How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Part 1: Ocean Shores, WA

Our vacation started with a car accident (in a rental car!), so we knew it could only get better!
We spent 4th of July weekend in Washington with TJ’s family, including cousins and a great-grandma that we wish we could see more often!

we spent our time enjoying the cooler weather, playing at the beach (too cold to swim but warm enough to build sandcastles!), and spending time with cousins and puppies!

Part 2: lake powell

The lewis family packed up and headed to Lake Powell for a week at the end of July.
I was apprehensive about how my children would do living out of a tent and so close to water for a week, but they did wonderfully!
Playing with cousins, swimming all day, and continually slathering on the sunscreen made for a memorable week!

TJ was able to join us on the weekend and the kids loved having their dad play with them all day every day!

After a summer filled with fun vacations, it was hard to get back into our normal schedules!
We are back into the routine of normal life and life goes on!

Miss Independent

Little miss Olivia is now 18 months old.
And what a feisty 18 month old she is!

Olivia has become extremely independent lately.
She insists on doing everything all by herself.
Mealtime takes forever because she insists on using her own fork, by herself, with no help. And then she gets frustrated because she can’t poke anything with her fork so she starts yelling “HELP” but when you reach for her fork to help her, she gets mad at you.
So much fun.

She also insists on walking all by herself everywhere we go.
She doesn’t even want me to hold her hand most of the time, which doesn’t work for me since she either runs super fast into the middle of the road or walks ridiculously slow.
And most of the time, she refuses to let me help her step up or down on the curb…she wants to do it all by herself but usually she falls on her bum and cries. If only she had let me help her…

Olivia is still completely obsessed with Riker and wants to do whatever he is doing at all times. It was torture for her to sit on the sidelines watching Riker in his swim class, she so desperately wanted to join him! Just like any brother and sister, they don’t always get along…but telling them they can’t play together is probably the worst punishment ever! Olivia even follows Riker into time out (even when he’s in time out for being mean to her!).

This little girl is absolutely the sunshine in our house.
Her goofy grin, her silly laugh, her sweet and snuggly personality…I just want to bottle her up and keep her forever!

Swim Lessons

For the past 2 weeks, Riker has been going to swim lessons every day.

He absolutely loved it.
Riker loves to be in the pool and loves to swim…as long as he has his tube. Without his tube, he’s hopeless.

Riker is pretty much a chicken without his tube on.
He absolutely hates floating on his back or belly, even when the instructor was holding on to him!

Eventually he’d chill out long enough to float for a few seconds before she let him back up.

His favorite part of swim lessons was kicking his feet.
All the little kids would hang off the edge of the pool and kick their little feet as hard and as fast as they could!

“Superman floats” were the worst, since the instructor only holds Riker’s hands out in front of his body to encourage him to kick is feet and swim. Superman floats were always preceded by tears.

See that distressed look on his face?
That’s a result of the teacher telling him it was time to stand up and jump into the water.
Typically, Riker doesn’t mind jumping off the edge…just as long as you promise not to put his head under the water.
But he knows that when he jumps in, the instructor wouldn’t grab him until he was fully submerged and he wasn’t having it.

But of course, he did it (because I told him we could stop at QT and get a slushy if he did!) and it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.

He was sad when I told him that today was the last day of swim lessons, but I think the fact that we will be spending most days at the pool anyway will more than make up for it!

Memorial Day at Roosevelt Lake

We spent Memorial Day at Roosevelt Lake and it was perfect.
The sky was overcast, so it wasn’t too hot…but the water was the perfect temperature for playing!

It took a while to find a place to set up.
The water was extremely low, so the beach areas we normally go to were far away from the water and everywhere was just rocks!
Eventually we decided to just set up on a boat ramp (it was closed since the water was too low for the boat ramp to be used!), and it ended up being perfect!

The water at the end of the ramp was shallow enough for wading, and Riker loved being able to float out and have the waves push him back in!

And of course we brought the jet skis with us.
Riker was so excited to get to drive on the jet ski…just as long as it didn’t go too fast!

But Olivia, our little daredevil, wanted to go faster and faster!
TJ took her out one time and said she was squealing with excitement the faster he went!

Riker and Olivia both had the best time, which is good since we are planning a week long trip to Lake Powell this summer!
Hopefully they love that lake as much as they loved this one!

Camping (for reals!)

This weekend, TJ took Riker camping.
Not in our backyard (been there, done that!)…this time, they went off into the desert with some friends and went camping for reals!

For days leading up to the camping trip, Riker told everyone who would listen that he was going camping with his dad.
”Not mommy and not Livvy, just Riker and dad!”

He wanted to climb trees and find sticks and dig in the dirt.
And based on the pictures (and the amount of dirt I washed off him when he came home!), it seems like he met all of his goals.

Of course, not every moment was perfect.
Life as a three year old is tough and sometimes there were tears.

But the number of happy moments cancelled out the number of sad moments, so it seems like the trip was a success.

TJ was so impressed with Riker’s rock climbing skills.
And of course, you have to scream as loud as you can when you reach the top!

As they were getting ready to sleep (in a tent! outside! in a sleeping bag!), Riker told TJ that he loved camping with him and that he always wanted to go camping with just the two of them…
the moments of frustration were forgotten and the whole trip was worth it.

Definitely not the last camping adventure for these two!

Another Day… Another Splash Pad

We go to the splash pads a lot.
We like swimming pools too, but when its just me with two non-swimmers I am much more confident in my abilities to keep them alive at the splash pad.
Today we ventured to the Gilbert Water Tower Plaza. I’ve heard about this one from several people but haven’t ever gone.
But you best believe we will be here more often…its closer than most of the other parks we go to and smaller (smaller in this case is good…less areas for the littles to wander, making it easier to watch both at the same time!)

Riker loved it, which is good.
On our drive over, he asked if it would have a playground and when I answered no he seemed disappointed.
The other splash pads have a playground right next to them, so the kids can go from water play to jungle gym play.
Luckily, once we got there Riker didn’t seem to miss the playground!

Olivia probably would have enjoyed it more if she had a nap first.
But since she’s decided that she only needs one nap a day, her mornings are usually a bit cranky and whiny.
She would have been happier had I let her carry her Cheerios around, but since I didn’t feel like cleaning up soggy Cheerios she had to learn to cope.
And she liked it just fine…until the fountains would pop up in her face and freak her out. Then she would run to me, sit on the towel for a bit whining for a snack, and eventually waddle back out to the water.

All in all, another fun day playing in the water.
And if you are in AZ and ever need a buddy to play at the splash pad, we are in!

Life Lately…

I just realized it has been almost month since I blogged.
Oops.
I clicked through all my pictures to try to remember what we’ve been up to lately and realized that we haven’t been doing much.
Well, we’ve kept busy but we’ve done a whole lot of little things and not many big “blog-able” moments.

Swimming

Diamondbacks games

Splash Pads

Sending silly pictures to daddy

Getting stuck in the McDonalds play place

Playing at the mall

Its getting hotter and hotter so our activities are limited to the pool/splash pad or indoors.
We have a couple fun trips planned for this summer
(Washington and Lake Powell!)
so that’s definitely something to look forward too!

Father/Son Campout

This weekend was our church’s annual Father/Son camp out.
All the men gather together their camping supplies and take the young boys up a mountain to learn how to be a man
(or something like that…I was never allowed to go on the boys only camp out so I can only imagine!)

Unfortunately, a busy day of meetings prevented TJ from getting off work in time to head up north.
Not wanting to deprive Riker of a camping experience, TJ set the tent up in the backyard and held a mini camp out instead!

Riker was beyond excited.
All he wanted to do was hang out in the tent.
Once the sun went down, Riker had the best time shining his little flashlight all over.

Of course, TJ made a rookie mistake of making some spooky ghost noises…
so Riker came inside to find his mom.
Since Olivia was snug in her bed, I joined the boys in the tent for some bedtime snuggles, just long enough for Riker to fall asleep.

And speaking of Olivia, she was not very pleased to be left out of the camping experience.
But the moment she woke up this morning, she was out the back door to explore every square inch of that tent.

PS…yes, that is a mattress inside that tent. Our air mattress is trash and the ground is hard, so TJ hauled Riker’s full size mattress outside to make the night a bit more comfortable.
PPS…yes, Riker was awake at 5:45 this morning (but that was TJ’s problem this morning…I was sound asleep!)

A Day At The Zoo

Way back in March, we were lucky enough to have some of TJ’s family come out to AZ to visit from Washington!
The first day they were here, we all met up at the Phoenix Zoo.
Other than Zoo Lights, I hadn’t taken the kids to the zoo yet (unlike the weekly trips we made to the Columbus Zoo!).
It was such a great day!

(riker was smitten with anna and loved being around her!)

(Emolie was Olivia’s favorite!)

(so excited to spend time with Grandma Dorothy!)

(riker, adam, and jake were inseparable!)

(clearly she’s saying “Duck!”…the ducks might have been her favorite)

(completely fearless, Olivia walked up to every single goat and stuck her face right in front of them!)

The car ride home was quiet…both kids passed out before we even left the parking lot!
(of course, they both woke up the minute we got home and refused to nap the rest of the day…)
It was definitely a fun adventure and one we hope to do again soon!