Fabulous Family Weekend
Mixing some spontaneity with a partially planned weekend = a crazy busy and fabulously fun family weekend.
Friday night after dinner I was talking with a friend of ours when it hit me... hey, why don't we meet at the park? And so we did. Except, we didn't take into consideration just how early the sun is setting these days. But they did get to play for a bit. The kids were so cute and there were some wonderful photo ops... but not only did we not have our camera but it was way too dark. After the park we decided to continue the play date back at their house where we all had an incredible time but stayed entirely too late.
Saturday morning met us with swimming lessons. I'm so thankful that we selected a mid-morning slot! Abby & Ellie have really enjoyed taking swimming lessons at the High School. Last week they learned the "dolphin dive" and this week they learned how to dive standing up. And... they are in the 11' - 12' area of the pool! It has been so fun to watch their lessons. This week Ellie did fantastic on her diving... shocked the socks off us, her softball coach (whose daughter is in their class), and apparently her swimming teacher. Her teacher asked the other 3 girls if they saw Ellie's dive and then asked Ellie to demonstrate it again to her peers. It was definitely one of those proud mom moments!
Saturday afternoon while the boy napped, the girls had a play date at our house, and we worked on some house projects. Basically, the continuation of previous efforts to get things trimmed up and cleaned up outdoors. It seems like it is taking us weeks to get this stuff done, but a little at a time things are really shaping up. It is nice to be able to visually see the benefits of our efforts. We then ended up having a fantastic... political... conversation with Malien's mom when she came to came to pick her up. That was quite refreshing!
As soon as Abby & Ellie's friend had left we loaded up in the van and headed out to Mahoney State Park or (Ma)"honey SteaK Park" as Spencer called it... repeatedly. We couldn't hardly correct him he was so dang cute. We met up with some friends (same as Friday night) at the indoor activity center. It had been far too long since we have been there and we need to make sure we make this a frequent stop over this coming winter. The kids had such a blast running and playing with their best buds. We have totally reached a stage where we can say... "Do not go past this area without Mommy or Momma knowing!" And totally trust that they do. They were able to run, climb, slide, and just have fun. We were able to sit back, enjoy watching them be kids, and have a great time talking with our adult friends. We closed the place down before heading home for the ever so needed showers, a good snack, and off to bed.
Sunday morning we had planned on skipping Church in favor of checking out the new Acorn Acres area at Fontennelle Forest. It opened to the public on Sunday and they were having a large celebration with tons of activities and it was all FREE. One of the soccer moms works there and we were lucky enough to find out all about it. So that morning we met up with some other friends (who we convinced to skip Church with us!) to have a great morning of playing in nature. They were only open from 8-5 and we wanted to get there before it got crazy busy. We also had the treat of ridding on Ollie the Trollie from a nearby (overflow) parking area to the entrance. The kids thought that was pretty special!
Friday night after dinner I was talking with a friend of ours when it hit me... hey, why don't we meet at the park? And so we did. Except, we didn't take into consideration just how early the sun is setting these days. But they did get to play for a bit. The kids were so cute and there were some wonderful photo ops... but not only did we not have our camera but it was way too dark. After the park we decided to continue the play date back at their house where we all had an incredible time but stayed entirely too late.
Saturday morning met us with swimming lessons. I'm so thankful that we selected a mid-morning slot! Abby & Ellie have really enjoyed taking swimming lessons at the High School. Last week they learned the "dolphin dive" and this week they learned how to dive standing up. And... they are in the 11' - 12' area of the pool! It has been so fun to watch their lessons. This week Ellie did fantastic on her diving... shocked the socks off us, her softball coach (whose daughter is in their class), and apparently her swimming teacher. Her teacher asked the other 3 girls if they saw Ellie's dive and then asked Ellie to demonstrate it again to her peers. It was definitely one of those proud mom moments!
Saturday afternoon while the boy napped, the girls had a play date at our house, and we worked on some house projects. Basically, the continuation of previous efforts to get things trimmed up and cleaned up outdoors. It seems like it is taking us weeks to get this stuff done, but a little at a time things are really shaping up. It is nice to be able to visually see the benefits of our efforts. We then ended up having a fantastic... political... conversation with Malien's mom when she came to came to pick her up. That was quite refreshing!
As soon as Abby & Ellie's friend had left we loaded up in the van and headed out to Mahoney State Park or (Ma)"honey SteaK Park" as Spencer called it... repeatedly. We couldn't hardly correct him he was so dang cute. We met up with some friends (same as Friday night) at the indoor activity center. It had been far too long since we have been there and we need to make sure we make this a frequent stop over this coming winter. The kids had such a blast running and playing with their best buds. We have totally reached a stage where we can say... "Do not go past this area without Mommy or Momma knowing!" And totally trust that they do. They were able to run, climb, slide, and just have fun. We were able to sit back, enjoy watching them be kids, and have a great time talking with our adult friends. We closed the place down before heading home for the ever so needed showers, a good snack, and off to bed.
Sunday morning we had planned on skipping Church in favor of checking out the new Acorn Acres area at Fontennelle Forest. It opened to the public on Sunday and they were having a large celebration with tons of activities and it was all FREE. One of the soccer moms works there and we were lucky enough to find out all about it. So that morning we met up with some other friends (who we convinced to skip Church with us!) to have a great morning of playing in nature. They were only open from 8-5 and we wanted to get there before it got crazy busy. We also had the treat of ridding on Ollie the Trollie from a nearby (overflow) parking area to the entrance. The kids thought that was pretty special!
After about 3 hours of playing, going on trails, making acorn necklaces, painting, tagging butterflies, making rain sticks, leaf prints, petting snakes, turtles and salamanders, it was time to leave and get some lunch. Not knowing really what to expect, we couldn't have planned it any better.
After lunch it was time to head home for the boy to take a nap. The girls' were also ready to veg out a bit. Carie and I would have loved to veg out as well, but we pushed on. We got some power cleaning done in a short amount of time before some visitors stopped over. Come dinner time we decided that ordering out was in our best interest. The rest of the evening was vegging out, chatting with neighbors, and playing outside in the nice cool breeze.
Labels: Fall, Family, Kid Activities, The Boy, The Girls
posted by Sonya at 8:42 AM
1 Comments:
I love that picture of the kids! That's a keeper!
Sounds like a fun and BUSY weekend!
BTW - Thanks for the kind words re: Lo's grandmother. We appreciate how warm everyone has been.
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