June 2019 - The Boat Month!

June is a crazy time of year.  We are excited because the school year is over, but transitions are challenging for everyone.  The schedule which was once very routine, bells ringing for some of us multiple times a day, telling us what we need to do, to endless weeks without specific responsibilities can be a bit tricky.  A stressful job to a (supposedly) stress-free time.  Daycare every weekday to home all day with your big sister - who may or may not want to spend all her time with you.  The start of June is a bit rocky, but we get through and find ways to have fun.

Greta, shall we say, isn't a morning person.

Greta and one of her dear friends, Kristen.

 Lake Superior never seems to let us down.  Here we are at Thompson's West End Park in Washburn.  It is still super cold but these girls have no issues getting wet.

Thank you for the internet.  So many projects and things to do with our time available for free.  This project is sidewalk paint.  It did end up staining our driveway and being incredibly difficult to wash off, but both the painting and the spraying provided much entertainment.

A dollhouse has been on the wish list of the girls for ages.  We aren't thrilled with the idea of having one, so the mean parents we are, we made them make their own.  It was awesome to see their engineering at work!

Again, never getting old, Lilly reading to Greta.

June 2019 brought Greta her own library card!

June also brought tennis back into Lilly's life.  Lilly has proven, thus far, to love the individual sports over team sports.  She chose not to do soccer this summer but stuck with tennis for the entire time.  Greta attended every practice, even those where she didn't have to get dragged along.

And the summer reading program kick off - reading is out of this world type theme.

We spent lots of time in the backyard.  We'll see how this goes this summer - stay tuned to future posts to discover why . . .

Playing on the swings while Lilly wraps up her piano lesson.

 Playing at the Purple Park.

Play at the library about the solar system.  Lilly volunteered and was cast as Neptune. 

We also spent time making paint from chalk.

While tomatoes have been the focus of our garden in years past, we cut down on the number of plants, and added more other plants.  Nick and Greta put in our cucumber fence.

This summer brought more family biking adventures, with Greta on the weehoo.

Greta also became much more interested in writing and early literacy skills.

And, finally, we purchased a boat!  Unfortunately, good friends of ours moved from Washburn to the east side of the state, where they would no longer need their boat.  We bought their boat from them, a lovely 1976 Lund, which we named the Blueberry Ferry.

We didn't get to take it out right away, as the water in June is still quite cold and unpredictable.  And I left for Carleton College at the end of the month to go to the AP conference so I could learn what it means to teach Advanced Placement Literature and Composition.  The longest I have been away from Nick and the girls, ever.  It was hard but it was also great to be just a professional, not a professional and a mom.  Plus, I got dragged to trivia and my team won.

When I returned, my parents were also visiting.  For Christmas, we all got my dad a charter fly fishing trip, which was the weekend I came back from my training.  Then, we took the Blueberry Ferry out for her maiden (to us) voyage.

We were nervous about getting a boat because last summer Greta wouldn't let us go more than 5 mph in our friends' inflatable boat, but we were quickly able to go faster with her.  Of course, our first day out on the boat we get stopped by the Coast Guard to make sure we had all the proper safety equipment.  Who would have thought!  The girls handled the experience well and didn't even really seem to mind/notice at all. 

Before my parents left, we made a trip to the elementary school playground to play and fly kites.  And apparently get really wet in the backyard.