Summer.

Yesterday felt like the first official day of summer. That kind of day that just gets filled with summer odds and ends, the sun shines and I vacillate between soaking it up and feeling too hot (northwesterners are so faint of heart), and summer scenes abound everywhere. The morning swim lesson with the sun shining so brightly on the water that it makes everything look like a silhouette inside and beside it. Everly daintily goes about her lesson, saying "No thank you" to most things - floating, head in the water, jumping off the diving board. While Parker goes for it all with gusto and has even started swimming on his own for 5-6 feet (without the consent of his teacher, every time he turns his back on him). Here's the two happy campers...

And then Parker totally went for it today and tried diving. It went a little something like this:

teacher: "Parker, let's try diving!"

Parks: "YES!! Wait, does my face go in the water?"

teacher: "Let's do it and see!"

Parks: "OKAY!"

 And then we followed that up with a summer yard playdate at a friend's house. They recently moved to a farm nearby and oh, be still my heart. The horse, the chickens, the barns, the hayfield, the THREE ponds. I'm going to squat on part of their property and hope we don't get noticed for seven years. The kids had a grand time, in and out of the little pool, inside and on top of the playhouse, and all around the property. Sunscreened bodies, laying on the grass and eating snacks before running back to playing hide and seek. Ah, summer is truly here.

When we came home, I instated a mandatory rest time for the kids while they're still recovering from the late night on the 4th. I took that opportunity to finally pick myself a whole colander of strawberries from the yard (without sharing!), put my feet up on the back deck and read my Sunset while they played in their rooms (ahem, rested). HAPPY SUMMER!