Why I Love Being a Mom in the Summertime

There are so many things I love about summer. Swimming. Long days. Popsicles. Ice Cream. Watermelon. Corn on the cob. There are a few things I don't like, mainly involving heat and too much sun, but the things I like outweigh the things I dislike about summer. Summer as an adult is different from summer as a kid. But when you get to be a mom, some of summer's childhood greatness comes back. As I think back to the great memories from my childhood, they mostly revolve around summer and Christmas--the two highlights of the kid year. As a parent, I get to try to give my kids some of those same great memories and traditions. And it kind of brings back the kid in me. I get to participate in all their fun summer kid stuff.

This is the first summer that my kids have taken swimming lessons, but it has brought back a flood of memories for me. Swimming lessons were always the highlight of our summer (along with our trip to Morro Bay). I don't know how my parents afforded to put all 5 of us in swimming lessons every summer, but we had them. Now, unlike my kids, we did not have a pool readily available to us. We had some neighbors with a pool who sometimes let us swim in it and then there were the Hunters around the corner who let us swim in their pool. But for the most part, swimming lessons were our pool time in the summer. We looked forward to them with great enthusiasm.

This started me thinking about other great summer things and I thought of Thrifty's ice cream. We used to go in there sometimes to get an ice cream cone. My dad routinely bought the great big boxes of their ice cream to keep in our freezer. Every summer when we went to Morro Bay, we would ride our bikes from the campground into town to the local Thrifty's. We'd all have a big triple scoop cone for lunch and then we'd ride back to the campground. Today I got a hankering for a Thrifty's ice cream cone and wanted to share that with my kids. Thrifty's got bought out several years ago by Rite Aid, but the stores that used to be Thrifty's still have the counter for ice cream cones and I think they pretty much all at least sell the ice cream in the freezer section. I decided that Thrifty's cones would be a great treat for after swimming lessons today and I checked where the nearest Rite Aid was, crossing my fingers that they'd have the cones. Well, we lucked out. It's very close to us and has the cones. (Sara--this is the one right by your house.) The kids loved it and so did I. And I couldn't believe what a good deal it was. It's a far cry from the $0.30 single scoops of my childhood, but is still a pretty good deal. We got double scoop cones (and these were pretty good size scoops) for $1.69 each. A single kids scoop at Baskin Robbins is $1.99. The kids decided that the double scoops were a bit large for them to eat, so tomorrow they are getting single scoops (at their own request). I had a double scoop of Pecan Praline, which is absolutely wonderful, and Chocolate brownie, which is also very good. Ruby got chocolate brownie and vanilla. And Russell, not quite sure how to decide on more than one flavor, got two scoops of strawberry. I love the scoops they use there. I wish I could get an ice cream scoop like that.

A fun tradition that I started with the kids and would like to keep up is the summer road trip. A few years ago I decided that it was dumb for me and the kids to be stuck home all summer just because Charles didn't have much vacation time. So, I decided to pack the kids in the car and take a two week trip to Utah to visit some friends and relatives. I had my cell phone and I used McDonald's online trip planner to figure out where all the McDonald's with play grounds were along my route and which exits I needed to take to get to them. I planned how far I would drive in a day and where I would spend the night and off we went. It worked great. Russell was still a nursing baby at the time, so we would stop and eat and I'd nurse Russell while Ruby played on the playground.

That trip was such a success that the following year we expanded it. We went for four weeks and visited Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. We had a fabulous time, but I was really ready to come home by the time the four weeks were up just because it was hard to be away from Charles for so long. And our last stop was at my mother-in-law's house in Idaho. I was already really missing Charles by that time and all the pictures of him at her house didn't help. Next time we'll fit her in earlier in our trip.

Charles loves it when we go on these trips. Whenever I suggest that the kids and I might like to take a trip, he doesn't even hesitate to say yes. Sometimes he doesn't even let me get the details out. While we're gone he watches movies that I have no interest in and he loves that the house is in the same condition when he gets home as it was when he left in the morning. He does miss us, though. Last year, due to the extremely high price of gas, we didn't get to do the big trip. We just did a short trip to Utah with my brother for a family reunion. It was fun, but I can't say I liked the whirlwind pace of the trip. If I'm going to drive that far, I like to stay a little longer. This year, what with moving in the middle of the summer, we haven't gotten to take a trip either. I've been hankering for one since the weather started getting nice in the spring. I'm thinking we'll have to do one during one of the breaks from school. Like the "ski week" in February or during spring break. Maybe a weekend trip up to see my cousin Carolyn. School starts in less than two weeks and it seems like the summer just barely began. I'll have to plan a good trip for next summer. Maybe we can take off as soon as school gets out. I'm hoping that these trips will be cherished memories for my kids when they get older. I know I enjoy them. I need to go camping, too. It's been a couple years since I've been camping. Maybe I'll plan a short trip up the coast to see the big redwoods. That would be fun.

Attack of the Five-Foot-Tall Weeds

Yesterday was a cool morning, so I decided to tackle the weeds in our front/side yard. We had gotten a notice about them last week. I hardly ever go on that side of the house, so I hadn't noticed how bad they were. Some of them were seriously about as tall as I am. I also pulled out some things that had died and some baby palm trees that had decided to start growing on their own. Some of these put up quite a struggle. A couple of the really big weeds had roots at least as big around as my thumb. I ended up having to saturate the ground with water and then dig out the roots. After filling by trash bin with weeds and such, I came to the conclusion that I need a yard trimmings cart. The park handles all our trash service so I spoke to them about getting one. I should have had one already, but apparently somebody took it.

Unfortunately, the yard is planted entirely in succulents with a few actual cacti thrown in. The stupid plants kept stabbing me while I was pulling weeds. I've got scrapes all over my arms. I do plan to rip the plants out and put in something that actually looks nice, but I have to come up with a plan and present it to the park for approval first. Luckily, they are not likely to object to the removal of the existing plants. And yes, I had already planned to remove them before I was attacked by them.

The kids and I had picked up some plants at OSH last week and we finallly got around to potting them yesterday after I pulled out the weeds. They are mostly in front of the house now and I think they look nice.

I'm making progress on the house. I can actually sit on both couches and my rocking chair now. The dishwasher repair man is supposed to come fix our built in dishwasher today. It has taken much too long getting this fixed by Sears. Next time I'll get an actual GE repairman for my GE appliances. They actually have the parts on hand. The dishwasher was already broken when we bought the house and we got a credit from the seller to pay for the repair. In the mean time, we're still using my portable dishwasher from the apartment. I want to sell it, though, so I'm in a hurry to get the built-in working. The only appliance left that we need to buy is a dryer and my dad just found a used one at a flea market sale for $30. I figured it would be hard to go wrong for that price, so hopefully we'll have a working dryer by the end of the day. Woo Hoo! That'll make the mountains of laundry much easier to deal with.

I managed to find the camera this morning, so I'll be able to post pictures soon, just as soon as I get things straightened up a bit more.

Yes, I'm still alive.....

Okay, I'm totally lame and haven't blogged in ages. I haven't been reading my friends' blogs either. I have a good excuse for the recent months, but before that, not really.

Here's the update:
Yes, I made that bacon explosion. I did a half recipe, though. And I did it in the oven because I don't have a smoker. Oh, and I substituted breakfast sausage because I had it on hand. It actually wasn't bad, though you only want to eat a little at a time.

Ruby had a flurry of field trips at the end of the school year, which occupied quite a bit of my time. She finished Kindergarten and then cried that night because she missed school. She always wants to send pictures to her teacher, who we both just loved. We have registered her for her new school, which starts on the 24th, and is just a short walk from our new house. She loves school and is really excited to start again, even though it will be at a new school. She keeps asking how many days until school starts.

We moved!! No more apartments for us! We are living in luxury in a three bedroom manufactured home. The yard is small, but it's a yard. The house is fabulous. The kids are loving having their own bedrooms. We painted Ruby's pink and Russell's is blue. We also painted the laundry room (yes, we have a laundry room!!!) a different shade of blue. All the other rooms, except the bathrooms (yes, that's a plural) have been recently painted and look nice so we didn't bother with them. Our kitchen has a breakfast nook, which we have turned into my sewing area. The dining room had carpet. I ripped that out before we moved in and put down resilient vinyl plank flooring. It is awesome. It looks just like a wood floor, feels like a wood floor when you slide the chairs on it and stuff, was super easy to lay (I did it all by myself), and it's waterproof! I'm also going to put it in the master bathroom, which is presently carpeted, but I'm going to deal with the boxes and stuff first. We're totally loving all the space we have--and the closets! Our whole apartment had enough closet space to make one mediocre closet. And we had virtually no cabinet space in the kitchen. Now both of the kids have good closets (with storage space above them) and Charles and I have a walk-in closet. And the kitchen is fabulous! We went from having about 834 sq. ft in the apartment to about 1290 sf now. We're loving life! One of these days I'll find my camera and I'll get enough boxes unpacked to actually take some pictures. The kids have made some friends here. There seem to be quite a few other kids on our street. And it's a private street, so there's not much traffic.

Thanks to their most generous auntie, the kids are taking swimming lessons this week and next. They just finished for this week. Ruby LOVES them and has made good progress, learning to do almost all the level 1 stuff. Russell, on the other hand, is not so thrilled with them. You see, his teacher wants him to actually move his arms and legs and--horror of horrors-- wants him to put his face in the water. He did fine the first day. The second day he got out for a few minutes until he saw the big floatie hippo all the kids were going to ride on. Then he got back in. Yesterday he got out crying about half way through the lesson. I let him stay out yesterday but told him he had to do his whole lesson today. Well, each time it was his turn to do the individual instruction with the teacher, he climbed out of the pool and tried running over to me. Unfortunately for him, I was unsympathetic and stuck him back in the pool each time. So, after about 4 attempts to get out of the pool, he finished his lesson. I told him he doesn't have to go back for three days. That is, not until the next session starts on Monday. Luckily, our mobile home park has a very nice pool so I can work with him and hopefully he'll be more open to the face in the water thing by next summer.

The only down side to our new location is that Charles now has an hour long commute each way. We're only about 11 miles from his office, but we only have one car and I am not giving it up. So, he gets to take the light rail. We're about a mile from the station and it's a bit of a walk between his office and the station he gets off at, so that's why it takes so long. It's cheaper than driving anyway. And he get excercise and some down time to read his scriptures on the train, so it's not really a down side. Just the part about seeing less of him is. We were spoiled by his previous five minute commute. The other thing is that I have to do all the shopping now. I can't ask him to pick stuff up at the store on his way home from work. I can live with that.

Well, time to stop procrastinating and get on with the unpacking....