What we've been up to and 5 things

Well, summer's in full swing at the Thayer household as evidenced by:
1. several loads of towels and swimsuits a week
2. bottles of sunscreen all over the house and in each car
3. flip flops and sandals everywhere you turn, from sub-miniature a.k.a. Daniel's size on up to adult size with a few different sizes in between.
4. Gracie's refusal to wear anything other than a tank top or sundress
5. Both the older kids' hair getting blonder already from the chlorine and the sunshine

I do love summer. I only wish I had more time to spend with the kids during these next few months. But without much cash for a vacation or vacation time to take off work, we'll make the best of it. On the occasional Wed, we will do the concerts in the park, on the occasional Friday we'll do the movies in the park. We'll go to the beach a handful of times and the lake a handful of times. Luckily they can sleep in on Tues, Thurs and Fri as they are home with Scott and that means we can be less stringent about bedtimes on most nights except Sundays and Tuesdays when he and I both have to be at work early. So with the late light we can go for bike rides and walks after dinner and head down to the park. We'll also set up our pool soon since the heat seems to be here to stay now. So the kids will be all over getting in the pool after dinner or while they're waiting for dinner. We'll BBQ and I'm going to try to convince Scott to spend some of our tax refund money on a new patio table. It's crazy, but we have terrible luck with tables, having had four of them damaged by windstorms, fallen tree branches and the like in the 12 years of our marriage. We're left with a nice abundance of mis-matched chairs and he is hesitant to buy another table as he assumes it will just get crushed, broken, shattered yet again. But if I can convince him, then we'll eat a lot of dinners outside as well. Even without the patio table, we can spread out a blanket and have a picnic out there too. Anyway, we plan to spend a lot of time outdoors this summer, one way or another.

The other sure sign of summer is swimming lessons. Swimming lessons are at 5:30 pm, which is nice. It was a pleasant surprise to find a few years back that the Paso pool had lesson times that actually fit a working mother's schedule. Imagine that. Something the other pools in the area had overlooked. So we're in the second week of session 1, then we'll have two weeks off, then four more weeks of swimming lessons, then two weeks off before school starts. Gee, when you say it like that, the summer sounds so short!

I love the fact that the Paso lessons are every day for two weeks. I know a lot of other pools ofter one or two lessons a week for several weeks. But in two weeks of swimming every day, the kids improve so quickly! Last summer, Gracie moved up three levels in 6 weeks of lessons...she started in 2, moved to pre-3, then moved up to 3 and at the end of the summer, they recommended her for level 4 this summer. It was crazy to watch her improve. By the end of the summer she was a little fish! Or a little mermaid, as she would probably prefer to be called.

Ok, enough rambling, I should get back to work. This blog is being read (dare I say followed? lol) by more of my friends and family now so I won't be focusing solely on fitness and exercise any more, but providing peeks into our crazy lives as well.

Oh, and I can't forget - my 5 things I'm grateful for today:
1. My nutrition session with Shelley - so helpful, and motivating and informational
2. body combat with Carey...love working out with that girl and love any of Lauren's classes
3. a supportive and loving husband
4. dinner with "the girls" tonight after work
5. 10 days off work in t minus three days

Ciao!