This was a fairly quite week for the Steven, Sammy and Amaya. School is out and camp doesn’t start until Monday so they had some end-of-year downtime. Camp will be from 9am- 3:30pm which is big change from 9am- 12pm pre-k. It’s a good transition to prep the for full day kindergarten but I think their worlds will be rocked in those first weeks of camp – especially since they’ll be out in the sun most of the day.

On Monday we said goodbye to Nana after an awesome and extra long visit. <3

The kids are loving the playset. I’m still so pleased that we got this done. I was afraid it would be “to-do” until they eventually aged out. Even as I type this, Amaya is outside swinging, swinging, swinging.

On Tuesday Madison took SSA to the zoo. I think this is their first visit since the summer of 2017! No more wagons! It looked like a great day.

First visit to the butterfly house.

Madison’s mom and aunt joined the kids along with little Evelyn.

First zoo train ride!

On Thursday we prepped for the delivery of our NEW family-size sofa so our old one moved to our front sitting room. It’s a perfect fit.

Room for five!!

The time also came to part with our play kitchen. It feels like yesterday that Nana, Savta and I built it.

The kids were asking about the characters on their vitamins so I decided to show them some clips from The Flintstones. Every time a new character came on the screen Steven would shout, “Do we eat that one?!?”

Saturday morning the kids cot in some cuddle time with Jason and play time outside before we headed off to Cleveland for our annual overnight visit to my friend Hannah and her kids. She lives in Baton Rouge but her parents live in Cleveland and she’s generously hosted us the past three years.

We had a loooooooong wait for lunch at a rest stop. The kids kept themselves suitably entertained.

This year SSA jumped right in with the Birchman girls which meant Hannah and I could relax! Photo credit: Sammy

Feeding ants.

The kids rode bikes and scootered and tried roller skates and then all at dinner outside together before heading to bed.

Rinse-repeat. More of the same this morning! We spent hours outside and left at lunchtime to make it home by late afternoon.

The whole gang.

Amaya has been working on pages from an “adult” coloring book. I really can’t get over patience, focus and design choices. She works on some of these for days in a row and never tires. It’s really cool to watch.

Finally, Steven drew a picture of Morminer. He was very careful with her spots and tags. 🙂

Have a great week! No blog next Sunday because I’ll be in Denmark! Whoo hoo!