Campout!

One of the items on our family "Summer Fun List" was camping out in the backyard. We finally had a free weekend to get camping crossed off our list. When Chris mentioned our camping plans to our friends' (and neighbors) the Watsons, they told us they wanted in! And so, the 2010 Backyard Camping Extravaganza was on.

Giant condo like tents, a backyard with a pool, hot tub, fire pit, sand box, trampoline and swing set. This was camping Whoville style.

After swimming and smores roasted on the fire pit, the kiddies were put to bed, snug in their sleeping bags. The Dads settled in with some adult beverages by the fire and the moms snuck home to sleep in their cushy warm beds.

I like Camping Whoville Style.

A Tennis Binge

My birthday present this year was a day of tennis. My first, ever, exposure to professional tennis up close and live, instead of on the tennis channel. Chris and I headed up to Toronto to see the quarter finals of the Rogers Cup. (Sort of like the US Open, only in Canada, eh?)

Chris purchased us gold level, fancy shmancy seats for the evening session matches, but at the last minute we decided we wanted to go up early and spend the day wandering the festivities to watch anything and everything. So, about twelve hours before we were going to leave we bought the cheap seats to the matinee session.

We arrived at the Rogers Cup at 10 am. It was like nirvana for a tennis player. All tennis, all the time. After seeing a few doubles matches and watching players warm up on courts, we headed to Centre Court to watch Nadal. Our economy level seats were one row up from the top. This picture gives you a good idea of where we sat.

The Nadal match had just started when a Rogers Cup official sat down next to us, smiled and asked us if we were enjoying ourselves. We smiled hesitantly and assured her we were. (I also convinced myself that we had someone offended someone, somewhere and we were about to get thrown out of the stadium. )

She smiled at us again and asked if we liked our seats. Huh. Sure, we said. The seats are fine. (Please don't kick us out. It's my birthday and all.)

She waited a beat and then asked with an even bigger grin, "Would you like even better seats?"

At our confused expressions, the official explained that she got to pick a few people out of the crowd, at random, to move up to the "Rogers Cup Fan Zone" in like the tenth row. Were we interested?

Hells yes, we were interested. And so we jogged down, down, and well, down to the sublime seats giggling all the way, feeling like that this could not possibly be happening to us. This is the sort of thing that happens to the people sitting in front of us, but us, never.

I could make out every expression on Nadal's sweet face. The seats were perfect. And I was, oh so happy.

After the Nadal match, we rushed over to the Grandstand, a smaller court at the Cup. There, we watched two doubles matches in the second row, so close I could hear the ball whizzing back and forth as it was hit at impossibly fast speeds.

The doubles was some of our favorite moments of the day. We saw the Bryan Brothers and Monfils (one of my personal favorites.) The ball and movement was so fast and the action so intense, it was just incredible.

After the two doubles matches, we hustled back to Centre Court for the Federer match. As we walked to our seats, a women dressed in a United Arab Emirates uniform stopped Chris, smiled and said, "Hi, I work for United Arab Emirates airline and I am randomly selecting ten people from the crowd to come out on Centre Court for a chance to win an all expenses paid trip to Dubai."

Yep. We really should have run out after the match and bought ourselves a lottery ticket. As it was, Chris looked at me aghast as I giggled uncontrollably.

And this is how my husband got himself the opportunity to walk through the players tunnel, see famous tennis players up close and stand next to Federer's wife. He also walked out onto Centre Court and had his handsome face up on the giant jumbotron.

It was a bit surreal.

(This is Chris lined up with the other contestants waiting to find out who won the trip to Dubai. I also took a picture of his face on the jumbotron, but unfortunately with the tricky night lighting, it didn't turn out.)

We didn't win the trip to Dubai, but we did take home a lovely parting gift, a nice duffel bag and a giant toy plane. And of course, one hell of a story.

At the end of the day, we saw almost all the top players play live. From Federer, Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, the Bryan Brothers, Monfils - it is all incredible and a perfect birthday present for the tennis fan.

Unpredictable Weather

The weather people are notoriously wrong about the weather. I would honestly like to see a percentage breakdown on the weather report's reliability. It can't be good.

This weekend, the weather man assured us, in a responsible and serious tone, that Saturday would be a beautiful, sunny day while Sunday it would rain cats and dogs.

It rained Saturday afternoon.

On Sunday morning, we woke up to a beautiful blue sunny sky. The weather was perfect, warm, but not too warm with a slight breeze brushing the trees.

After my Sunday morning tennis session, I told the boys we really needed to get to Wegmans to get our grocery shopping done. The cupboards and fridge were bare - and sorely needed restocking.

After their collective, boyish groans at the thought of a wasted sunny summer morning spent indoors shopping, I stopped and said this, "I will give you boys the choice of how we will spend our morning. We can either go to Wegmans and get our shopping done or we can go to the pool to swim and then eat lunch there."

It took them two seconds to pick the pool. I think I saw that one coming. And after spending most of the day judging cannonball competitions or catching a few quiet moments of poolside sun, I can't say I was disappointed with their choice.

The groceries can wait.

Toothy Grins

When Aidan's baby teeth started to get a little loose, he was excited, but he refused to wiggle the tooth to speed up its loss. He was content to wait out the tooth as it slowly worked its way looser and looser. In fact, he currently has a loose tooth that the dentist told him six months ago to wiggle out.

It's been six months and that tooth is going nowhere.

Brennan discovered a loose tooth on Wednesday. It was one of his bottom front teeth and it barely wiggled, but it was just a bit loose. He was overjoyed with this discovery and spent every waking moment wiggling that tooth.

After three days of wiggling, he cornered our good friend Dr. Dylan at the pool today and asked him to yank his tooth out. (Dylan is famous for yanking all the kids' teeth out. Of course, Aidan refuses to even open his mouth wide in Dylan's vicinity.)

After a few yanks and a nice tug, Brennan was down his first tooth.

I cried like a baby.

Brennan carried the tooth around the pool like a trophy, showing anyone and everyone the gap in his mouth and his sweet, little baby tooth.

I still, cried like a baby.

Wegmans - the Love Affair (again.)

Oh Wegmans, I love you so. I love you so much that after I described all your admirable qualities to someone who had never been inside your glorious store (sad, so sad), they asked if I worked for you.

I wish I did.

But your bakery with your homemade artisan breads, your gelato bar and your ultimate chocolate and white cake might just do me in if I did work for you. And do not get me started in on the chef staffed pasta station or the menu station with a chef creating new recipes for all of us to sample as we shop.

You have wrapped me around your little finger Wegmans. You have me.

But then you always have to go one better. After my boys enjoyed their supervised and free (!) play time, while I did the shopping, we were told by an ever so helpful and polite Wegmans employee to head outside for clowns, balloon animals, tractors and pictures. (All Free!)

Wegmans, will you marry me? Pretty please?

Touch Tank

Whoville boasts a pretty spectacular rec department. Our rec brochure comes out seasonally and is as thick as a magazine, complete with sponsors and advertisements. We try to take advantage of as much as we can, but sometimes lazy days spent at the pool prevent us from sharing in the fun. We did, though, make it a priority to get to the Touch Tank.

The boys were thrilled with the chance to hold starfish, touch lobster claws, and watch crabs up close, all in the comfort of our local Whoville library.

Missing Naptime

I loved nap time. I loved the guarantee of at least an hour of peace and quiet. An hour of freedom to do such decadent things like shower and shave my legs.

At nap time's heyday, I was guaranteed almost two hours. Two hours of freedom to do such exciting things like load the dishwasher and throw in a load of laundry.

After the boys stopped napping, I started to enforce "quiet time." Quiet time required they all be in their rooms and play quietly while I collapsed face down in bed for a quick snooze. Quiet time didn't have all the guarantees of nap time, but it was still enough to give me a nice boost to make it through the rest of my day.

Alas, we now live in a world without napping and without quiet time. It is a very sad world indeed. But while the boys no longer officially nap, the long days of summer swimming, playing and running here, there and everywhere can wear a three year old out to the point of utter exhaustion.

It looks like nap time has moved to the playroom couch - usually around 2 in the afternoon. That's okay - I'll take it.

A Blueberry Bonanza!

We have made good headway into our summer fun list. Things are getting crossed off left and right. This weekend, we made good on yet another fun summer activity and headed to our local berry farm to pick blueberries.

Blueberry picking lived up to all of our expectations. All of us loved it. The blueberries were plentiful. It was fun work. And it was easy for all of us to get picking.

The boys carried buckets over their shoulders and picked, picked, picked. Well, Aidan, Brennan and I picked, picked, picked. Griffin may have started a bit slow and instead ate, ate, ate. I found him standing in front of a bush, sampling blueberry after fat juicy blueberry. It may have explained why his bucket of blueberries was a little light.

After about forty-five minutes of picking time, we had picked ten pounds of blueberries. TEN pounds! And that whopping ten pounds came to all of 12 dollars. A steal!

We all loved the experience so much we are already planning on getting back to the blueberry patch before the season is over. And after freezing up a whole bunch of blueberries, making blueberry muffins and whipping up a delicious blueberry buckle, I need to restock!

Bathtime Buddies

My cousin Nikki is the best babysitter in the world. She has spent alot of the boys' life at our house, playing with them and loving them up. She has been my savior.

Nikki has always been advanced for her years and has been adept at babysitting my boys since she was all of 12. Now at 14, she handles them better than anyone I know. I never return from a night out and hear of tantrums or delayed bedtimes. Nikki gets it done. And she makes it look easy.

She watched the boys for us a couple weeks ago. When Chris and I returned from our dinner out, she casually mentioned that the boys were a bit dirty from their outside play so she gave them a quick bath before bed to clean them up. A few days later, I went to download pictures off my camera and found these pictures tucked in among the shots I had taken.

Yes, best babysitter in the world. She bathes them, gets them to bed on time and even manages to document the cutest little bath time buddies in the process.

I adore her. And the mohawks too.

Take Me to the Zoo

Thanks to Griffin's "bestest friend" Ryan celebrating his birthday with a bash at the zoo, the whole family got to spend the day amongst the animals. The boys got to lovingly touch a sweet baby bunny and then handle a mammoth snake. (I hid as far away as I could from that huge reptile.)

How can you not love a man who will rock the zoo animal hat? That's a cool Dad.

Fourth of July

We celebrated the fourth of July with a day at the pool, a backyard birthday cookout and extended bedtimes to enjoy the explosion of fireworks. Water balloon wars, slip and slides, glow swords and sparklers galore. A good time was had by all.

First Swim Meet

Thursday night is swim meet night. After a week of practices and lessons, the team is ready to strut their stuff.

Brennan took on his very first swim at his very first meet, racing in the 25 meter freestyle. He handled it like a champ. (You know him by the choice of color in googles. Orange. Of course.) The parents like to refer to Brennan's age group, the youngest swimmers at the meet, as the controlled drowning group. There is something undeniably sweet in watching these tiny children get up and give it their all as they struggle to make it across the pool.





At the first meet for the season, Aidan swam in an impressive four events - freestyle, back stroke and two relays. He has come a long way from the crazy, crying kid refusing to put even a toe in the water.

Brennan was scheduled to swim in two events - freestyle and a relay. After he finished, he sat down beside me and snuggled into a towel to watch the next heat of his age group's relay. One of his coaches ran up to Brennan in a panic, grabbed him and said, "Brennan! We need you to swim again! Can you come with me?"

Calm and collected, Brennan ran off with the coach and with barely seconds to go, got himself into position as his relay partner touched the wall. Off he went, swimming another lap in his second relay. I ran next to the pool cheering him on, overwhelmed by how easily he had adapted and how willing he was to dive right in.

Sweet Summer

We have been soaking up summer in Whoville, making a nice huge dent in our "Summer Fun List." We have spent entire days poolside, soaking up the giggles as the boys play, dive and chase themselves into a stupor of exhaustion. We spend nights cheering on the boys at their swim meets or hosting backyard barbecues to celebrate my mom's birthday on the fourth of July.

The boys are loving up summer. Aidan and Brennan swam their hearts out at their first swim meet. Aidan ran, swam and biked his way through his first triathlon. Griffin can now dive into the deep end of the pool and swim straight across it. Brennan loved his first golf camp and Aidan is, I am told, impressively hitting the golf ball on the course. All three boys are enjoying swim, golf and tennis lessons. And Chris and I have found time for ourselves with our summer loves, golf and tennis too.

The boys are tanned, brown little berries with sun streaked hair. They spend most of each day outside, first at the pool and then in the backyard swinging on their swings, digging up dirt and playing massive, complicated games of pretend.

We have eaten dinner outside and breakfast too. I have enjoyed my cup of coffee in the bright morning sun, early, much, much too early, as I watch my boys run barefoot across the dewy grass. Summer, with all its sweetness, has truly been good to us.