Hey Hey Summer Hey

We are officially 20 days into summer break and well, I’m happy to report we are all still alive. 🙂

If you’ve been around this blog for even a smidgen of time it’s likely you know all about our love for Wave Country.  It’s our favorite summer hang and anyone I talk to about it I encourage to go as well.  It’s our absolute favorite.  Over the years we have shockingly never been to opening day, but this year we woke up and knew our crew needed some fun and sun.  Throughout the past 22 months I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve had to change plans, skip out on events and choose to make a different choice for our family because we knew how down it would make us all feel…how sad it would make our kids.  Sometimes showing up isn’t an option despite our best-laid plans.  Sometimes we just have to do what we can and on that day Wave Country was it.

As we sat around soaking wet, eating concession stand food it just felt good to be back.  This place is special.  All 7 of our babies have been in this place and splashed in this water and I really love that.  Oh how I wish Shuai was with us, but we carry him with us everywhere we go.

In preparation for summer pool time Aunt Jen bought Leo his very own Donna float…it’s true love…plus a plethora of other fun rainbow summer items.  Harper bought herself a giant floppy hat from Target to try and rival her Aunt Jen’s.  I mean, these little to semi-little people just slay me.  And my kind friend Leah saw some other rainbow summer love and knew I needed them.  We know some really good people.

We got two trips to the wave pool under our belt and then on our 6th day of summer Amon broke his arm playing basketball. Morale instantly went from crazy high to crazy low.  We asked about a waterproof cast, but no luck for a wonky break and a full arm cast.  When Amon finally got his permanent cast and they asked him what color he wanted he requested rainbow which made me cry in the casting room.  They couldn’t do rainbow, but let him pick 3 colors instead of the normal 2 option and his day was made.

While we waited on his permanent cast we made do.  Harper decided we’d all listen to a different musician/band every day of summer.  Names were collected and written on little slips of paper and almost every day she draws a new name, posts it in the kitchen and pulls up a Spotify playlist to match.  Beck, Maroon 5, Drake, Tupac, The Police, Post Malone, Tom Petty, DJ Khaled, Panic At The Disco and a few others have graced our ears so far.  We really like her…and yes, the crazy kid loves romaine lettuce leaves.

We also made a movie list of movies we’ve never seen, but wanted to and then checked them all out at the library.  Currently our library won’t let us check any additional movies out until we return more. 🙂  So far we’ve marked off 9 movies.  I think we will do this every summer now.  The kids love it.

We got to hang with Hannah and Hilliary.  They both knew and loved Everett and Leo before we ever could so they will forever have a special place in our family and hearts.

Bonus:  They are just the kindest and love our kiddos so well.  They are also totally cool with a sketchy pulled together lunch, ice-cream, sidewalk chalk, Winter obsessing over them and wanting to make a coat out of their skin 😉  Amon scaring them 72 times with his new Spiderman mask and Leo getting over stimulated.  Seriously, they’re gems.

Josh Kelley and the bigs went camping at Long Hunter State Park here in Tennessee.  It’s a 6 mile hike in and a 6 mile hike out and they lived to tell about it. 🙂  They ate all the Ramen and roasted marshmallows and summer sausage and Mambas their camping hearts desired.  They also didn’t sleep much and came home wiped.  Fun was had by all.

Ice-cream and popsicles are always on heavy rotations when the summer months hit.  We were given the best freeze pops ever from Kroger by some friends and now we cannot quit them.  Hudson even started a freeze pop business and rides his bike down to the park on our street and sells them for .50 cents each.  It’s pretty dang cute.  Solomon helped him make his first $1 by purchasing two himself. 🙂  They are such trip.  The Nestle Push-Pop variety pack has been a massive hit as well.

  And summer also has brought on more sleeping pictures…some of which we have deemed Weekend At Bernies-esque.  I’ll never quit taking these.

 We’ve finally figured out a way to keep Amon’s cast semi dry so he can still swim and we’re back into our summer groove.  We’re currently on bottle #2 of sun screen and new bathing suits are already fading a bit.  Summer is our complicated feeling jam.  We’ll make it.  We’ll survive.  And everyone will get a tan along the way. 🙂