At the beach!

Magoo and I went on vacation this weekend!! Bet you can't guess where.

The beach!!!

We had so much fun! Squawking at sea gulls, dumping sand on our laps, sticking toes and fingers in the lake, and eating cantaloupe. 

My sandy child!

It was a bit cloudy for the first half of the day, which was really nice because that meant it was nice and cool for the majority of the day. The sun came out for the last hour or two, and then we packed up and went back to town for a little frozen fruit kabob and a stroll through some downtown streets for an art show before heading home. 

We had so much fun playing and relaxing together!

I love my tiny gentleman! :)

Keep moving forward :)

I heard somewhere recently about a cartoonist who puts sticky notes of motivational sayings in random places on trains. "I am a superfly success machine," and the like.

Here's mine for the day!

Camp-a-lamping and VBS!

Magoo is officially a tent camper!

Just look at that ham and cheese!

He was so excited to sleep in a tent (which BY THE WAY, that "10 minute set up time" is a total farce!! Sheesh!!) with mama that he didn't actually get to sleep at bedtime..he was squawking and babbling well past the neighboring folks' bedtimes, but I didn't get any dirty looks the next morning, so he must not have bothered them. Whew! ;)

Speaking of the next morning...

So excited to wake up inside a tent! Oh, so much more fun than waking up behind crib railings! 

Now that he is a camper, N is basically a mountain man. Photo evidence:

Note the breakfast watermelon sans bib, sans high chair, sans tray and plate and fork. When a man has to eat his breakfast with his bare hands, sitting on the ground, breakfast dripping on his jammies, he's really roughing it! Level achieved: Expert mountaineer.

It was so much fun that I'm thinking of going again this week, just for one night in the middle of the week! Magoo's heart might pop though- that's a LOT of excitement that he may not be emotionally prepared for! ;)

Oh, we also celebrated the Polish Festival in a nearby town this week, with a fireworks display with friends and pierogies (just for me- N just had his little lunchbox food- watermelon and chicken and the like) and little booths and activities. It was a good couple days!

Hanging with one of his plethora of special lady friends..

So tonight was the kick-off for my church's VBS program, and I'm in charge of games again, along with my pal, K. Last year it was her sister and I, this year her sister is a brand new mama again (congrats), so K took over with me! We make a pretty good team!

So yeah, we have a weird animal theme this year, which means goofy animal games. Shrinking islands, and zoo crew tag.. Tonight was a lot of fun! Some of these kids are HI-larious! It is going to be a really long/busy next few days/weeks, but they will be great! 

Last week's book o' the week: Calm, Cool, and Adjusted, by Kristen Billerbeck, I believe! Chiropractic romance, oh, la!

Cardboard and duct tape and bubble wrap, oh my!

I really am almost officially done packing! *insert enormous sigh of relief* Wahoo!!! For the last week, I've only had a few things to pack and they've been buried behind remodeling materials. Tonight, I bit the bullet and moved everything out of the way so I could get to the last of my household items, which, thanks to some wobbly cardboard boxes and a lot of tape and bubble wrap, are now safe and secure in a giant stack of crap in the basement. For the next two and a half weeks, that is. And then they'll be in our new apartment!!! Oh em gee, I still can't be calm about this! So excited!

Anywho, so about my life list- I've scrapped the book list just for now. I've decided that I'd prefer to just read fun books of my choosing, at least for the rest of the summer. 

This week's book was called The American Heiress. I swiped it from my mom after she finished reading it, and I didn't put a whole lot of thought or research into it beforehand. It reminded me slightly of Downton Abbey (just noticed the cover actually mentions Downton Abbey), but only in that there were multiple protagonists, all in different stations, so things were written from the perspective of the gentry and the servants, alike. It made for a pretty fun read!

I've taken a (hopefully short) hiatus from running, what with all of the packing and family visiting, and I've also been feeling a bit crummy, probably from stress. Now that I'm done packing and all of my wonderful family has returned to their respective homes, hopefully I'll also be able to calm myself a bit and get rid of that stress. And then it's off to the races for me! Or, back to the turtle-speed laps around my country block. ;)

In the summertime

Sparta! Sparta! Sparta! Is that what they shout at MSU? Probably. But, who cares?! My Lansing move-in date is looming just a few short weeks away..EeEk!! I'm so excited and so nervous! I can't wait to start grad school, but oh em gee, I am scared to death that I'll fail out if I try to make it through as a single mom. I mean, I know I won't, but I'm the sort that is paranoid about failures, etc. So nerve-wracking!!

Anyway, I've still got a few weeks til the move and a few weeks more til classes start up. Best to focus on the present!

I've still got all of July to get through before even thinking about any of this. That means work, VBS, fairs and festivals, some major bike riding, family get togethers, wolf park, lots of fun stuff on the horizon! If there is one thing that makes me happy, it is the freedom to spend time with the people I love, STRESS-FREE. Oh, how I love it! 

I've already been at it (with a vengeance, I might add), with the visit of three different siblings and sister-out-law (that makes her seem criminal, but really I just mean my brother's really awesome, long-term girlfriend) so far this month, plus my grandma is back with us for another while.

Los bros

You can totally tell they're cool, right? Unkie Fonz and Unkie Slim enjoying the fireworks for the Fourth. My workplace put on a fireworks show this year and we all went out to see it. It would have been cool to watch them from on the lake, but there were too many trees blocking the view from the dock so we took a quick jaunt around the lake to get a better view.

There was a seriously incredible fireworks display on the fifth that I only happened across by accident this year. I ran a quick errand and was driving back home when they started going off on the other side of this giant field, so I just parked the car and sat there til they were over. They were breathtaking!

Anywho, so my brothers and a sister and an almost-in-law came this month so far, like I was saying. My brothers were just here to hang out, but my sister was here to get some serious home-organizing done, and that happened this past week. The entire house (including much of the basement) was sorted and a massive load went to goodwill, and even more yet was pitched. The best news though, is that I've got almost all of our stuff packed and stacked in one of the basement bedrooms! Yay!

The Sister and The Grandma. Aren't they so cute?

So thanks in part to me for being a box taping machine and in part to Auntie B being an all around BOSS, packing is almost done. I only need one more piece of furniture and kinda want a second piece, but it's not really necessary, so... I'm set! 

Now back to relishing my homework-free time with my magoo! We've been enjoying the summer weather with lots of outdoor activities and some air conditioning, too. ;)

Bubbles! Fun, albeit a bit confusing. Note the eyes squinched shut- you never know when a bubble might jump you!

We also did some gardening with Ah-na, as you can see:

Oh, and BIG NEWS!!! Magoo hit his half birthday this week, so we went out to celebrate!

Breakfast date at a cute little cafe. 

Magoo was flirting up a storm with the waitresses and the granny next to us who was out to breakfast with her grandsons. Fist bumps, all around!