Summer Fun

Here is a quick recap in photos and descriptions of some of the things we have been up to this summer.

We spent a long weekend at Aunt Carol and Uncle Geary's WV Cabin, where the kids had a great time running down the battery on the golf cart. Spencer and Emma even took turns steering. They get pretty regular practice since Adam lets them steer up and down Grammy's long driveway whenever we visit. 

We had lots of great food and enjoyed reading, relaxing, and playing with a new stash of toys. 

 Carol and Geary have built a fun treehouse. Emma didn't spend much time out of doors since she had a pretty awesome allergy attack, but Spencer and John were loving it. 

 We had a Cummings reunion at Grammy's house, complete with lots of playtime. Although now that I think of it, this photo is actually from when Jenny and Nathan brought their cute kiddos down to visit and Papa put up a bounce house he had purchased at a yard sale for the grandkids to jump around in. It made a reappearance at the reunion. 

We did some last play dates and said goodbye to our good friends, the Tikalskys, who moved away this summer. Emma and Natalie did co-op preschool together, and their family was in our ward for many years.

The kids logged lots of time at the library this year. Spencer and Emma both completed the summer reading program and were awarded with free books at the end. John and Spencer won books along the way in the weekly participant drawings too. John's book was a Walter Wick "I Spy" board book that has become a quick favorite.

This photo was taken after a library program. A cast of two put on the play "The Wizard of Oz." It was quite impressive to see their rendition and the list of characters each played during the duration of the show. I was exhausted for them by the end.

I spent a week at Girls Camp with these cute Young Women and leaders. Adam held down the fort at home, and the kids passed their days at Grammy's and Grandma's house. I don't think I could survive as YW President without the support of family living close by. It was a relief to know my kids were having fun while I hung out at Camp Snyder shooting arrows, firing bb guns, and doing ropes courses.

  After living in Loudoun County for most of my life, I finally made it to the Loudoun County Fair for the very first time. We took the YW as an activity on Children's Day when all 15 and under are free, and my kiddos got to tag along. 

John enjoyed the petting zoo, although he was content to watch others feed the animals.

Spencer and Emma, after much deliberation, decided to use their ride tickets to go on Surf's Up. Ride tickets were pricey, so they were limited to just one ride and were pretty good sports about it. John was too little and I was too pregnant to go on much of anything, so we were the official observers.

We had fun play dates with friends. Emma had a particularly wonderful time having all-day adventures with Emily W. Here is a tent I helped them create in Emma's room.

 John wanted one too, so he got to have his snack in a kitchen tent.

  We went to the Youth Conference Celebration, where youth from seven stakes in the area joined together to put on a dance festival. Papa was acting as a chaperone from our stake, so we got to sit with him. We love Papa!

 

After months of rehearsal, it was really wonderful to see the level of polish the youth achieved and to feel of the spirit that comes when 1300 youth gather together to share in a common experience, one that required faith, diligence, and trust in the leaders who organized this event. Mission accomplished, youth. It was a powerful sight.

 We had some water fights with neighbor friends. 

John claimed Spencer's tool set as his own and spent many spare afternoon moments digging in the dirt.

We had a fun walk along the Goose Creek with Aunt Katy and cousins Miriam and Reuben. Everybody got good and dirty throwing rocks into the water. 

John and Miri pictured below. 

Reuben

Emma loves the dress-up at Grammy's house, and my boys love Uncle Joel. Grammy's house is always a winning destination.

We heard some nice music this summer. I taught violin several mornings during the week, which left afternoons free for other activities. Spencer continued his piano lessons through the summer. Emma is excited to start piano next week, and John jumps onto whatever instrument anyone is trying to practice. 

He often gets one of the little violins out of its case and pulls me over to the violin room where he sits in a chair, points at my chair and demands that I "dit" to give him a lesson. He bows his head after sawing away at the strings for a few moments since he sees my students bow at their recitals. It's pretty darling. 

Our neighbors the Fergusons gifted us this sandbox, and it has led to lots of time digging and exploring the new toys that came along with it.

Spencer went with Gpa and Dad to a Nats game, where he was treated to game day concessions and a ride on the Metro. He was one happy, happy boy. 

We welcomed Aunt Melinda home from Utah. She just graduated from BYU as valedictorian of her college and has returned to pursue a Master's program at VA Tech. So proud of you, Melinda!

The kids donned cowboy hats and took off on their imaginary horses to fulfill one of the things on their list of "Things We Want To Do This Summer," which we created at the beginning of the summer. It's been fun to cross off the items as we accomplished them.

One of the "must do's" this summer was play at the school park with Uncle Joel. I forgot to take a picture with the man himself, but we snuck this in the Friday before school started. The ice cream truck was just driving by as we drove up, so we waved them down, and I treated the kiddos to ice cream as well. (Another summer "to do" was take a summer drive 

We spent some time riding bikes. This is one of John's favorite things to do. "Bike. Hat." And off he goes. Spencer loves to take long bike rides with Adam up to the neighborhood pool, swim for a while, and bike back. John doesn't have quite that distance in his little legs, so he hangs out on the driveway and sidewalk close to home.

 We had our annual Read-a-thon while the Pascual cousins were down for a visit. The basic format consisted of 10 minutes independent reading/reading with an adult, 10 minutes of play time, 10 minutes of read aloud, 10 minutes of play time. Rinse and repeat. It was great fun, and Gma Valerie had a fun idea of letting the kids pick a treat from a bowl when they heard specific words in the read aloud. I think we decided that next time we'll lead with Tootsie Pops and let them suck on those during the read aloud time since they were sometimes distracted by collecting the treats or shouted out the word they were hoping to hear to get a specific goodie. Silly cousins.  

With the cousins, we staged a water balloon fight and found that we quickly had neighbors anxious to get in on the fun as well. As is always the case, we spent forever filling the water balloons and they were all popped within seconds. After that it became a sprinkler party.

All in all, this was a pretty GREAT Summer.

 *Side note: We never did go camping, but the kids crossed it off because we did set up the tent in the backyard for an afternoon. Sometimes close counts.