisi's Clydesdale cross.

She's a huge horse, and Ry did a great job handling her!

We finally got our pool set up and had to have water hauled in.

We had left home to go camping and had to come home to meet the water guy.

(We have a well that holds about 4% of what we needed to fill the pool.)

I didn't do a very good job taking photos during our 4 day camping experience.

It rained A LOT.

Most photos I did take were of these cuties.

We came home to a full pool.

The kids have been in it every day.

I only go in when it's hot out, which hasn't happened much.

This picture gets more than three sentences!  My colleague (and Zeke's teacher), Nancy, told me months ago that she was going to run her first 5k this summer.  It took place in her town and Zeke and I joined her.  Zeke did great!  He finished in about 27 minutes and was only 2 seconds away from being third in his age group.  The kids who beat him were 4-5 years older than him.  I did okay, about 31 minutes.  Next goal:  under 30!  We're running again on the 4th of July.

It's been raining here a lot.

Places are getting flooded.

We get outside whenever the rain stops for a minute or two.

JD's grandmother lives down by the lake and has a nice pool.

We went to visit her on Sunday, and Zeke was happy to have a cousin there to play with.

Quin loves that Memere always has jelly beans!

We have a little visitor this week from NYC.  Y is 6 and has been a great little guy so far.  Many local attractions give passes to Fresh Air Fund families, so I decided to take advantage of one and go to Shelburne Farms today.  Along with my three kids and Y, I also had the two DV boys who I'm watching a few days a week this summer.  The kids were all well behaved and had a lot of fun.

These two were obsessed with picking up the chickens.

I keep telling them that these photos will be shown at their wedding :)

Ian's mom and I were prego together, so we have lots of pictures of them through the years.

And another.

Zeke's first 5k!

A really late post about May's 5k:

A week before the 5k, we put in a run of 3.5 miles, and we were ready to run the Shoreham Apple Blossom Derby (considered a 5k, but actually closer to 3.5 miles).  During the week, we planned to get another run in, but Ryley got sick and we had to change our plans.  Plans changed even more when I got sick and woke up on race day with a fever and headache.  I couldn't walk without pain, let alone run, so bummed as I was, I sent JD and the kids to the run and I went back to bed.  Zeke still wanted to run, and it turned out to be great for him that I wasn't there.  He ran alone for most of the race and beat my time from last year by 6 minutes!  He came in 10th overall (there were about 50 people running the 5k) and had a time of 28 minutes.  I was so proud of him!  He loved it and is eager to run more.

Comparing numbers with schoolmates.

Finishing strong!

Myrtle Beach, May, and more

And it's May!  It's been in the high 70s the last three days and absolutely beautiful.

A little back-blogging:

I celebrated my birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I finally decided to get a smart phone after resisting a data plan for years.  Thanks JD!  I bought myself a Silhouette Cameo after saving my "spend money" for a few months.  I haven't taken it out of the box yet as I know I won't get anything else done if I do!  JD and I went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Black Sheep, and dinner was on my brother Jason thanks to Christmas gift certificates.  It was a lovely day :)

Two days later, we packed up the minivan and drove 16 hours to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  The drive went well and we settled into our home away from home for a week.  We had a double condo unit with our friends, Jeff and Julia, and their five kids.  The weather was cool for the first couple of days but warmed up enough to spend the day at the beach getting roasted enjoying the sun.

Our first stop on the way down was at Cabela's in Hamburg, PA.

We entertained Quin with trains,

lollipops, and more.

It was incredibly windy at the beach on Sunday,

but Emily, Troy, and Zeke still went in the water.

Broadway at the Beach was a fun shopping area.

We even bought the kids a taste of home.

These fish were gross, just begging for food.

We went to Ripley's Aquarium.  

It was smaller than expected, but the fish were cool.

The shark tunnel was my favorite part.

Buddies.

Nemo and Dory!

Quin loved the indoor pool at the resort.

And I recommend Puddle Jumpers life jackets!

The lazy river was fun, but a little cool for me.

Quin took Jordyn for a ride at the playground.

Our first beach day came when the temps were higher.

The kids made a huge castle in this tide pool.

They enjoyed the boogie boards that we brought from home.

They tried to save their fortress from the incoming tide.  And failed.

This was our view the day we (Julia and I) finally took a morning walk on the beach.

We hit Target a couple of times.

No Target in Vermont :(

This kid was awesome the whole way home :)

We did a little mini-golfing, the bigger kids went to a NASCAR Speedpark, and some went to an amusement park on the Boardwalk.  We went shopping, ate too much ice cream, the moms got pedicures, and we ate out and ate in.  It was a great trip and I'll probably go back sometime!

Back to the present:

We've been going non-stop since we got home.  JD has been going to work early and staying late.  The kids have had baseball or softball almost every night this week.  I'm trying to get this post done before we head off to another game tonight.

May has a 5k in store for Zeke and I, lots of crazy busyness as we finish the school year, and projects that I hope to finish.  Happy May, and HAPPY FRIDAY!!! to all.

Hello, April.

The first week of one of my favorite months was filled with crazy busyness.  Baseball and wrestling overlapped for Zeke, Ry started softball and had 4-H, I had report cards to deal with, I hosted Book Club, and JD started getting much busier at work.

Saturday was supposed to be Zeke's last wrestling tournament, but it didn't work out for me to bring him, so I had a day at home with the kids instead.  We were really productive and when JD got home, we ran to the box store across the lake for clear organizing totes for Operation Basement.

A few reasons I'm excited about April:
-My birthday!
-Warm(er) weather
-Family vacay with friends to Myrtle Beach (I've never been)
-Baseball and softball craziness with the kiddos
-Not packing snow pants, boots, hats, gloves, etc. every day

I signed up for two 5ks!  I did one 5k in 2011 and one in 2012, so already signing up for two is an improvement.  I've been running short distances on my treadmill sporadically and went for my first outside run yesterday.  Zeke's been wanting to run a 5k, so I wanted to see if he could run that far.  We headed towards Julia's house, just under 3 hilly miles away, and we made it (without walking), so, at age 7, he's signed up for his first 5k!  The 5k that he'll be doing with me is in May.  It's the same one I did last year.  (That race recap is here.)

The second isn't until September, but I'm already looking forward to it.  It's a Color Vibe run and only about 20 minutes away.  So far we have a team of 18 people planning on running.  If you're local, join the fun!

(image from thecolorvibe.com)

Some pictures and words

Zeke had a tournament in Springfield, VT on Saturday, so we went down on Friday afternoon and spent the night at our friends' house.

He got second place, and only missed getting first by 1 point in his last match.

Ryley got to ride Sybil while we were there.

JD took all of the boys on a very slow ride on the driveway.

Kien and Quin had fun in the mud.

They made mud soup which ended up all over them.

On Sunday morning, the Easter bunny showed up at our house.

Actually, it was Dolly.

She was quite a sight.

After church, we went to JD's mom and step-dad's to find Easter baskets and go on a little egg hunt.

Then it was back to our house where my brother Jason and Dolly's boyfriend Erik had hidden eggs everywhere.

The goats enjoyed the hunt as well.

Jason needed to give a few hints near the end.

Ryley's racing to find more than the boys.

Quin has this hunting-for-Easter-eggs business figured out.

After dinner, JD played a little softball with the kids.

Little League starts this week!