Summer Catch-up

So it's August, and there goes my well intentions of keeping up with the blog over the summer. I have good reason, my Dad has distracted me with all these games of Word Twist. If I skip at night of playing, I'll have twice the games to catch up with the next day, and that's a lot of word twist. I know, excuses, excuses. So with a week or so left of my summer break, I'm playing catch up.
I think the last time I wrote we'd just gotten back from our trip to PEI. I very much enjoyed it. We'd been a couple of times before, but that was pre-kids. This trip was very different. You haven't camped until you've camped with two kids under 4. Unfortunately, the camping has interrupted my master plan of weaning Jeremy to his own bed. Why would he want to do that when he could snuggle with his parents? I actually believe he has a master plan to take over our bed completely. He hates the toddler bed for anything other than bouncing on. It's much too small in his estimation. Our next plan of action is to give him Elijah's bed (which is a twin) and move Elijah into the other twin that currently serves as a guest bed downstairs.
The second half of July was spent doing things around here. Mostly, we prepped for Elijah's birthday. You would think that planning a party for a July birthday would be an easy thing...usually it is. Get some food, a cake and send them out to play for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, we've had a bizarre summer here in SJ and the 2 days leading up to Elijah's party poured rain. I was freaking. We had 10 kids and their parents coming over, what the heck was I going to do if we had to stay inside? Fortunately, the day was not rainy, but it was foggy enough that we cancelled the playing in the pool part of the party. They didn't care. Get 10 kids together under the age of 5 and they will play and play and play and have a blast! I seriously do not know why people get so stressed about kid birthdays and spend huge amounts of money and time (especially for this age group) planning and over manging. They don't need it. You can have a fun time for under $40 (including food)...we did. The highlights for me were Elijah's face when he saw the hockey cake I made for him (he'd only been asking for one since last November), and Jonathan's Pinata. He made one for next to nothing and it was a fun time for the kids (and the grown-ups)...I can't believe what they charge for a pinata in the stores, especially when you think that it is made to be destroyed.
Shortly after the birthday party (and on Elijah's actual birthday), we headed off for New Hampshire for Soulfest. Soulfest is a Christian Music Festival, 4 days, 6 stages and I don't know how many bands. There were 14 of us altogether in our group. I didn't see a lot of the music, I was just happy to be out in a new place. I really love camping. Missing out on the music is just another part of the stage of life I'm in right now. My kids come first. They can't be up out late (even on vacation), or they will be miserable the next day. I did (finally) get to see Jars of Clay live. They were the fist Christian band that I really liked (and still do). They played 4 of the 6 songs that I wanted to hear (although the 2 they didn't, I didn't expect them to play as they are more obscure). That was the highlight (musically) for me. I didn't actually know what to expect going to New Hampshire. I'd drived though a piece of it before on the way to New York, but really knew nothing about it. The area we were in was really quite beautiful. We stayed at Gunstock Resort which is in Gilford, in an area known as the lake district. We did get to spend some time at the beach, which was nice. We also decided to take a little road trip on the Saturday down to Boston (a 2 hour drive away). That was fun! We had about 4 hours actually in Boston, so we saw Quincy Market (yummy Boston Chowda for lunch), and the area around the Boston Common. If I had known we were going to go I would have brushed up on my history a little bit because so much has happened in Boston. It's kinda funny living in Saint John which is a Loyalist City, and visiting Boston which is known for the same time period, but the other side of the conflict. Boston actually is a lot like Saint John in Architecture (or what I imagine Saint John would be like if it was a lot larger, better kept up and less slum lords). The thing in Boston that we saw that just made me so excited was the front they used for Cheers (the TV show). I love that show so for me, it was really cool, to go for a walk and there it was.
Since we've been back from our trip I've been spending as much time outside as possible. We've had more rain this summer than I'd like :op I've been working at getting the gardens all weeded out and organised. It's amazing how fast the weeds grow (especially in the rain), but I feel a real sense of work well done when I'm out in the garden. I'm very excited about the giant sunflowers that Elijah and I planted earlier this summer. They are about as tall as I am now and still growing. Unfortunately, they are are one of the only things that turned out. A groundhog ate my pea plants (nasty thing), and I don't know whatever happened to some of the other seeds we planted. My herb basket is growing will, so fresh basil is just about ready.
Our other summer project has been Elijah's library club. I think this is the 3rd summer Elijah's been part of the read to me program at the local library's summer reading program. Each Thursday that we have been here, we have dropped in on their pre-school story time. Jeremy has tried to take part as much as he can too (he's out to proove that he is a big boy too)...it's kinda funny to see him sitting at the craft table, this one year old surrounded by 3 and 4 year olds. The other part of the program has been reading to and with Elijah to reach his goal of 50 books. And as of last Thursday he did it! We finished out with 52 books read. This upcoming Wednesday is the summer reading celebration party that he's excited about.
That's pretty much our summer caught up. Of course within each of these updates there are stories within stories, but I'm not sure how ambitious I am with writing them down (not tonight anyway, maybe tomorrow, there's a good one from the New Hampshire trip I'm wanting to share). My next project is starting a new blog...I'm not planning on quitting this one, but I wanted to start one that has a specific focus...I'll announce it soon.