Best Summer Ever Wrap-Up

Fall is the one season I go into kicking and screaming. Although I like it well enough once I'm in it, I like to delay the onset as much as possible. Give me flip-flops and shorts over sweaters, socks and shoes you have to lace up, especially when I'm responsible for 3 other people to dress. Luckily I live in a part of the country where the start of fall is nice and gradual and isn't really official until towards the middle of October.

But the signs are definitely here. Besides the Halloween decorations everywhere, our leaves are starting to change color too. Mornings are foggy and evenings are cool. Since we declared it the Best Summer Ever way back in May, I thought I'd do a wrap-up and see how we did on our goals to have as much fun as possible.

• Grill-did this quite a bit, but not enough. The most notable addition to our grilling repertoire was Trader Joe's Carne Asada, or "spicy steak" as Julia calls it.

• Beach-not enough. After Memorial Day weekend, we ended up going just once, and it was cold and stinky. Big bummer, but definitely something to improve on next year.

• Swim-We did this quite a bit, whether at friends' homes, Grandma Goob's, or on one of our trips. Julia had a great summer of swim lessons and she's officially water safe. One of these days, maybe we'll even have our own pool.

• Play in the Backyard-done! The swing set was a big hit on the days that weren't too hot.

• Camp-done and it was a huge success. Woo hoo Julia!!!

• Legoland-done!

• Disneyland-done!

• Read-eh, could've done better.

• Clean out the kids' rooms-kinda sorta

• Scrapbook-in my dreams.

• Picnics and playdates-didn't happen, which is sort of disappointing.

• Stay up late-done, but we soon realized that earlier bedtimes are better for everyone.

• Sleep in-heck yeah!

• Ice Cream-um, yeah.

• Popsicles-ditto

• Shave Ice-most definitely, although the end of summer won't be the end of that.

• Date nights-unfortunately, this didn't happen as much as we'd liked. But my birthday dinner was amazing!

• Sleepovers at the grandparents'-sadly, no.

• Zoo-ditto

• Go to work with Daddy-ditto, but we can do this during the school year, too.

• Get Ethan Potty Trained-you know how that went.

• Dinner at Paradise Cove-this one we did do but it wasn't as great as it could've been.

There were a few other things that didn't happen. As usual, the summer went by too fast. It was also a lot of work planning all the outings, excursions, etc. and trying to fill the kids' days. I'm hoping that next summer, with Brady a bit older, will be less chaotic and much less tiring. We'll definitely remember these lessons (camp for sure, swim lessons for Ethan, Legoland is not necessary) and hopefully have the Best Best Summer Ever in 2007!