On busting mid-season boredom

About a week ago, when we were all sick-ish, I could feel myself begin to daydream about cool fall days, the comfort of a back-to-school routine, football games, hooded sweatshirts, trips to the pumpkin patch, soups in the crock pot, baking apple pies.... and I had to force myself to stop.

"Stop wishing time away, Laura! Enjoy the moment! Love summer!" 

But the truth is that this summer has been kind of a bear.  When we weren't sick, the weather was crummy.  And when the weather was nice, we were sick.  But still...it's summer.  So...

I'm here to say that I refuse to be a victim of mid-summer boredom.  A friend confided to me the other day, "Isn't summer just too long? Even for the kids? Don't you think summer would be just fine if it were only 8 weeks long? We should seriously look into year-round school." And while I'm not totally sure I'm ready to commit to year-round school, I will admit that summer has been almost long enough for me.

In the spirit of not wishing time away, I have HIGH hopes for the last few weeks of summer.

This last weekend was all sorts of awesome.  Kael's triathlon was one of the highlights of his my summer, for sure.  Then we spent all day Sunday at Adventureland (sorry I don't have pictures to share!) with the Patterson side of the family and had the best time.  I spent a lot of the day hanging with Kaser since my oldest two turned into magnets. Kael=Kevin and Kylee=Katherine.  Seriously I might as well have been chopped liver- when Kael begged to go on the Log Ride and no one else was ready to get wet yet, I offered to go with him and he just kind of shrugged, saying, "Um, I guess we can just do something else." And I'm totally cool with that.  The big kids got to sleep over at Grandma and Grandpa's and even help pick sweet corn which we thoroughly enjoyed eating and sharing with neighbors.

This week the kids are wrapping up swimming lessons and both have birthday parties to go to that they are really looking forward to.

Next weekend we're heading to St. Louis for a quick few days- hoping to hit a few "must sees" like the Arch, Grant's Farm, the zoo and a Cardinals game.  Should be lots of fun.

The weekend after that is Kylee's birthday.  Six.  SIX?!?!? I can't even.  More about that in a future post.  We're really looking forward to celebrating our middle babe's special day.

Then there's the obligatory (because I say so) trip to the State Fair, back to school shopping and hopefully warmer weather for a few last, lazy pool days.

Sounds fun, right? How's your end of summer looking?