Summer Days Drifting Away

We have these few weeks of summer where we have very little that we have to do. Camp is over, school stuff hasn't started yet (soon, though, and I feel like I'm moving into an entirely different phase of life come September -- class picnics, school meetings, packing lunches), our upcoming visitors are still a week out from arrival (but I sure am excited), and I don't have to start thinking about packing for our little family vacation quite yet. I'm looking forward to everything that we have coming down the pike but I'm also really enjoying our leisurely days and impromptu outings. With fall just around the corner (and we're feeling it on both coasts, apparently, since I read Liz's post with similar sentiments in the middle of writing this one), there is a feeling of urgency to getting our summer excursions in but it's good pressure -- it reminds us to embrace all the cliches and seize the day, suck the marrow out of life, and, according to Erma Bombeck "Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart."

We're trying our best to live and love and enjoy these fleeting moments. Sometimes I wish that some of us weren't trying to be so fleet footed since Jack's latest gash probably could have been avoided had he not been trying to keep up with the older kids, but we'll take the good with the bad. These aren't quite the lazy days of summer quite yet (soon, soon -- maybe next year) but they are full of good memories. In this little interlude between busier times, it's nice to sit back and take stock of where we're at and what we have coming up. It's fun to share the days' stories with John and let him swoop in and be fun dad while the we still have time to enjoy long evenings outside. The sun is certainly setting earlier these days but while it's still shining during the day, we're soaking it all up with every ounce of energy we can muster.

We love catalogs over here. Molly generally likes things along the lines of Land of Nod or American Girl. Jack, however, likes the free car magazine that you find next to the USA Today newspaper on the street. Like the souped up hot rod he was intrigued with, I'm pretty sure the walking and reading thing is a bad idea.

Being an older kid (Molly's term for herself when she's pretending she's big and grown up), means that we can convince mom to stop her run and take a dunk in the lake (her, not me) while "the little kid" is sleeping.

Blueberry picking...

which turned into blueberry eating and...

leaf picking.

post-pick picnic.

Today's outing was to the best kid farm I've ever been to. I hate scary petting zoo-type farms with over-fed animals or the farms that are like amusement parks with a random goat thrown in. This place was a good mix of well-tended-but-not-rabid animals and a few other activities that kept us entertained but not overwhelmed. Phew.

Jack lost his mind over the chickens. I don't think he ever figured out that he couldn't catch the big ones (and I'm realizing that he sounds like my parents' cat who hasn't figured out that he can't catch squirrels. Great, my kid is like a lunatic cat) and was SO excited when he could hold one of the baby chicks and it sat on his arm. The other thing he liked? The poop rake. He followed the guy picking up the horse poop around screaming "rake" at him over and over. Hey, my boy calls a spade a spade.

Molly liked the idea of the chicks better than the reality. The lady is cautious about her wildlife...

except for the horses. She loved loved loved riding the horse.

All good farms let their farmers drive tractors.

Thankfully, the hot rodder-in-training couldn't put the pedal to the metal quite yet but he was mad to try it.