midsummer

Monday was “Israel Day” at camp. The kids got passports and took a pretend plane ride to Israel. The Israeli counselors led a day full of activities that ended with a dance party. Sammy was very excited to share how he danced it up.

After my week away I took every chance I could get for cuddles. <3

Sammy loved his Israeli flag. He led parade after parade around the house.

In Denmark I picked up a cool dice game for the kids. There are 5 or 6 dice and each one has different images. When you roll the dice, you use the images that come up to create a story. It’s been so much fun listening to what SSA come up with. (We had to add a reasonable time limit because someone [Steven] could go on and on and on and on lol.)

“Make sure you get my foot in the picture.”

July means sleepovers at Grandma Sunshine’s house and Tuesday night was the first of the season with Amaya up first. (Sammy was scheduled second but Steven started getting upset about going last. I mentioned how the person who goes last still gets to look forward to a sleepover after everyone else has gone – just like Sammy got to look forward to his CA trip after Amaya and Steven had gone – and that was all Sammy needed to swap spots with Steven and offer to go third.)

Settled in at Grandma’s!

Glasses buds! “You have ‘seeing glasses’ like I do!” Not to be confused with sun glasses. 🙂

Grandma, Aunt Annette went out for lunch on Wednesday where Amaya polished off a super sundae.

On Thursday I left for a business trip but was happy to land in AZ to find this photo of three smiling kids, ready for camp.

I arrived home on Saturday afternoon in time to grab the kids for a quick trip to Meijer for a slip ‘n slide and some water blasters. They’ve been shooting water around the backyard all day!

Watch out for the Cline Kids!

This weekend Steven, Sammy and Amaya all get special Mommy or Daddy meals out. First up was Amaya who went out for sushi with her Daddy. <3

Three huge scoops of green tea ice cream.

The boys and I let Dominos do the work for us at home. (Steven: I don’t know how to smile anymore.)

It was a beautiful day and we had the good fortune to be able to spend a good chunk of it outside on the deck and on the play set.

But first, some exercises.

Sammy got a paper cut and Jason spent an exceptional amount of time patiently comforting him. This was toward the end of recovery. At 5.5 yrs old, I think the kids have aged past blog photos of (most of) their tears.

Amaya was ready to battle!

Ready for the runway…

Ready for her spa day…

Sammy and Jason went to Benihana for lunch and Steven picked the Rainforest Cafe for dinner, with me. The last time were at Great Lakes Crossing for an aquarium visit Steven was too scared to go there so Nana took him to Bar Louis. Now he says he was just pranking us and it’s his favorite restaurant so off we went – a 45 min drive each way.

Steven was enthralled by all there was to see and hear. It was precious.

Here you have it – our kids.

I promised Steven he could have dessert and he doesn’t like ice cream so he managed to convince me to get him this mountain of whipped cream and brownies. When it came, we had this exchange:

Me: Steven. See how they bring two spoons? It’s not even a one person dessert.

Steven: Well, for this table it is!