What We've Done This Summer

Enjoyed many visits from our favorite ice cream truck.  Everything he sells is one dollar.  That makes my life easier, because I don't have to tell the kids they can only pick something on the bottom row of pictures, or the last three items from the right on the second row down.  You know how that goes, right?

Celebrated three birthdays.  Drew, Ethan and Andrew are all a year older now.  And the birthday crowns I make a flippin' awesome.  Screw humility - I know I'm a cool mom.  My favorite of the parties though, was Andrews.  Playing Balderdash with some of his siblings and their spouses was more fun than I'd had in a long time.  Tears streaming down the face kind of fun.  The only downside was finding that chocolate covered gummy bears mixed with three other kinds of candy plus two Henry Weinhardt's Vanilla Cream Sodas will make your stomach hurt really, really bad.

Went to the Japanese Gardens.  One of my favorite places ever.

Watched the Dragon Boat Races during the Portland Rose Festival.  We were rooting for the team named "Dragon Butts" because they are obviously cool.

Watched fireworks.  Got eaten by misquitos.

Explored several new parks.  Caught crawdads at one, developed tennis elbow from pushing kids on the swings at every single one of them, got a bit of sun at most, and now I don't glow in the dark.  Well, my torso still does.  

We've also seen a juggling show, been to Lego Club, watched a magician, toured the Farmers Market, played paintball, read lots of books, invented cookies, tried to grow plants, made salt-dough aliens, had sleepovers, and gotten pretty good at dodge-ball.

I'm beat.  But I'm having fun.