Mid-September feels like a good time to finally admit that summer is over, right? We've said for years that summer isn't over until the jet ski is back home. Well, the jet ski came home last weekend. It may have spent more time in our garage this summer than it did in the water but it rallied for us in the end (after a good amount of work from Matt and a lot of parts ordered). Luke's been back in school for over a month now so summer really, truly, is over. It was a weird summer but also, a lot like normal. We went to the lake, we went to the zoo (with masks), we read a lot of books, ignored bedtimes, and enjoyed life with a much looser schedule. Here's what I think I'll remember about this summer.
1) Ice cream cones in the backyard
You may have picked up that we have a lot of ice cream in our house in the summer. This led to near nightly ice cream cones in the backyard together. It was truly lovely.
2) String lights!
We finally hung them here and some at the lake and they are just delightful. I still love seeing them on every night at home and they make things extra festive. We're enjoying them for a little longer before they come down for winter!
3) Picnics
The boys and I ate lunch in the backyard, packed picnics to eat in the playhouse, had lunches a few times on the pontoon at the lake. Since we were home so much this summer is was nice to eat some new places, even if it was primarily the backyard.
4) Keylightfuls
I make a lot of mixed drinks in the summer, but for ease I also drank Keylightfuls. It was so much easier to throw one in the cooler so I wasn't guarding an open cup when trying to contain boys on the pontoon! They definitely taste like this summer.
5) COVID-19, masks
Covid took our vacation and seeing our families more, we stopped browsing at the library (THANK GOODNESS they upped our holds to 10 per card, also, Sam now has a card), we didn't go to baseball games, we didn't go to the drive-in (our 19th summer together and first without a drive-in trip!). We were able to start going to Mass again right at the start of the summer which was wonderful but no singing, wearing masks, distancing, etc. We wore masks to Aldi, the library, rare Target trips (Luke still hasn't been back to Aldi or Target, we tried to do most errands without the boys). It made for a different summer but we still were able to do a lot of the things that make summer, summer (mainly, the lake).
6) Working pontoon, non-working jet ski
In our 3 summers of shared pontoon ownership, this was the best we've had one running and we spent a lot of time out on the water on the boat. A lot of sunset cruises (there's that ignoring bedtime...), fishing trips, even some meals. It was really nice that we had a working pontoon the summer the jet ski needed work! We had a super brief 24 hours they were both cooperating.
7) Painting the back of the house
When we painted our house 12 years ago we said we were DEFINITELY moving before it needed it again. Well, here we are and I never want to move. So we had to paint our house (really, we needed to paint it at least 2 years ago but that's when Sam was an infant and Matt was working crazy overtime and building the playhouse, I had ZERO margin to even think about painting the house). And, to be honest, we've only repainted the back of the house so far. It's the part we see the most and we were working on a bunch of improvements back there (string lights, raised beds, maybe a sandbox will still happen this year?, moving the compost). It took more time than we expected but it does look really good. That's what we did when we were supposed to be on vacation. Definitely less fun.
8) Matt's new schedule
Matt's been on his 4-10s schedule for over 6 months now and it's been wonderful. That means early mornings 4 days a week when I get up before he's gone and then have time to workout, shower, get around, and still work or read or work on a project before the boys woke up. It was so nice having some time to myself before jumping into parenting. Then one weekday a week he'd be home so we could each run or I'd go to work and we could work on projects, etc. We are SO THANKFUL he's on this schedule.
9) Watching Summer action movies
Matt and I started rewatching old summer action movies on the weekends, usually one a weekend spread over two nights. We watched Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and a few more I am not remembering. All ones we own on DVD (we still own DVDs) and it was so fun to rewatch them together, all of those I think we saw at the drive-in originally too!
10) The boys' growing stages
Luke and I read quite a few chapter books. Sam continued to add words to his vocabulary, they started to, at times, play really well together. They also fought. When the windows are open I've started letting Sam play in the (fenced) backyard with Luke sometimes and they tell each other stories when they are in bed. Five years is a pretty big age difference but it's so nice to see them, every year, be able to play more and more.
11) Powerwheels
Matt's brother and sister-in-law handed down two powerwheels cars that their kids had outgrown and they boys LOVED driving those all over the neighborhood. Matt would often take them out when I was doing my runs and I'd stumble across them at some point. We even picked up pizza in one once!
12) Hamilton
Hamilton dropped on Disney+ and I got Matt to watch it with me (it's a cultural phenomenon). I keep meaning to rewatch it but haven't made the time but I have listened to the soundtrack many times. I think it'll long remind me of this weird, good summer.
Now onto new memories with the fall!
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