summer lovin'

June has pretty much consisted of the kinds of things my dreams are made of. And it's gone by in a flash!

Here's the Readers Digest version of all the things I've failed to blog about:

{Parks, Picnics, Sno-Cones, Walks}
We've spent plenty of time outside making up for the dismal spring we had this year... from afternoon walks and sno-cones with our best girls to Sunday afternoon picnics in the park and lots of time on the front porch, we're taking full advantage around here.

{2011- The Year of the Yard?}
Okay, that might be a bit too bold a statement, but we are finally trying to slowly get our arms around our decade long neglected yard. We're breaking it up into small sections and trying to get a handle on things. We actually have a few small areas of our yard that are finally starting to look "on-purpose". Someday it will all look that way, I hope. We even planted a garden this year... a very rookie garden, but a garden nonetheless.


{Excercise}
Thursday night tennis lessons are still pretty much my favorite thing I've done in a long time. I look forward to it all week long and am loving my night out with the girls, our awesome coach, breaking a sweat and learning the game!
I'm also loving my early morning walks to the H-Rock. A great way to start the day.... fresh air, incredible views and fantastic company...


{Self-Feeding}
Any chance I could just spoon-feed her until she's 12 and less likely to make a mess? Hmmm, didn't think so. Since it's inevitable...we're slowly starting to experiment with self-feeding... simple finger foods and small snacks. I'm not looking forward to messier things. at all.

{Sleepovers at Grandma's}

Keeping with our "year of the staycation", we've been spending lots of time at Grandma's house, which is pretty much like a vacation. CJ has been working and gone a lot this summer (between taking his turn as a weekend farmer at his family farm in Idaho to Youth Conference to playing in his dirt up the canyon... let's just say he's been busy), so LJ and I have taken off to go spend time with Grandma and Grandpa. It's pretty great... sometimes we don't ever even get out of our jammies down there and no one even cares.

We're also hard at work on a very special project down there that's keeping us busy.... more about that later.

{Hanging with Dada}

We've spent some time chasing CJ up the canyon to make sure he's well fed as he plays in the dirt and tinkers with his pipedream up at his lot.

{Swimming}

It wouldn't be summer without lots and lots of pooltime. We've taken full advantage of our friends with pools this year. I realize that this is the perfect summer with her. She's big enough to really enjoy getting wet and splashing in the pool, but still small enough to be content to just chill. She LOVES the floatie that we got her and seems to have masterfully perfected the art of "relaxing at the pool". Somehow I think next summer will be different. So in the meantime.... we're loving every minute of our chill pool time while it lasts.

{Reading}

Between reading with Leah (who also LOVES books) and reading on my own, we can't seem to get enough of good books around here lately. Nothing says summer like getting sucked into a great book. I'm reading a lot for my Book Club(s) as well as finally trying to catch up on my huge stack of "must-read" recommended books! It seems that as soon as I get through a couple in my stack, there are several more to add to it, but that's fine by me. That's what summers are for, right?!

{AND still looking forward to...}

So many fun things on our summer calendar in the weeks ahead... just to name a few:

Weekend "away" for CJ's birthday.

Deer Valley Concert. (love me some sound o' music)

4th of July Neighborhood Breakfast (good food, great views and an awesome slipnslide)

Lots more time working on my special project (it deserves it's very own post and then some)

More Tennis

More Swimming

More Picnics

Lots of outdoor cooking (we finally broke down and splurged on a grill. yippee)

Farmers Market (to supplement what we may or may not reap out of our own garden)

HP - 7.2

and more.

iheartsummer.