Summer: July

I have this job in education and everyone always think that I get entire months "off." 

I mean, no. The answer is really just no. 

I am incredibly lucky in the fact that I did get almost 5 weeks off, which I realize is way more than most employees get off in the summer. But, most if it was spread out and I was still doing various forms of work EVERY DAY anyway because summer is actually one of the busiest time for a school administrator. (File that under "Things nobody told me when I took this job.") But, I will take sneaking away to make phone calls*, doing webinars in the closet* and working on stuff late at night over having to actually go into work those days because I get lots of hang out time with the boys. And, as it turns out, I am pretty much in love with my job, so I am definitely winning. I had to go back full time towards the beginning of July, but when I look at these pics, I realize that are pretty much masters of cramming fun stuff in on the weekends. 

*Never. This is how many times I have actually had a work related conversation with anyone  without my kids suddenly deciding that their arms were falling off, the sky was caving in and they were 5 seconds away from dying of thirst. When I think about it, how I still have my job is actually a surprise to me. 

Anyway, on to July festivities!

This giant tree fell next to our house (NEXT TO-Super thankful for that) and we spent some time climbing it, measuring it, etc. The best estimate that we could get was 37 feet! Also, Anderson took this high quality shot of me. 

Spots has become quite the member of the family and often makes appearances to watch TV, hang out with us, reminding me that he is worth all of the trips to Petco for mealworms and crickets, etc. 

Also, the patch is still very much a member of our family. 

This is generally the result of what I find when they are playing alone. 

Totally worth it for those few minutes, actually. 

You know, or this. 

I am really good at documenting outings and activities, but am trying to do a better job of the other 99% of our time. There are so many times where they are just doing things like this-destroying giant chunks of ice while in underwear. 

A pool party for a friend turned into a lake party, as well. Since I am a huge fan of all day activities, I embraced this. I did not, however, embrace adjusting pics to be the right way. Sorry. 

Anderson literally has more energy than anyone I have ever met. 

The rest of us do our best to keep up with him, but being the baby brother who has just a normal amount of energy will catch up with you occasionally and you have to take a nap on the boat. 

One glorious evening was spent at the Brimer's where Clare even cooked us a delicious meal!

Love those 4 kids and cannot wait until Charlie is in the mix!

We went to the park with some of Anderson's kindergarten classmates and he quickly led the charge in trying to catch turtles instead of playing or doing normal park things.

 I guess this is actually our normal park thing, but the other moms seemed a little nervous about the dangling over possibly flesh eating bacteria infested water with a net. 

Sometimes I walk into find Max just living in his own world. This kid seriously wins at life. 

Animals/insects of all kinds. Always. I cannot stress this enough. 

Another random activity-chasing food coloring down the ditch. Seriously, they had so much fun with this and it provided yet another opportunity where our ditch rescued us from a long day. 

Clearance chalk paint from Target. 

A pretty short (3 hours is short for us) visit to Ijams resulted in some really awesome sightings-a snake AND a giant snapping turtle in one pic!

This guy was the hit of the trip, for sure. 

Anderson did a football camp with his buddy, Noah. It was FREE, so I was all over it.

 He did not love it, but it was free, so....whatever. 

I promised Lucy a trip to Build a Bear for her 3rd birthday, which was in January, and we finally made it! She was so stinking cute during the entire process. It was really fun to spend time with just her and I am looking forward to more opportunities like this in the future!

Many visits to McFee.

Always. 

Overpriced ice cream from the ice cream man because we really should do it at least once per summer, right? Also, I was attempting to "play Science" as Max requested, but it was really just too hot outside to do anything but eat ice cream. 

There is a little creek that we can walk to down the street and we are frequent visitors to try & catch all things. One day we walked down there in the 98 degree weather and I pushed Max in his stroller to speed up the process. My fitbit later thought that I had been "Outdoor Mountain biking" for 48 minutes. I mean, yes that is pretty much the same thing as parenting boys. 

So many heart emojis need to be used here. 

Cow Day=Free Food=Tradition!

Because Noni is a rock star, she took them to the Clinton Fair and let them play overpriced games, check out livestock, get snow cones and have tons of fun. 

I showed up at the end of it and took pics, which usually seems to be my contribution. 

Speaking of the village supporting my life, Clare picked up Anderson from his camp and took him to the zoo! Have I mentioned that she already has 3 kids? Or, that it was at least 99 degrees outside? Or, that Anderson has more energy than a kindergarten class combined? Clare knew all of this things AND still spent an entire afternoon raising him and he had SO much fun!

Brandon & I celebrated an ENTIRE DECADE of MARRIAGE! We celebrated by gorging on sushi at at a little Japanese place near our house. 

It turns out that life is a pretty nice set up when you get to spend it with this guy. 

Spent some time* at the Library Park just doing a little exploring. I am holding up a necklace that one of my favorite people ever, Tess Waibel, made for me! 

*Over 3 hours. Seriously. 

We found a snake and against my better judgment (and Bop's advice in my head,) I let Anderson catch it. 

I took a picture from the sidelines; I am just realizing this. I mean, I do feel a little bad now that I let this go down. 

But...he was so proud!

Anderson had a party at Putt Putt and he & Max spent quite a bit of time winning hundreds of tickets after it was over. Seriously, they kept winning them; it was crazy. 

Max is still thoroughly embracing the fire situation everywhere he goes. 

Why yes....that is a picture of Anderson & Lily ACTUALLY GETTING ALONG! Huge shout out to Noni for figuring out that blue cake can bond them together and even get real smiles. Who knew?

Max is like Houdini. You know, if Houdini was also a tornado. 

He manages to escape from our house on a frequent basis and on this particular day, I snapped this pic because I just could not get mad at him. I mean, how amazing was his life half dressed in this moment of rain??

 Pure bliss. 

The WormPie girl herself, just getting chubbier by the day. What actually makes her look so much bigger remains a mystery. Is it her fur? Her body? Her attitude? 

Since I did have to work almost all of July, Anderson went to an AWESOME summer camp. Well, many days the grandmas were to the rescue of our bank account and this guy's happiness because they watched him, but he went to camp on the other days. 

He went swimming, played outside, played games, did Science, went on field trips (to splash parks, huge pools, rock wall climbing places, IMAX, etc) but he still cried every morning. When you are a Mama/Noni/GG's boy, you just don't care about that stuff. BUT, I know it is important that he learns some independence (he has to keep up with all of his stuff) and I cannot imagine any scenario where this kid did not have some kind of outlet for his energy/need to interact with other kids for an entire month, so it really has been good for him. 

On the day pictured above, he LOVED it because they went to the Chattanooga Aquarium and they have a sting ray touching area. What he said to me on that day when I picked him up sums him up more than other sentence that he has spoken this summer- "Mama, I was the only one in my group who touched a sting ray! My shirt got all wet and it was so cool!"

Competitive-check

Risk taking-check

Touching nature-check 

When I had to go to Nashville for work, Brandon stepped in and provided many an outing such as another visit to PuttPutt for games and ice cream. 

Their expressions in this one crack me up. 

Noni took Anderson to ChuckECheese with Nicole/her kids and Anderson was thrilled to ride with Levi. He really was, I think, but he is not going to actually smile. 

Noni & Bop had a shrimp boil one night with their neighbors and invited us over for dinner and backyard festivities. My mother is basically the party planner for her neighborhood. 

Y'all know if there is a Harry Potter festivity that WE WILL BE THERE! Books A Million had a celebration for the new book and the only thing that was disappointing was that Anderson refused to wear his Hogwarts robe. They had snakes and owls, which were HUGE hit with my kids, of course. After Max touched the snake, he grinned and said, "That was SO cool!"

Best of all, Anderson was sorted and, just like we have always expected, will be in Gryffindor. 

We even went to Sonic for dinner and it was one of the first times that any kind of dining out* was pleasant. It does, in fact, get easier. 

*I know it's Sonic and not a real restaurant but our frugalness/work & life schedules/picky eaters just don't lend themselves to real restaurants, so we count this. Also, we were definitely dining out...side! Ha ha ha.

We lived up the last day of July by spending pretty much all of it outside. Max was so, so proud when he "caught" a butterfly on his leg at the splash pad. 

Later that afternoon-Max stepped INTO the citronella candle.

 He is ok, but this kid will KEEP US ON OUR TOES!

Denise & Adeline spent the afternoon with us, which made it even more fun! 

Nothing screams childhood more than a pizza picnic in a tent. 

And, because she is an awesome grandma, GG took these crazy boys to JumpJam! Love a blurry pic of Max on a "jumpaline," as he calls it.