Summer Fun!

For the first summer ever since having kids, I have the whole summer off from work.  (OK, so technically I'm looking for a new job, which is pretty much a job in and of itself, but I still don't have to get up and drive to a 9-5 job every single day.)  This means that I get to spend the summer with my four awesome kiddos!  To say that I (and they) are excited about this would be a dramatic understatement.  Our only problem at this point is trying to fit in everything that we want to do in just three short months.

When I figured out that I was going to be off for the summer, I started making plans and lists (always lists and more lists in my life!) of things that I wanted to do with the kids and things I wanted to do for myself.  One of my major goals this year has been to get blogging again.  I really love writing and I want to take a little more time remembering the day-to-day stuff that tends to get lost in the business of living day-to-day.  I've made some slow effort on my recipe blog and we're trying to resurrect our family blog.  I decided a little while ago that I wanted to record our summer of fun as well.

 Jay and the kids getting ready to ride to school for the last day.

 Jonathan wants me to stop taking pictures and let him go to school!

Emily looking gorgeous as always.

Today was the last day of school, so we officially kicked off summer at 12:50 this afternoon when the kids got home from school.  Abby, Ben and I spent the morning running errands, so definitely NOT part of the summer fun!

Emily and Jon came home hot and sweaty.  So we decided to put up the pool in the back yard for some afternoon cooling off.

Three kids enjoying the water.

Jon, Abby, and Abby's friend from next door, Josh, were all about the pool and jumped in before it finished filling.  Ben has no interest in swimming, and Emily decided there were too many people and that she wanted some quiet time for a little while.  So Ben played outside next to the pool for awhile, then came in for dry clothes.  Emily worked on a craft project instead, until the call of the cool water got to be too much and she went to join the other kids.

 Emily painting a windchime.

Emily finally gave in and got in the pool to lounge in the cool water for awhile.

I had made a special surprise snack for the last day of school, so we broke out the M&M Ice Cream pops in the middle of the afternoon.  They were declared awesome by all, although we ended up using spoons rather than eating them like popsicles (they didn't really want to come out of the cups).

All in all, it was a great afternoon and a fantastic kick off for the summer!