Lazy Summer: Day 1

It’s been the perfect 24 hours. I really don’t say that that often and it’s usually a surprise to me when it happens.

Last year, on the last day of school, I hijacked my kids with a sudden water balloon fight. Unannounced to them, I had filled 200 water balloons that am and we attacked them shortly after arriving home. It was a great way to begin the summer.

I wanted to do something similar this year, but I ended up doing some makeup piano lessons in the afternoon right when school got out. Instead of bemoaning my poor scheduling choices, I decided that the best strategy was to just work with it. I made little bags for Ben and Victoria to celebrate amongst themselves while I taught. They were filled with bubbles, silly string, pop rocks and snappers -- all found at the Dollar Tree. My son, especially, had fun setting “booby traps” for any guest approaching the front door with the snappers.

Shortly thereafter, we took a trip to Chucke Cheese. We hadn’t been here for at least 2 years if not more. There was no one else there and it was fun to have the run of the place. The food wasn’t great, but we played ski ball, basketball and video games to our hearts content.

We left there around 9pm and decided to go the 10pm dollar movie (hey, why not, it’s summer). We got home at a delightful 1am.

Today, we slept in (which means 8am) and I was tempted to begin my day doing chores. By 8:15 I had already seen the wisdom lacking in this decision so I climbed back into bed intent on reading at least 1 chapter of The Way of the Wild At Heart by John Eldridge. It was glorious.

After lunch, I took the kids by the Glen Eagle Pool (“just to look”), and ended up getting a membership (totally looking forward to that). We went to Focus on the Family to purchase new Bible study material for everyone to work on this summer and ended up at the Library. We had planned to sign up for the summer reading program there, but low and behold -- it doesn’t even begin for 4 more days! Wow! We then made our way over the Sonic for “Happy Hour”. The slushies are good.

This afternoon the kids had some friends over as well as some family for a cookout. At 9pm, we were STILL on the tramp, riding the long boards and laughing over glasses of kool aide.

With such a large family, there are RARELY moments when we are all happy at the SAME time. When it comes to most days of summer, if I can get 3 out of 5 kids to be happy with an activity, I figure that’s roughly 60% of the people…and that ain’t bad! Today was no exception to that rule. Still…the perfect start to what I hope is a great summer!