Summertime and the Livin' is Easy!

We had a wonderful summer! At first I thought it would be boring because we couldn't take a vacation... Chris is the only meteorologist at Mayport which means he can't leave during hurricane season (June-November). But we made the most of it and we tried to have something fun planned for every day.  Staying at home would make everyone crazy!

This is how we started summer... Abram loved coming home from his last day of kindergarten to the front door decorations. 

We did manage to squeeze in one small trip... my mom came for a visit and Chris and I took Abram on a quick road trip.  We went to Tampa to see the Seattle Mariners play the Rays and to Universal Studios. It was a fun trip and Abram caught the first foul ball of the game!

Since we had to stay around Jacksonville, I found fun things to do around our town and made a schedule. We had Make Something Monday, Treat Tuesday, Wet Wednesday, Lazy Thursday and Fun Day Friday. We had fun exploring new places and trying new things. 

Abram went here for a field trip. He was excited to show his brothers this nature center.

Jacksonville has many big bridges since a huge river runs through our city.  This park has miniature bridges from the city to play on. 

We have a famous museum in our city called The Cummer Museum.  Saturdays are free, so we took a trip on Saturday to check it out. The boys did great! It was interesting to see what caught their eye.

We read a book at home that has an ice cream truck in it, so we were on the lookout for one to take Jack and Luke to for their first visit. We finally found one and they were thrilled! Messy, but thrilled!

Treat Tuesday... making dirt cups with pudding, chocolate cookies and gummy worms.

Movie Night complete with popcorn! This night we were watching an old movie that I grew up loving, "The Flight of the Navigator." Abram loved it!

First time bowling with all three boys!

Another exciting thing happened at our house this summer... Jack and Luke are potty trained! They did great and now they can attend preschool!

So proud!

Treats for doing so good!!

We also spent lots of time with our friends! We love play dates!!

But our most favorite thing this summer was staying wet in this heat! The twins realized they love the water so we were in the sprinkler, at a splash park or swimming as much as we could!

Our sweet Gram also came for a visit this summer! The boys always love having her here and so do we because she lets Chris and I take as many breaks as we want to. She spoils all five of us so much and loves us so well!

Also, my sister, her husband and my niece and nephew came for a visit. Abram, Jack and Luke just can't get enough of their cousins. Its so sweet to watch them play together!

Beach time with Ella

Aunt Julie introduced the boys to pop tarts for the first time!

Sister time!

Every evening we played board games! Chris is upset because he was losing... bad!

And Jack and Luke realized they love the beach!

I love this so much!!

Sweet boys!

Also, this summer Abram was on our local swim team and he did one week of violin camp! Abram is a great swimmer, but it took him a while to figure out how to do the strokes correctly and quickly, but by the last meet of the season he took second in breast stroke! We were so proud, and so was he! 

And he is amazing at violin. We love watching his talent grow! Can't see what he learns this year.

We also celebrated the Fourth of July... we had fun snacks at home, painted some pictures, went swimming and of course did fireworks! A fun, easy day!

And we ended the summer with our "End of the Summer Donuts." We talked about our favorite memories from the summer and what we are looking forward to in the new year. 

It was an amazing summer but we are also looking forward to first grade and preschool!