Our Summer Vacation Chart is back in the closet awaiting next year <tear>.

We’ve had such a fun, relaxing summer. We’ve really taken it easy.

Our summer has been full of too much ice cream,

several park trips,

A couple of movie theater visits,

Cars 2

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2

some pool time,

time at the lake,

fun at the beach,

And much more! So long summer vacation!!

This morning I woke up to wheels being rolled around the house. You never know what you’ll find with my two boys.

Daniel informed me that he and Luke had already started packing for Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Apparently Luke got together his essentials and was going to let me get the rest. J

This was my view most of the day:

Not a bad view. It sure was hot though!

We ate a yummy {albeit greasy} lunch and the boys tried fishing in the lake around the restaurant. Daniel caught a couple of fish, but moved too fast for me to get his picture.

Doesn’t he know Momma has a blog she’s trying to keep up? J

He met a little boy out there that was fishing too, so D3 gave his catches to that little guy.

Daniel was itching for us to stop the boat, so that he could jump in and swim. Papa finally did and Daniel was thrilled. I tried to take his picture here and also did a lousy job. The sun was so bright that I couldn’t tell that I got all water and only D3′s head.

Oh well. It’s him. I promise.

Luke took a lot of coaxing, but he finally got in. {But not before he had his life jacket AND his swimmies on. He loves those swimmies.}

We came back after many hours on the lake to have some birthday cake.

It was a fun, relaxing weekend!

This picture of Luke about sums it up:

He’s sleeping upright in the cart at Target. Ha!

We started our month with an incredibly important day for Dan. And I didn’t take the first picture! I can’t believe it. I had to snag these from Facebook! Dan was ordained as an Elder of the United Methodist Church.

He has worked so hard and the service was just incredible. I’m so proud of him. He is a wonderful pastor!

For some reason this year I volunteered to direct our church’s VBS. I’m not sure what I was thinking. Ha! I’m only kidding really. I love VBS. It is surely a big job though. I think things went well and the kids had a ball. I think most of my May/June busyness stemmed from coordinating VBS.

This was Luke’s first year as a VBS participant and he LOVED it. He had so much fun and I think he learned a lot. He loved the Worship time. He has been singing the songs all week.

I loved seeing him so into singing worship songs. His other favorites were snack and playdough time. J

Daniel has always loved VBS, so he had a wonderful time as usual. He had some of his best buds there, so that’s always a plus!

He’s gotten so big, by the way. I just can hardly take it. He acts so grown up now. {When he’s not fighting with his brother. J}

My VBS week brought back a lot of memories of my days as a Children’s Ministry Coordinator. I did enjoy that job!

We followed up VBS with a mini trip to the lake for Father’s Day.

I’m hoping that our summer will now take a chilled out, but fun pace. And who knows, maybe I can blog more often about it?!

My boys were in love with our hotel {or as Luke calls it: “the showtell”}. The favorite part, of course, was the pool.

We enjoyed one last swim before we left and snapped a quick self portrait.

It wouldn’t be a self portrait without cutting half of someone’s head off in the attempt, so here is the rest of Luke’s face:

I officially have a THIRD grader. Daniel was actually not looking forward to the end of the year, because he LOVES his second grade teacher! She is awesome and he wants her to move on with him! J This was his last year at the Primary School and now he will be heading to the Intermediate School and I’m a little nervous! I think he’s excited.

Luke had his last day in the Three Year Old class. It took much explaining about summer break and being done in Ms. Cindy’s class. They were working on the letter Qq and Luke just couldn’t understand why they would be done and not stick around to make it to letter Zz. J Next year will be his last year of preschool!

My boys are growing too fast!!

Lunchbox is ready to be filled with food.

Clothes are ironed and ready for the week.

The shortest summer ever is over and school starts tomorrow.

Ready or not.

Family vacations are the best.

The gigantic lollipop that seems like a good idea during the high of a vacation is a bad idea in the reality of after vacation. {Don’t buy these monstrosities, Cindy!! Don’t do it!}

Fleas are evil, evil little gross creatures!

The Summer Vacation Chart is actually a doable and fun little tool to keep activities {other than video games and TV watching} happening during the summer.

S’mores are yummy {even made in the microwave}.

Vacation Bible School songs can give your preschooler a soundtrack for the entire summer.

Several trips to lake sprinkled through the summer is muy enjoyable.

Kids swimming in the pool with no fear and not clinging to their momma is awesome!

My seven year old can read Harry Potter. {He LOVED it.} {This is a completely shameless brag, but it is my blog after all, right? }

Being “off schedule” is not necessarily a bad thing.

Summer with these two keeps things interesting!!

Monday we headed to the park. It was so insanely hot, but we stayed about 45 minutes to an hour. Luke swung for the longest time. He just loved it. Poor Daniel got too hot and it made him feel really rotten. We were drinking water the whole time, but it’s just too darn hot!

Tuesday we made a marshmallow catapult. It was a fun little activity.

Here are our supplies ready for us:

Dan saw us working on it and decided he could make it better. And he really did.

He used a ruler (with the ends predrilled- for the rubber band) instead of the second pencil as the catapult. Then we didn’t even need the little cap to hold the marshmallow, it just layed on the ruler.

The kids got a big kick out of it (and I did too to tell you the truth).

They stood there trying to fling marshmallows into each other’s mouths for a while.

Wednesday brought on waterballoons. Whose idea was this?

It took me forever to get into a water balloon filling groove, so the kids played in the pool while waiting on me.

Then they had fun throwing balloons at each other for approximately one minute.

It takes a heck of a lot longer to fill the balloons than it does to pop them… but they had fun.

Thursday was Watermelon Day. It was supposed to be last week, but uhmm… it didn’t happen. It was a pretty low key themed day. I took all my ideas from right here.

We colored half a paper plate to look like a watermelon.

Can you tell whose is whose?

I also made an icecream snack that looked like a watermelon.

Here’s the link of how to make one and it is so much cuter than my pitiful little teeny tiny version, but we enjoyed ours!

Luke wouldn’t eat it! He was too freaked out about the seeds, even though we kept telling him they were really chocolate chips.

The last thing we were going to do for watermelon day was bob for watermelon. Daniel got a big headache though so we skipped out. I think we’re going to be headed to the doctor with him. He has been having headaches and sneezing his little head off.

I guess it was a mini watermelon theme, but another fun summer week. We are getting closer and closer to being ready for the routine that the school year brings!