summer – NourishingWhole

Summer 2018- Part 3

This is my final recap of the summer, and as today is the first day of Fall, it is fitting!. Other than the 18 things on our to-do list {Part 1 and Part 2}, we also had plans to travel to San Antonio for a family reunion on my mother’s side.

We are extremely lucky that now, we only live about 3 hours away from my grandparents, my mother’s parents. Growing up we never lived close to them, and never were able to visit as much as my other cousins. Sometimes it make us, my siblings, feel like we are the odd ones out. Since moving, and being older now, I see that really it’s just that they don’t know us as well, but my grandparents WANT to have that kind of relationship with us.

Getting together with all the cousins, I think only one or two was unable to come, and their families was crazy! My grandparents had 5 kids and those 5 had: a total of 14 kids. Of those cousins, 6 of us have had at least 2 babies. I believe the total is now at 15 great-grand-babies! Plus some of my grandparents cousins came down. There was a lot of people at the big party.

Even though this wasn’t our first time to San Antonio, we finally got the chance to do some touristy things.

Like The Riverwalk:

Lunch at the old restaurant on the Riverwalk, Casa Rio. We enjoyed it!

The Alamo:

And our favorite place, The Doseum!

No, we didn’t have two hats for Mr. Z. At some point before we road the river boats, Mr. Z lost his hat and we had to get a new one. His little dino hat was my FAVORITE and I am still devastated, so if anyone can find a replacement for Baby Hercules to wear send it our way!

Lastly, we were able to get Mr. Z a set of private swim lessons! He did a lot better this year than last year in the group lessons. Next year, both boys can do them!

Summer 2018- Part 2

It’s time for Part Two of our Summer! Missed Part one? Look HERE.

This summer we created a list of 18 things to do. I do this list so that we have something to do other than not melt in the Texas heat. We did not get to everything on the list, but here are the ones that we did!

10: Photo Scavenger Hunt

This was totally my fault, I never put it together!

11: Visit the Brazos Valley Children’s Museum 10 times.

Checking the patient on the way to the hospital.

I went shopping. The Ice cream is for me and the veggies are for you.

This is one of our favorite places, it is indoors and air conditioned, and since we have a membership, it’s free! The plan was to go at least weekly, but we didn’t always make it. Then I found out our membership expired in July! We decided that we would not renew with Mr. Z starting full day kindergarten we would not use it as much as we did this last year. We did make it 7 times before our membership expired, plus a trip to the Houston Natural Science Museum and to San Antonio children’s museum the Dosuem.

12: Watch Fireworks

We decided to check out the fireworks at the George Bush Presidential Library this year. It was pretty good. Plus the show had a live orchestra playing during the firework display, so the timing was almost perfect. Mr. Z also enjoyed some fun bounce houses and slides before it got dark.

13: Go to the Physics Roadshow

This one was another one of, mom made a mistake. I wrote down the wrong date on the calendar, and we showed up to the library 2 weeks too late!

14: Sponge Water Fight

I got this idea off pinterest, and Mr. Z loved it! No need for water guns, plus it’s more fun.

15: Picnic at the park

Summer is not the time to have a picnic outside in Texas. It was always too hot, and I just couldn’t bring myself to force us to do it.

16: Go to the Chemistry Roadshow

This one we did make! I think all the fire and “Ooohh! Aaahhh!” factor they have built into the show makes it a favorite for all kids.

17: Visit Washington on the Brazos

This was another one, that we made plans but weather did not agree with us. Once we got rained out and twice it was over 100*.

18: Write Letters to Friends.

This one was a bust. We got all the stuff out a couple of times and then Mr. Z decided he didn’t want to do it, or Baby Hercules would wake up and need my attention and Mr. Z would not finish. I think I’ll save it for next year, it might have been too early to do it this summer.

Next week I’ll post about our Big Trip and about some of the summer dreams we got to do.

Summer 2018- Part 1

1: Learn to ride a bike!

All decked out in safety gear to practice.

Mr. Z got a bike for Christmas last year, and getting him to learn to ride it has not been easy. We did get a few practice sessions in.

2: Ride a pony.

Mr. Z explaining why he won’t touch the horses.

A mom’s group that we are in, has a summer trip out to one of the members home, where she has horses and a pony. She leads the kids around for a ride on the pony. We went, but Mr. Z was scared of the large animals and wouldn’t ride or touch it. I am hopeful, that one year he will ride the pony!

3: Vacation Bible School!

Mr. Z did two weeks of VBS. IT WAS AMAZING, for us at least! Both were evening sessions and so we got to have time with just Baby Hercules. Mr. Z did enjoy VBS and loved having fun crafts to learn about bible stories.

4: Finish Summer Reading

Our library does the national summer reading program, but it is very different from our old library in Pullman. Most of the prizes here are coupons for discounted or free kids meals. But we do summer reading, more for the fun of making sure we read every day in the summer. This summer we read The BFG and James and the Giant Peach. Mr. Z loved them and I think reading at lunch will be a summer tradition for us.

5: One Week of NO TV!

This was one that Mr. Z was not excited for at all. But I knew we needed it. The first few days were hard, but by Wednesday, TV time wasn’t even asked for. We have also carried over no TV Sundays, from this.

6: Visit the 3 Splash Pads.

Mr. Z is great at making friends with everyone at the parks.

This one is one of my favorite things to do in the summer, plus, with Baby Hercules getting more mobile over the summer, he also enjoyed the splash pads. We have 3 splash pads at different city parks. One is our favorite and one we don’t really like, but I don’t like going to the same place every time. So I wanted to make sure we went to each one this year.

7: Find a 4-leaf Clover.

Mr. Z was unsuccessful in his search.

8: Read The BFG!

Like I said in 4, we did read it. It was so fun to read at lunch in the summer. Mr. Z just loved it and if I could, I think he would have wanted me to read it in one sitting!

9: Make Popsicles.

One of our favorite things, we have a couple different molds, and we like coming up with fun fruit and juice mixes. Mr. Z’s favorite this summer was strawberries and blueberries with orange juice.

Next week I’ll post the other 9 things on our 2018 Summer list.