June summer break so far

 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “this is the worst summer ever,” “this is going to be the worst summer,” or some variation of this thought. The focus this month has been on learning a good worth ethic and building good habits. Each morning the kids have to start the day with their “morning routine.” This includes: making their bed, scriptures, journal, prayer, and doing their laundry. That’s it. But it must be done before they can eat breakfast or get going in the day with anything else. T, W, Th’s Travis is waking the boys up to do a small amount of weight lifting (nothing crazy) for about 15 mins. The other days they’re allowed to sleep in. Then each day they are responsible for accomplishing 1-hour indoor work, 1- outdoor work, and 1-hour of learning. They can easily be done by lunch if they focus, but it has NOT been received well.  I cannot tell you how many fits, fights, complaints, and tears have been shed over this new routine (by all of us!) Travis has even had to come home over a lunch break to mediate between a certain child and myself. You guys, the work isn’t even bad! During the outdoor work this sometimes includes “15 mins of walking the dog,” or “play with the girls for 30 mins.” It’s not even like it’s all yard work. And learning time includes 30mins of reading… I wish I had 30 mins a day I was forced to read! But either way, this system has been rough going and all time consuming. 

We also have had LOTS of baseball nights. Mon-Thurs evenings have been spent at the ball fields and Saturdays we’ve been divided, some of us at baseball tournaments, the others of us at soccer games. 

We’ve been enjoying going to the library each week; it’s probably been our favorite outing. We had lunch with travis while the boys were at piano lessons. Maddix has been in golf lessons, the boys have gone to Susan’s to help her around the house. We’ve been enjoying s’mores and dinners on our back patio. We’ve had friends come play at our house LOTS. And the kids have been enjoying lots of playtime with the neighborhood friends. We even got to spend an entire day with the Fox family while they were in town and it was by far one of my favorite summer days so far. 

So nothing too big or grand right now. Just the basics. Focusing on the small and simple things because we need some tune ups to our attitudes! And then I’m sure we will add in some more fun outings. I can sense some great things are to come! 

Grandpa summer kick off camping trip

 Over Memorial Day Weekend we kicked the summer off with Grandpa coming into town. The boys went on their annual camping trip while us girls enjoyed some time here! 

Boys: they started the grip with a Twins baseball game in Minneapolis after picking Gpa up from the airport. The boys (all of them) were pretty excited to bring home a ball! The next morning they were off to Nauvoo. They visited all the church sites and fished along the Mississippi River. Another day they drove around and ended up finding an old church house that Gpa Vaughn’s ancestor helped build. They fished at the Nauvoo state park, ate at a Mexican restaurant, cooked s’mores, practiced baseball, and had a wonderful weekend slowing life down and enjoying each other’s company. 

Girls: we spent an entire day hanging out with little friends and then hanging out with Heather, Josie, and Lily until bedtime. The next day we were enjoying g a slow moment and even stirring on the back porch, eating an apple when we received a call to see if we were going to the parade. Before we knew it, the girls were all loaded in the biking trailer and we were down at the parade. We ended up sitting with Treycen and the Tolentino’s. It was so much fun! 

Once the boys were back, we woke up bright and early to work on the yard before our bbq. Gpa Vaughn even taught Maddix how to mow the lawn. The boys and I met up with all the friends at the park and played nearly 3hrs of ultimate Frisbee before coming back to the house to host a bbq. It was a great day. The boys both ended up having late nights at friends, so Gpa Vaughn took the rest of us out to dinner and we came out (at 9:00pm) the sky was bright and green! Thanks fully, there was no tornado! 

We LOVED our Memorial Day Weekend. Now here’s to our summer to come!!