Summer so far

It has been a wonderful summer so far!  It's been zooming by, but has been filled with fun outings and summer happenings. Here's just a sampler of some of the good times.

Both kids have been enjoying camps. They each chose two weeks of camp. Devon did one week at the Science Museum, choosing a half-day Wizarding camp and a half-day Lego mini-figure movie making camp. He's doing his second week now - another Wizarding theme, but this one is more nature-based at a lovely arts and environment center. He's loving it so far. Rylee selected a week at the zoo, selecting Under the Sea camp. Her second week was at the children's theater - an experience that warrants its own post, coming soon.

They have enjoyed playing outside and have mastered climbing the large maple tree in the front yard. We had a great blackberry harvest, and they enjoyed picking and tasting the berries. Our blueberry plants - planted last year - have grown well but didn't yield any berries this year. We've been to parks and playgrounds and museums. We've caught insects and frogs. We've been to three different children's theaters, for productions of the Wiz, the Cat in the Hat, and Free to be You and Me. Rylee became brave enough to try the water slides at our gym's pool, and thinks they are the most fun she's ever had. We've been to the annual production for our local children's circus school, and now Rylee wants to go to circus camp next year. Devon became obsessed with Greek mythology and has read at least 20 books on the subject this summer. Devon participated in our library's book club geared for young boys (enjoying both of their summer selections, "The Trouble with Chickens" and "Bookmarks are People Too"). I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, it's been fun so far.

We continued our tradition of hatching and releasing butterflies - four survived and the kids took good care of them. They were named Harry Potter, Mariposa, Rosie, and Waddlehatcher 2.

Rylee and I took a day off from preschool and work to play at the children's museum - still one of her favorite places!

We made our annual visit to Iowa for the 4th of July - Devon got a kick out of jumping back and forth from Iowa into Nebraska.



While we waited for the fireworks, both kids enjoyed a turn on the bungee cord trampoline thingy

Hamming it up during a nature walk in Iowa

 

Rylee has really enjoyed working in the garden this year - she's always willing to help with weeding, and planted her own garden spot this year. Her garden is filled with lilies and several varieties of butterfly flowers. She's taken good care of her plants, improving on the notion of talking to them by performing song and dance numbers  ("Let them grow, let them grow")

 

 

 Finally, Rylee easily mastered bike riding. This is her about 5 minutes after Scott removed the training wheels. This bike is obviously pretty small...she's now riding Devon's big bike around the circle and loving it!