Our Summer 2013 Adventure List

I don't really like to make lists anymore because they stress me out and I am a bit unreasonable with what I think I can accomplish. 

The summer seems to be fading fast if you look at pinterest and people are already planning back to school events and other crazy stuff like that.

I am choosing to ignore any of those things for now and just live it up for the next 4-5 weeks. School doesn't start till the last week of August fortunately.

I do want to keep track of our summer adventures... so here's where I am going to do it... and I'll update this post as things change. 

Here are some of the things we've done or still want to do this summer...

• Road trip to Utah (DONE and we survived. Stay tuned for loads of pictures over the next week or two)

• Ride the Ducks in SF (DONE. We got free tickets for a blog review. I'm sharing all about it next week on Toddler Approved.)

• Go to Santa Cruz and Maryannes. Ice cream and the beach go hand in hand. We might actually have to go twice, once with Kevin... once by ourselves during the week when it is less crowded.

• Explore Muir Woods. The kids have been dying to go to the forest. Andrew acts like he's never been to one. 

• Visit Gilroy Gardens. We have tickets we won in the preschool auction... so we need to go soon!

• Be lazy and spend several days just running to the park in the morning and walking to the pool in the afternoon.

• Try out the new Indian food cafe at Google. Kevin has been raving about it... so I will need to go meet him for lunch sometime soon!

• See Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 (DONE! Kids loved them)

• Paint with water guns (DONE! Blogged about it here... we will need to do it again)

• Explore Baker Beach in SF's Presidio

• Host a few more "Camp Mom" days (We've been doing some of these with our friend Chrissie & kids. We read a kid's book to the kids and then do crafts and activities related to the book)

• Play at Dolores Park (DONE! thanks to the Balena Bucket List!)

• Hike around at Sutro Baths (DONE! Also due to the Balena Bucket List)

• Finally go to Golden Gate Park and roam around it

Any other Bay area spots we need to visit this summer? 

What things are on your summer "to do" list with your kids?

Donut Falls Hike & Ice Cream

When we were out in Utah we celebrated Grandpa Allen's birthday with a a hike, trip to visit Allen's gravesite, dinner at Dickey's BBQ (where my nephew Rob works), and ice cream. 

We started off the day with a hike at Donut Falls. It was hot but awesome. One of Grandpa Allen's favorite activities was hiking with his grandkids... so it was a fitting way to celebrate his birthday.  

Baby Ryan was a champ and was super easy going and my kiddos were hiking rock stars.

Cousins!

Catie loved walking with the big kids and then getting carried by Kevin when she got tired. Andrew had the best time trying to hike super fast with the boys and basically climb anything he could find. He never complained and never stopped moving. Love that kid!

While Andrew climbed, Catie got dirty and wet in the streams!

All the kids with Grandma Shari!

This was our first visit to Allen's gravesite since his funeral over five years ago. It was sweet to see the kids happy and having fun together while we visited this special place. It just reminded me of the happy reunion we will all have together in heaven someday. I have no doubt that my kids got to spend some time with their Grandpa Allen in heaven before they joined us on earth. We have his photo in our living room and Catie and Andrew talk about him often. They think he is super special!

One of Grandpa Allen's other favorite things was ice cream. At his California funeral there was even an ice cream sundae bar. Our favorite way to celebrate his birthday is with ice cream. All the Buskirks and Johnsons ordered big ice cream cones and sundaes at Baskin & Robbins and we had fun sitting around chatting together.

This trip was such a great way to kick off our summer vacation in Utah!

Weekend Adventures

We had a fun and somewhat busy weekend.

After a countdown of over three weeks... we finally got to go see Monsters U! Catie was SO EXCITED! She told me every day for three weeks that we were going to see the new Monsters Inc. show and that daddy and Andrew and her and me were all going and that baby Ryan got to stay home with a babysitter. She was so excited to go to the movie theater!

Catie sat on a booster and inhaled her slurpee and popcorn before we even finished the previews. She ate my milk duds too. About an hour and thirty minutes into the movie she started getting squirmy, so we went to the bathroom for a walking break.

We made it about 15 more minutes and then she just wanted to go back to the bathroom... but really she just wanted to run around in the hall. I let her run around for 10 minutes and then we made it back in for the last 5 minutes of the movie with me just standing in the back holding her.

She now asks constantly if we can go back to the movie theater.

After our movie adventure, we went home and got Ryan from the babysitter and headed to the pool! The Heymans joined us and Ryan got to hang out with his bud Pierce. They had fun crawling on one another to see who could eat the baby puffs the fastest. Andrew & Catie liked having Kate, Macy, Jenny, and Chris to swim with too!

This compilation of photos cracks me up

In the afternoon Andrew and I also did some activities for a blog project I needed to finish. We got a new vacuum for a blog campaign I'm working on with BISSELL. Since I wasn't planning to replace our really lame one anytime soon, this was a nice bonus. Since our house needed to get cleaned up anyway, it worked well that we did some activities using that vacuum. 

Saturday night was spent at the grocery store and prepping for Sunday. Kevin felt terrible for some reason, so he went to bed early. :( Poor guy!

Sunday was spent relaxing, going to a shorter than normal church service (only 1.5 hrs vs 3), and making treats for our church Elders Quorum Ice Cream Social at our house.

I totally panicked and was imagining kids taking handfuls of brownies, so I over baked  Now we have loads of yummy brownie leftovers. 

We had about ten or eleven Elders Quorum families end up coming over with their kiddos and we just kept it simple and had an ice cream sundae bar and brownies/cookies and water. The goal was to socialize and have fun and I did! Hopefully everyone else did too. I think we will need to have one or two more events this summer. It was such a nice and low-key way to spend an evening and so nice to get to chat with friends that I usually only get to wave at when we are running by one another in the halls at church on Sunday!

This next week will be chock full of fun as Andrew heads to Space Odyssey Camp at Camp Galileo! Lucky duck! Can't wait to hear all about all the fun things he does.

Sleeping in Style

We are celebrating this week because everyone in our family is now sleeping in their own new rooms!

We still have decorating to do and clothes to move in, but we all get to snooze in cozy beds. Ryan's not totally sure what to do with all the space he has in his crib... after sleeping in a mini pack n play for 8 months.

He's a big fan of the mobile he inherited from Andrew and tonight he fell asleep before it stopped spinning.

Kevin and I are slowly moving into our master suite. We got a new duvet and have a bed and two night stands arriving soon. The greeny-blue paint color is so soothing and our new window shades close up so tight that we sleep insanely well. The kids actually let us sleep in till 9am the other day (since Catie was up every 1/2 an hour all night long :( ) and we woke up feeling so rested!

I love our new space and an opportunity to start fresh! Makes me feel like we moved into a completely different house. We are purging things and creating new habits that make me so happy.

I love sneaking up to our master suite to just hang out on the cozy carpet all by myself. My next goal is to actually take a bath in our new tub since that hasn't happened yet!

Lately

This little dude started crawling. He has good eyes and spots important things like unattended Hershey kisses and tiny legos. I love how happy he is exploring.

We made homemade ice cream in a baggie. I hadn't done it before and it was a hit. It is amazing what we do when I am bored out of my mind and we are stuck at home for one reason or another.

We got carpet. Andrew's expression is exactly how I feel. It is cozy and awesome.

The kiddos were in heaven playing in the empty rooms filled with carpet.

Ryan is stoked about his new space away from the crazies.

Hopefully later this week we'll get to start moving stuff upstairs and feel settled a bit. Right now everything is so pretty I don't want to mess it up or touch it. I have a date with the jacuzzi some night this week though.

I am working on a blog project called the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp that we are kicking off next week. We're also doing an actual Book Club Summer Camp at our house with some friends for a few hours each week. We had our first get together today. It was crazy, but fun.

We celebrated Kevin's awesomeness over the weekend with several Father's Day events... including a trip to SF Creamery for dinner and dessert and a family swimming party. We also had some water gun battles and we did some diet coke/mentos explosions in our cul de sac (next time we'll use grosser soda since it felt wrong to be wasting DC). The kids absolutely adore their dad, so Catie even managed to wake up at 5:30am on Sunday because she couldn't wait any longer to celebrate him. Made for a very long, yet productive day.

Our days pretty much revolve around saying hi and bye to our painter Ernie who is at our house daily. We have also been enjoying lazy summer days catching up on movies we missed- Wreck-It Ralph and Ice Age are two current favorites. Andrew and Kevin just finished the first Star Wars book and we enjoy light saber battles daily. Grandpa even joined in last week when he was visiting.

We are loving the laziness of summer and are filling our days with playdates and trips to the park and pool. I can already tell this summer is going to go too fast!

Andrew Graduates

Today Andrew had his graduation from Kinderprep. This special little class was a big part of why the past year has been amazing for our family. Eleven kids, one awesome teacher, one wonderful teacher's aide, and many fabulous parents who volunteered time each week to make this last year of preschool extra special and filled with fun & learning.

For graduation today there were no mini graduation caps and gowns or too much hoopla, but the kids sang their little hearts out for parents and grandparents and then received their portfolios from the year along with a simple graduation certificate.

I love seeing how involved the kids were in planning the celebration... from the song list, to the cupcakes, to the beautiful hand-painted tablecloths!

After the kids did their performance and got their certificates, we took pictures and then sat around and had snacks and treats and chatted with friends.

I am going to miss this little class and the friends that both Andrew and I made too! I've loved our playdates and moms nights... which will hopefully continue throughout the summer.

Tomorrow the kids get to enjoy their last day of school with loads of water fun and then we'll kick off our summer vacation. Although we are excited for summer, Andrew is sad to say goodbye to his school and teachers. We are so proud of him and how much he has learned over the past two years at school.

Here is Andrew in preschool on the first day (2011) and here is a photo of Andrew at the end of his Kinderprep year (2013) along with one of his class from this year that I took. What a cute group of kids! Man has Andrew grown up!

Kindergarten here we come!

Tangled Party

Andrew's friend from Kinderprep had her birthday party on Friday night and all the kids from Andrew's class went so it was a great way to start wrapping up the school year! It was almost like a mini end of the year party. These 11 kids have been such cute buddies all year, so it was super sweet to see how much fun they had together!

The party was Tangled themed and it was a PJ movie night, so the kids ate pizza and cupcakes and then watched Tangled and ate popcorn and red vines. Andrew was in heaven!

The birthday girl was quite the party planner and even had a schedule of events and a schedule for present opening. This is Andrew watching her open his present when it was his turn. Hysterical.

The kids got all snuggled and comfy to watch the movie while the moms headed to the kitchen to chat and eat treats. Totally my kind of party :)

Of course we also had to take loads of pictures of the kids because they looked so adorable watching the movie together.

After about 45 minutes of the movie I went home to relieve Kevin of Ryan duty and a friend brought Andrew home so he could stay and watch the end of the movie.

He has been talking about the party all weekend and loved the time he got to spend with all of his friends! I cannot believe my little guy is going to kindergarten next year! Crazy how big he is now! We have been so lucky to be part of such a wonderful community at his school for the past two years. This year was so special with a fabulous teacher and such a small class with such darling kids. They will all be missed (and I will miss the moms too!)!