Summer Days

Continuing with the trend of starting our mornings early...  But, you do get to watch the Garbage Men...

Graham's face of pure excitement over this is pretty cute...

#daddywearsallofthesunglasses

#jacksonwearsallofthesunglasses

These friends have been so hospitable and taken us with them to the pool loads!  These treats may or may not have been earned by some swift toy-cleaning-up-moments-before-we-left-for-the-pool... ;)

Of course the summer camps I had my eye on for the boys and swim lesson levels, locations and times did not all line up so perfectly...  That's ok, I just did a little more driving back and forth.  Graham had a week of camp first at a great park near us called Locust Shade.  His camp was Little Naturalist and he even got to do it with some buddies who will be in his preschool class this coming year!  Jackson started swim lessons at the same time, so after dropping Graham at camp, we drove to the rec center (on the other side of town) for swim lessons.  Then the whole process switched after that as Jackson did Naturalist camp at the same great park and Graham took swim lessons.  It was a bit of a flurry of activity!

Graham's level of swim lessons happens in the kiddie pool, so they get to have a few minutes of play time at the end with the mushroom turned on and toys out to play with.

One of the mornings Jackson was at camp, Graham and I spent a little time at the mall play area full of fruit!

Mid-Summer Activities

Jackson attended a week of Science Camp at a rec center near our house.  While he was at camp one day, Graham and I met Lucy, Alex and Katie at the playground!  Always a good time and lots of smiles with these kiddos :)

Jackson discovered Perler Beads and made a beautiful sun catcher for his room!

Graham and I took a power walk to the construction site for a new library minutes from our house!!!  It's getting there--it is scheduled to open late October!

Jackson LOVED Science Camp, and here he is with several of the things he made: fingerprinting, a fossil, s painted and decorated frame with a picture from camp, and a growing water bead.  

We used the boys' coupons from Summer Reading to get smoothies as an afternoon snack--everyone loves a "smoobie"  :)

Yesterday we headed to Difficult Run for some caching, and to enjoy the pretty day!  Josh and Jackson crawled out on this fallen tree to retrieve the first cache.

Such a trusty helper!

Notice the poor choice of footwear :(  There was some confusion about what shoes were already in the car for Graham... :/  He was a trooper, considering!

Super Graham crosses the river!

Jackson loves any hike that some adventurous crossing like this!

And, if the rock crossing wasn't exciting enough, then there was a rope swing!

I LOVE this picture!  Makes it look like I know what I'm doing in the photography department...

I love spending time with these faces 

We drove to Lake Fairfax for a picnic lunch, and ended up playing in the creek too!  Well, this little guy just threw rocks in the creek that his big brother handed to him...

This guy got IN the creek and had the best time!  Jackson was super proud of this cairn he built!

It also happened to be July 11th, also known as 7-11 Day!!!  We snuck in a walk to 7-11 with our friends and neighbors, the Camerons to get free Slurpees!  That was one of the first things we happened to do together after they moved in last summer, so it's like "our" holiday!  This was an extra special treat right before dinner!  Daddy drove to 7-11 and picked us up so we could go have dinner at Qdoba.  We came back to get the littles in bed before getting together with Kathy and Greg to play Ticket to Ride.  Fun times with good company, a great game, and yummy snacks!

Coloring, Junior Rangers, and Team Toni

Just a cute picture of the boys coloring before we took Jackson to camp!

Jackson completed a four-day Junior Ranger camp at Leesylvania State Park.  He LOVED it!  Each day they hiked, did a craft, played at the playground, and checked out various animals.  This picture is from a little closing ceremony they did where each camper received a certificate proclaiming them Junior Rangers and a t-shirt and a badge to iron on.  

Right after Jackson's Junior Ranger ceremony, we hurried back home to catch the last of the sno-cone party for Toni.  Toni and her family had just moved to their new duty station, but Toni was in a pretty serious firework accident on the 4th of July, so they were back in this neck of the woods seeing doctors and taking care of other things.  We were SO happy to get to visit with her and her mom, and to hug them in person :)  We put together a bag of goodies to keep her in good spirits while she works on her recovery.  We are sure going to miss her smiling face around the street!

Ashley, Toni, Jackson, Alyssa, Graham, Violet, Izzy and Mary

The girls are wearing pink t-shirts that have a special "T" emblem on them to represent Talon's Team Toni!  We are so glad our friend will be ok :)

Little Naturalist

This past week Jackson went to camp!!!  He went to a one-week session of Little Naturalist at Locust Shade Park.  It was each morning this week from 9-12.  He LOVED it!!!  His counselor, Miss Courtney, was so sweet, and she seemed really good with the kids.  There were only four other kids in the session, but they had a great time!

We got there early on Monday to check things out, so we had some spare time to play beforehand!

I dropped Jackson off at the boathouse each morning, and the water looked so pretty each morning--it was a great way to start the morning!  The kids fished with nets to catch minnows, caught worms to feed the fish, hiked, took nature walks, played on the playground, read books, did some crafts, watched a puppet show of "Beauty and the Beast," checked out some frogs, and just enjoyed the outdoors.  This was great timing for Jackson to have something to do just for him.  Now we have a couple of weeks before preparing for the school routine again!!!