Summer Can't Get Here Quick Enough

This post was published last year. I accomplished a lot on my list, but not everything. I haven't made a complete Summer Bucket List this year yet...what's on yours?



May sure is busy this year. This weekend we will be celebrating our sweet and sassy Mathilda's 2nd birthday, and next week Lucy will be graduating from preschool. Bethany & Connor have only 16 days left of 4th and 2nd grade, respectively. And then summer break, the time I look forward to all year, will be upon us at last! 

I can't wait to sleep in. I can't wait to go to the beach. I can't wait to hang out at the park. I can't wait to go swimming...outdoors! I can't wait for day trips and long, lazy play dates and trips up north. I can't wait for freeeeeeedom! Blissful freedom to choose what I want to do with my kids everyday for 3 whole months!

Every summer, it seems, I have grand plans and a long, ambitious list of things I want to do, and I never ever get through the whole list. This year will be no different, I'm sure. Here's this year's agenda, off the top of my head and totally incomplete:

• Spend a week in Port Austin (booked!)
• Go to Roger's City (la hotel de Aunt Donna always has an opening for us, right Aunt Donna?)
• Take the kids to Tahquamenon Falls in the U.P., a place I visited when I was a kid which maybe marks the beginning of my love affair with waterfalls. Also, Chris's grandparents went there for their honeymoon about 70 years ago, how cool is that?!
• Visit family in Grand Rapids, and take the kids to Meijer Gardens while we're there. My mom and I took Bethany & Connor there when they were very little, and it was so much fun - I want Lucy & Mathilda to get to experience it too.
• Make my kids take an entire month off of the television, including video games. I've already been talking this up. I think it's going to be July. I hope they don't cry about it too much, but guess what? They'll get over it!
• Visit family in Midland
• Go back to Chris's dad's cabin
• Go camping
• Go to the Detroit RiverFront and let the kids splash around in the fountains like we did last summer. Preferably, do this more than once.
• Go to Belle Isle, an annual tradition. 
• Go to Mexican Village and eat outside.
• Visit the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, something I have yet to do.
• Visit the DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts), something I haven't done in a couple years.
• Go to Greenfield Village
• Go to the Toledo Zoo
• Read Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl with Bethany and then take her to the Holocaust Memorial Center where we can meet actual survivors of the Holocaust
• and...well I could go on, but see what I mean about long and ambitious? I wonder how many of these items I'll get to cross off my list...

I seriously might be more excited than the kids. Truly. My only slight hang up is that I've been leery and ahem, maybe just a bit lazy, about working out since my health scares in November and then again in February. Since I need to be able to keep up with my kids, I really need to get on a walking regime. Starting...well how about tomorrow? Tomorrow is always a good place to start.

Lucy at Belle Isle

Lucy at the beach in Lexington, MI

Connor, Lucy, and Bethany at the beach in Port Austin, MI

Mathilda sleeping at the Port Austin beach

Ocqueoc Falls

The beach in Rogers City

Every Day Really Should Be Mother's Day

My days have been a blur of activity and every time I sit down to write a new post, I end up falling asleep in my chair before I even get started. And so it will continue for the next month until the long anticipated summer break begins. This weekend we will be celebrating Connor's First Communion, so that of course means a blitzkrieg of cleaning and baking and ironing (because the wet towel in the dryer trick has its limits). Today I spent some time doing a little yard clean-up, and it felt so good to be outside enjoying the warm sunshine (finally! spring in Michigan is worth waiting for!).

I know it will probably be two weeks before I get a chance to plant my garden, but in the meantime I am enjoying watching everything come back to life after the grueling winter we just endured.

Mother's Day was a nice reprieve from our crazy schedules. After blissfully sleeping in, I was served breakfast in bed, which I shared with four children who were clamoring all over me. I was treated to homemade gifts and cards from all of them, so I feel it was a fair exchange. Bethany wrote a song and sang it for me, Connor made a book about why he loves me, and Lucy made me a plate. Chris couldn't wait for Mother's Day to give me my gift, so I got my new phone a few days prior. I no longer feel like I'm living in the ice ages now that I have a Smart Phone. My only lament is really Android? No video editing apps?? (If someone knows of one, let me know! Please!)

After a lazy Mother's Day morning, we picked up both of our mothers and headed downtown for the afternoon. The plan was to park at the Riverfront, walk to the Ren Cen and take the People Mover to Greektown. After navigating our way through the maze of the Ren Cen to find the People Mover, we were disappointed to find that it was closed for the day. My blood was boiling a tiny bit because that place is so confusing, and you need a security guard to let you on the elevators, and since it was Sunday those security guards were few and far between, and taking a stroller on the escalator is a pain in the butt (and the security guards don't seem to like that, but they also don't seem to want to be bothered with letting people on the elevator). So we made our way back to the ice cream shop on the first floor and let the kids spoil their appetites by eating over-priced dessert before dinner. I didn't order Mathilda her own cone, figuring she and I could share. She was not on board with that plan, so I hurriedly ate the top and gave her the rest. The kid likes her ice cream (picture Cartman from South Park screaming "ma ice cream, MA ICE CREAM," all through Kroger, which is what Mattie sounded like the next day as soon as she saw that I put ice cream in the shopping cart. She really thought I was going to break it open and let her dig in right in the store.). Once we left the building and got back outside, I was no longer stressed and just enjoyed the leisurely walk along the Detroit River. This is one of my favorite areas downtown. I can't wait to go back in a few weeks when they'll have the fountain on and the kids can run around in their swimsuits to cool off.

A random ice sculpture. For you non-Michiganders, that's Canada across the river.

After the kids enjoyed a ride on the carousel, we drove over to Greektown and had pizza for dinner at Pizza Papalis. Last time we were in Greektown, we ate Mexican. Maybe next time we'll actually eat Greek. Mathilda slept through the entire meal and woke up screaming just as we were getting ready to leave. She is in full Terrible Twos mode (when she is not being sweet as can be and saying things like "hug" with her little arms reaching out to me, or even "I love you, Mama," because YES! she says that now!) and I felt for Chris as he drove us home while Mattie screamed bloody murder the whole way, because driving with a screaming banshee in the backseat is no picnic. Her latest party trick is getting her arms out of the car seat straps, and that's really fun while driving along the freeway. When we got home, she brought me her jammies and asked me to put Diego on for her, and all was well in the world once again.