It's been a blast

If you're reading my mom's blog this may be old news, but today was Aurora's last day of Summer Blast. I figured sending her to summer camp at her school would be pretty uneventful and feel a lot like, well, school (or at least after school care). But Aurora had a blast every single day. Every field trip, talent show, and craft project was awesome because Aurora is awesome at enjoying every activity that comes her way. Each week they sent us a slide show and I've been taking screen shots of my favorite pics. Here are a few highlights:

For their final day, they had a performance and invited parents (and grandparents!) to attend. I'm so glad my parents were able to go. They took some great pictures!

Aurora's already made me promise to sign her up for Summer Blast next year (she's positive her new best friend Kelly will be back, too) and honestly - it's a no brainer. Compared to other camps it's a more convenient location, less expensive, and offers better hours for a dual working family like ours. Plus, next year Clark will be going to the same place! Wait WHAT!? That's right - today I wrote my LAST CHECK EVER to the Children's Center of Austin, and in less than 2-weeks Clark will be transferring to the preschool at Valley View. I hope he loves his program as much as Aurora has loved hers.

Preparation

For the past several weeks I've been cleaning and organizing the house, ordering supplies, and preparing for Clark's birthday. Honestly, I may have started making preparations a little TOO early (or at least started talking to Clark about it too early), considering how many times he's gazed longingly at the door and asked "Mommy, is my spiderman pizza party coming today?"

Next weekend we're taking 3-year photos, so today we got haircuts! Instead of a before and after, I decided to capture pics mid-cut. You'll see the final result soon enough...

I got a haircut as well, and perhaps Chuck will get a trim before the photo sitting. We're also preparing for Grandma Nancy's upcoming visit, for Aurora's summer camp to end, for 2nd grade to start, AND for Clark to change daycares! So much going on, but not much to report this weekend. We're just cleaning up and getting ready.

Wave

For as long as I can remember, my mom has been waving to the camera. Recently she's been taking out her camera and getting pictures of us during our visits, and for some reason today we all waved too! Well, everybody but Chuck.

Clarkie didn't feel like getting more than his feet wet at the pool, but he did enjoy himself.

Turns out, the main reason mom's dusted off her camera is because she's interested in starting up another blog of her own. You may recall her past blogs, in particular the one where my parents reenacted stock retirement photos. It was awesome, and now random websites have started using their reenacted photos as stock retirement photos! The new blog will feature photos like you see here, with family, friends, and fun days out and about in Texas and Florida. She's not sure what to call it so I thought I'd start a poll. Dear blog readers - what do you think? Cast your vote in the comments for your favorite title:

1. Fun with Rob & Ellie
2. Ellie's Alley
3. Here and There

In case you're wondering - no, my mom does not typically go by Ellie. I think she should just share photos with friends on Facebook, but who am I to deny somebody the joy of having a blog? Especially one which will surely include lots of smiles and waving!

18 Years!

It's hard to believe, but today we celebrated our 18 year wedding anniversary. My parents came over to babysit and we went out to a lovely dinner at Truluck's...

... followed by a Segway Tour of Austin! Chuck mentioned years ago that he thought it would be neat to try this out, and it was - but I have to tell you, I am not great at riding a Segway. After ziplining I figured this would be a breeze, and it wasn't exactly hard. I just wasn't very good at it!

Luckily, I didn't actually wipe out. We both had a great time exploring the city at sunset in a fun and geeky way. And while today marks 18 years married to this fun and geeky guy, this weekend I also celebrated 9 years working at the Foundation!  

A few of my (fun and geeky?) coworkers surprised me with 9 essential items from 7-11 to celebrate 9 years on 7-11. Now if only the years would stop flying by so quickly...

C-L-A-R-K

Clark is growing up so fast. While we haven't made much progress (NONE) with potty training, we have definitely made progress with SPELLING! 

We also just converted his crib into a big boy bed. It was getting hard to lift him in and out! He seems to like it, though he doesn't quite seem to understand that he can just get out on his own... which is actually kind of awesome.

Clark had an especially fun day today, as Grandma & Grandpa are BACK and they watched our big boy all day today. Randomly, daycare closed today instead of Friday in observance of Independence Day. Thank goodness my folks came back in time to help us out!!!

Sounds like a good time was had by all. Thanks for watching our sweet little guy, mom and dad! We're glad you're back.

Garage Sale

You might think that volunteering, playing, camping and running a 5K would've been enough to keep us busy, but we did WAY more than that during our week off. Aurora told me a month ago that she wanted to have a garage sale, and I told her we could do it if we spent some time cleaning out the house. Believe it or not, we did! I had a TON of stuff piled up all along the counter (and table, and floor) inside the kitchen door, and not only did we sort through all the junk, we also took a trip to IKEA and bought a new shelving system to get everything organized. I don't have a before picture, but the after is phenomenal. Now there's a place for the mail, keys, shoes, and every backpack, purse, lunch bag, grocery bag, diaper bag and gym bag. It's a huge improvement!

We found a bunch of stuff to sell, and this morning we woke up bright and early to set up our canopy, table, chairs, signage and goods. I posted our garage sale on Facebook and we made a pitcher of Kool-Aid. While most of our customers were good friends and neighbors, we had a few other people stop by and in total made almost $70.

Afterward we took two bags to Half Price Books and got just enough trade-in credit for Aurora to buy a sticker book, then we dropped a couple boxes at Goodwill and headed to Amy's Ice Cream for a post-garage sale treat.

We kept talking about how fun the garage sale would be, but I really didn't think Chuck would be that into it. Turns out, he helped and hung out with us all day! I think he's pretty happy with how clean and nice the house is looking. I'm sure the ice cream helped, too...

Freedom

I have to tell you, having a tent is the ultimate feeling of freedom. This weekend we packed up our car and headed up to Lago Vista, TX for a one night stay at Arkansas Bend Park, no reservations required! It was absolutely gorgeous. Water all around us, breezy weather with plenty of shade, and we even saw fireworks from our tent!

While we were going on very little sleep (and no coffee!) we packed up early and headed to the Firecracker 5K. I really enjoyed this run. While it was hot and the course was hilly, it wasn't crowded and the views were just lovely. I finished in under 30 minutes (which was my goal) and from there we headed straight to the Lago Vista 4th of July parade.

We saw firetrucks and boats and horses, got candy and toys, and while I don't think it was QUITE as well run as the Lakeway parade we've been going to for the past few years, it did not disappoint. What a fun and memorable 4th of July! Chuck and Aurora are watching fireworks from our balcony as I type, but I'm about ready to turn in early. All this freedom is exhausting!

My kind of week!

If there's one thing that blogging every week has taught me, it's that I'm pretty predictable. I bet if I asked each of you to guess what our week of Mommy Camp would entail, you would probably get it right! Volunteering, playing outside, eating ice cream, maybe a birthday party or two. Right? I'm sure by this point many of you would add in camping and a 5K (stay tuned for my next post).

This week Aurora and I volunteered at the food pantry, made 4th of July goodie bags for the local homeless shelter, and Aurora helped me put on our annual LIVESTRONG Ice Cream Social, in memory of our friend Carmen Mitchell. Her family attended and we hung a tile that her granddaughter designed. We also went to the splash pad, did crafts at the library, attended a birthday party at the lake, caught up on our shopping and spent some time cleaning and rearranging the house...

I asked Aurora what she'd most like to do if it were entirely up to her, and she said she'd like to spend some time at home playing Minecraft. So, we did that too! Well, I read while she played. No surprises but it's been a great week.