I realize that we’ve been in a drought, so maybe I shouldn’t talk about how much I’ve loved the weather lately, but I’ve really loved the weather lately. June was full of sunshine pretty much every single day, and it was amazing.
While we haven’t made much progress on a lot of things on our interior to do list, we’ve managed to make some real improvements to the outside of our house this year. We’ve completed a lot of maintenance stuff that needed to happen - cleaning the gutters, getting the septic pumped, even pressure washing the fence and front porch. But more than that, we’re completing a lot of big projects we’ve been dreaming about for a while. Our shed, while not here yet, has been purchased and the land is prepped, so we’re counting the days. We’ve also finally got our side patio completed, which means we have our gazebo up(!), and it gives us some shade and rain protection on that side of the house. I am fully in love.
As a result, we’ve been spending at least 2-3 hours outside almost every day lately, even eating dinner outside most nights. Most days E & G can be found covered in dirt from head to toe, and soaking wet from pouring buckets of water over their heads. Sure some days it’s so hot I feel like I’m walking through soup to get across the yard, but now that the kids have the water table and occasionally don’t hate the sprinkler, it’s manageable. That plus the gazebo has made our yard actually really livable this summer so far. It’s so satisfying to see all of our planning come together to give us exactly what we were hoping for.
And sure, it would be nice to have some soft grass to sit in while we’re out there, but I’m sort of getting used to our dirt pit full of weeds. So while the grass and plants don’t love the stretch we’ve had without any measurable rain, I’ve been okay with it.
It couldn’t last forever, though, and I think we finally caught up with almost 5 days in a row of non stop rain. So much so, we didn’t really get outside all weekend. We managed an hour or so Saturday night, but it also rained the entire time we were eating dinner. It turned out okay since we have our amazing new gazebo (have I mentioned how much I love this thing??) so we were able to eat without getting wet, and the rain slowed down enough for us to be able to escape inside without getting too wet.
Sunday was a complete wash though. We were stuck inside all day and it made us all a little stir crazy. We pulled out all our tricks – we made pancakes and played with some play dough and other new toys, but by the afternoon we were all growing bored of the inside books and toys. Finally I gave in and asked Tom what he thought about a movie.
Our kids don’t really watch TV. Partly because they don’t love it, and partly because it’s not really needed. If we do watch something, it’s usually a quick music video with their favorite Sesame Street characters. However we did recently find a movie that the kids seem to enjoy, we don’t hate, and seems to work for us. We watched it onMother’s Day, since I wanted a bit of a break that day, and then used it again on a day that E was sick and just wanted to lie on the couch all day. So we broke it out again on Sunday and it was the perfect rainy day activity for us. Sure, it might be a Sesame Street Christmas special, but E cheers when Jingle Bells comes on, so I call it a win.
Of course that’s not where the weekend ended. The real storms decided to come Sunday night, which means lots of thunder and lightning. Although E has a new favorite book we’ve been reading called “Thunder Boy,” he still woke up crying when the storm hit. So now that everything has been watered, we’ll take the sun back please!
