Thursday, June 17, 2010

Summer Begins

I've been 'absent' from blogging lately, so here I am to catch y'all up with the happenings in my zoo.

Summer break started with Tabytha finishing 2nd grade and John turning 3. Tabytha's last day of school was the 11th. She brought home her final report card and she did great. Next year she'll receive actual letter grades for her work and I can't wait. It's so much easier to read a report card with "A", "B", "C", etc. . . instead of "C" for consistently demonstrates skill, "P" for progressing, "O" often demonstrates skill, etc. . .

The week before school let out we celebrated John's 3rd birthday. It wasn't a big event. We kept it pretty low key. My parents, Charlie's parents, my sisters, Charlie's sister and family, Harold and my friend Drea and her family were our party guests. We would have loved to have all our friends with us to celebrate, but space in our home limited how many we could invite. Everyone had a nice time. I made slow cooked pulled bbq chicken, we grilled hot dogs and burgers, my mom made smokey Joe's, my MIL brought soda's and my SIL brought a watermelon. John got wonderful gifts from everyone and has enjoyed playing with all his new toys since he got them.

Last weekend was my niece, Shelby's, 3rd birthday. She's 9 days younger then John. Her party was at 2pm and we left our house just before 1pm. On our way to Charlie's sister's house we hit beach traffic. NOT fun. We FINALLY made it over the bridge and managed to get to Faye's house by 3:15pm. Yup, an hour and fifteen minutes after the party started. Aggravating traffic aside, we have a great time at Shelby's birthday party. She got a lot of very nice gifts and she was super excited when she opened our gift. At John's birthday party Faye told me she wanted a sunflower sprinkler and I got the last one at the store Faye suggested getting it at. When Shelby opened it she squealed in delight. That made my day knowing she was happy with her gift.

So far the summer has been relatively 'uneventful'. There's been playing in the sprinkler and in the backyard. We'd like to take a couple days later this summer and go to the Baltimore Aquarium and Port Discovery with the kids and my mom and sisters. We may even take a day trip or two to the beach.