The Jesters: End of Summer Fun

The girls and I have a traditional "Mommy and Me Day" each year before school starts. We go somewhere fun for them to play, shop for a special toy, and only eat foods and desserts that they love. Emma and I have been doing this since the summer she started K-4. Now that Hallie's starting K-4, she gets to join us!

Our play area of choice was Funville! It's a huge themed indoor playground with obstacle courses, climbing structures, slides, and a room full of soft balls and machines that blow them into the air and around you. They have a seating area for the adults with free wifi and good food, so it's a win-win!

The girls spent at least 3-4 hours in Funville that day. We followed it up with a trip to 5 Below to choose toys, and Barnes and Noble to find great sticker books. We ate Chick-Fil-A for lunch and I let them choose a special dessert. I will miss these days when it costs less than $100 to make all their dreams come true!

The girls loved their sticker books and worked on them most of the afternoon.

A friend from church organized a playdate at the beach the day before the girls started school. About 8 moms showed up with their kids, and it was a blast!

We babysat some friends from church, Matthew and Luciana, one evening. They love playing together.

We read "Wacky Wednesday" by Dr. Seuss this summer for the first time. One Wednesday morning, Hallie woke up early and had the great idea of creating Wacky Wednesday at our house to surprise Emma. She was really good at putting everyday objects in wacky places and Emma was so surprised when she woke up!

The girls spent another afternoon playing "spa day." They did face painting (with washable markers), because of course all spas offer face painting.

Hallie's sunshine

Emma's butterfly

Then they soaked their hands and feet, wrapped their hair in towels and put cucumber slices on their eyes.

So relaxing!

Dan's busy again outside of work. His job at StoneBridge School always keeps him active during the week, but this spring, our worship pastor at Colonial Baptist Church asked him to play bass with the worship team regularly. He's been playing every other week all summer. It took a few weeks for his hockey league to open back up, but he's also playing ice hockey twice a week again.

A view of the worship team (Dan is sitting down in a black shirt on the right side of the stage) during our outdoor church service

The school needed some new cubbies (wooden lockers) for the elementary school, and Dan asked his dad to help build them. It was more work than they anticipated, but they turned out great!

School began at the end of August. Hallie is starting Pre-K4 with Mrs. Baines (right) and Mrs. Edwards (left). (They do wear masks at school, but I asked them to remove their masks for a quick photo so we could actually see their faces!)

Emma is a grown-up 2nd grader in Mrs. Learn's class.

In mid-September, we had the opportunity to camp at Sherando Lake in northern Virginia with Dan's brother, Tim, our sister-in-law, Dawn, and their five boys. They organize a homeschool co-op camping trip each year, and a family wasn't able to make it, so we paid for their camping site and joined them.

We borrowed our neighbor's 6-man tent. Last year, we used our own 4-man tent and were a little bit too cozy!

As soon as we arrived at Sherando Lake, Emma and Hallie changed into their swimsuits and played in the creek with their cousins, Josiah and Micah.

Josiah was the leader

Hallie was determined not to fall behind! But after a few slips on the wet rocks and falls into the (shallow) water, she decided she'd had enough.

So she joined Micah at the playground and left the creek to the bigger kids!

I'm not going to lie, sleeping in a camping tent as a family gives us about the same amount and quality of sleep as when we had a newborn sleeping in our room. The girls slept like exhausted kids who traveled and played all day. Dan and I were up and down with every single noise inside or outside the tent.

But there's nothing in the world like waking up to this view in the morning!

We took a short hike and fed some geese breadcrumbs for breakfast

It warmed up later that morning, and the homeschool co-op had an informal church service. Afterwards, the high schoolers (and Dan and Tim) played ultimate frisbee for several hours.

Even though it was a little too chilly for it, we went to the lake to play that afternoon. The Williamsburg Christian Retreat Center generously arranged to have all their kayaks and canoes brought to the lake so we could use them.

Dan and Emma kayaking

Such a beautiful place! All four of us kayaked to a small island in the center of the lake.

The girls and I on the island. It was windy and cold in our wet clothes, so we didn't last too long.

Hallie got to ride with Dan on the way back.

Since we had all gotten chilly while sleeping the previous night and it was supposed to drop into the 30s during the second night, we decided to stay at the campsite until bedtime and then drive the 3 hours home to our own beds. We did the same thing last year. We are such fair-weather campers! Hah! Or maybe we just need to buy more gear for the not-so-perfect conditions that are bound to happen.

The girls crashed out on the way home and we all slept great that night!

In other news, we had our front yard tree removed this week. We had a couple of companies give us quotes for trimming the tree back vs. removing it entirely. There wasn't enough of a price difference to convince us to keep it, knowing that it would require more maintenance again later on. Our ultimate goal is to have a simple, flat yard of grass that requires minimal maintenance. We haven't gotten started on the grass yet, but it's the next step after we hire someone to level the yard for us.