Summer Lovin'

I am a lover of summer.  I suspect having a July birthday pre-programmed me to be this way, and then marrying a school teacher solidified it, but I LOVE summer.  Even when it's hot and sticky and kind of gross outside, I still love it.  I wanna marry it.  I'm all about the flipflops, shorts & t-shirts, time at the pool, grilling food (well, letting Craig grill food), pretending I don't even own a sweater or a coat, sleeping late, not having a schedule, eating ice cream whenever I turn around, and just getting to PLAY.  It all makes me happy.

I'm not very good at documenting it, unfortunately (especially because a lot of our favorite activities involve water, and I am very protective of my phone!), but here are a few pictures I managed to get:

Bentley's Lemonade Stand

Apparently I've used the excuse "We can't afford that" a little too often, because Bentley decided he needed to earn some money to help us out.  Without dwelling on how embarrassing that is (and don't worry, we're actually not destitute-- I'm just too lazy to explain "wants" vs. "needs" to my children), I'm just going to brag about how cute this all was.  I made real lemonade (first time!) and Bentley enthusiastically went around knocking on our neighbors' doors so they would come and buy some.  And they did!  Every person came and paid double Bentley's asking price (which, admittedly, was only 25¢)!  He sold most of his lemonade in about 15 minutes, and then there was a crack of thunder and we closed up shop for the day.  He reopened the next day and sold the rest in even less time, and I think we ended up breaking even.  Success!

Ryder and Kendra drank up a good portion of the inventory.  Bentley was a very good salesmen and made those signs himself!

I have no idea why Ryder is only wearing one shoe.  But I think Kendra's shorts are adorable.

Mostly this made me happy because it's the kind of thing I would have LOVED to do when I was a kid.  I always joke that Bentley got all my worst traits, but watching him knock on our neighbors' doors (and watching the look of disbelief on Craig's face) was a nice reminder that I managed to contribute a few good qualities, too!

4th of July

We spent the 4th with Craig's parents in Culpeper and had a lovely day.  Despite being kept up three hours past their bedtime, the kids were fairly well-behaved (phew!) and they loved watching the fireworks.  I got to enjoy one of those absolutely beautiful moments where all felt right in the world: I was sitting in the grass, watching Bentley and Kendra try to catch fireflies while in the distance the city's firework display ran its course.  It was already a perfect moment, and then Ryder quietly came and sat next to me, sucking his thumb and holding his blankie, and watched it with me.   And that just solidified it all for me.  The world is sometimes a lovely and good place.

Here's my patriotic baby!

There was one other lovely, perfect moment, this time captured on film by Craig:

Just skip to 35 seconds, that's when it's cute

Pool and Splashdown Time:

We've been spending a lot of time in the water.  We do this every summer, but this time it's been made a lot more fun by the fact that Bentley can SWIM!  He still has a ways to go before you could think about letting him be in a pool unsupervised (hence the floaties on his arms in the picture below!), but he is so much more comfortable in the water than he ever has been before.  In the past, it would take us most of the summer just to work up to where he was really enjoying swimming.  This year, he's been loving it from the word go.  And that has made it a lot more fun for all of us!

He and Kendra have also been being a lot braver than ever before, which means they'll go down the slides at Splashdown and jump off the diving board and do all kinds of things that just make being at the pool so much more fun.  So we are loving life!

Seriously, what's not to love about summer?