Our first full week of summer has been nice for the most part.

It started off sad. I found out that a friend who's husband has been battling cancer for the past few years died on Sunday. The funeral was Tuesday. I was able to find a friend to watch the kids so I could go. It was sad but I was glad I was able to go. I wish there was something else I could do for my friend. Lindsay said it so sweetly, "Mrs. L needs our love, Mommy."

The rest of the week has been happier. The kids have loved staying up later and getting to sleep in. I'm not happy about how late they are staying up. But I haven't done much about getting them up earlier which will cure part of the problem.

On Friday Philip had his friend over for a few hours and they had a blast playing and trying to sneak in more game time then they were allowed. That was also the day that I finally got them signed up for swimming lessons. My friend J belongs to a swim club and they offer lessons to both members and non-members. They are cheaper than what other places are charging for private lessons and you can do one day, a few days or every day. It helps that I really like their pool too. So I filled out the form, giving them my preferred times and days. When I took it over to turn in Philip was greeted by three kids who knew him. There was probably five more kids that he knew from school. This of course has him wanting to join. We ended up staying awhile so he could play in the play area with two friends while I talked to a few of the moms.

Later that night Philip couldn't wait to ask James about joining. I thought for sure we hear the usual "We'll see, let mom and dad discuss it." We didn't. He asked Philip some questions and then told me that this is something he wouldn't mind paying to join for the summers. So now I'm going to find out from J what I need to do to get us on the wait list for families outside their neighborhood. This has me happy because I've wanted to join a swim club for awhile only I couldn't figure out how to justify it as we belong to the Y and they have a pool. It is just not an outdoor pool or one that is geared for playing. It's a lap pool. We have one that has a splash play area only the hours don't work well for us and the one with an outdoor pool is a drive. They also have limited use hours and the swim club has longer hours and swim meets are the only time you can not use the pool at all. During lesson times it is still partly open. I love the idea of being able to go there on a hot evening, having dinner right by the pool.....

Any way, back to the swim lessons. We got the days and my second choice of times! So for the next three weeks the kids will be swimming, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And I'm paying less than what I did last summer!

Note for my logs, both kids are reading a minimum of 30 minutes each day. Both have been doing the summer workbooks. And they both have not been complaining about having to limit tv and electronic time. Of course they both want more but the most I get when I tell them it is time to turn it off is a request to finish a show or asking if they can watch something later on. I hope this continues.

Summer has begun!

Summer is here!

I'm so happy. It felt so good to not have to jump out of bed and start rushing so I could be ready by the time I needed to wake the kids up and get them ready for school. Hopefully I'll feel that way next week and as summer continues.

The kids started summer homework today. I had given them off last Friday and the weekend and told them we would start it all today. They did it without complaints. I hope that continues as well. Lindsay was so good about diving right into it. Philip did it but he wasn't thrilled to do it. Though he was interested in the books they had recommended he read.

Will I ever get the hang of this?

By this I mean remembering to come here and blog.

Lets see what's been happening....

Philip is now 10. We went to Simi to visit the grandparents and my brother's family over Spring Break. It was nice to see everyone and not have to be any where. My mil took a day off from work and we headed to the zoo. It was a great day. It was a great week. The kids had a blast even if they did miss their dad.

School is almost over -- 8 more days! I am both looking forward to it and dreading it. I am looking forward to not having to rush around in the morning and not having to deal with homework. I am not looking forward to loosing my time. I love being able to clean the house and having a room stay clean for more than 5 minutes. Lindsay considers it an invitation to do puzzles on the living room floor if she is home when I vacuum and mop it. She wants them all left out until she has finished all of them. This can take hours because she'll take a break and go do something else.

Both kids have continued to do well in school. Philip has one big project left. He's written the report (yeah!) He is just going to edit it down to two pages from three just incase he can not go over the two pages they were asked to do. We have to finish is person poster and then have him work on the speech that goes with it.

Lindsay has three pages left in her May/June homework packet and has plans of turning it in on Wednesday or Thursday. She says it depends on how easy it is to figure out what to write about Farm Animals. She doesn't want to repeat what she wrote in class. She's going to drive me nuts!

I'm in the process of helping to figure out end of year gifts. For Mrs. Phillips (Lindsay's teacher) the kids are going to put thumb print flowers on a painted 12 inch flower pot. It is ready to go, I just need to gather the paint together and take it up the school to have them do it. I've been collecting money for some gift cards for her. I'm going to get her one from Walgreens and possibly one from Lakeshore Learning and/or to some place for dinner out.

For Mrs. Taylor (Philip's teacher) we are doing a scrapbook for her. The kids are going to do a page each and we will be doing a couple of other pages for field trips, etc. She isn't in school today or tomorrow so I went up and took some pictures of the kids in groups. A few of the parent shave contacted me to tell me that they don't have any pictures of their kids in class and wanted to know if I could help locate some. The group photos will help there. I also have a few parents looking through pictures they took of field trips to get me copies. I'll be ordering prints of any of them to be picked up at Target tomorrow afternoon. Oh and then I need to admit that I took some photos from her classroom that she had on display. There are some good photos and I want to use them if we need to. I am hoping she will not be mad at me over that. I wonder if I should text her and tell her not to panic I have them?

Oh I should probably mention our plans for the summer --

Swim lessons (both kids)
Tennis lessons(both kids)
Academic Chess Camp(Philip)
Trip to Disneyland (the whole family)
A few trips to visit family (just the kids and me)
Great America! <-- season passholders!
Day Camp at Little Gym (possibly only Lindsay)
visits to the Y
Hanging out with friends!