One Hot July

Summer at FoxHaven (Part 2)

Happy 4th of July! We went to the zoo for a couple of hours in the morning and then went to the ward pool party in the afternoon. The zoo was fun, but the kids were really looking forward to the pool party. We were among the first few families to arrive and pretty much the last to leave. The kids absolutely loved splashing in the pool! We drove to Homewood High School that night, our usual fireworks-watching spot. The Thunder on the Mountain show was supposed to be the best ever, but Jay and I were a little disappointed. The music didn't sync with the fireworks as good as it usually does and more of the fireworks were lower in the sky, which from our vantage point meant they were hidden behind the trees and the Samford University bell tower. We were all ready to go home after such a long day.

Jay is between summer sessions, so on July 7th we take a family home evening trip to see Wall-E at the theater. Yes, we all go to a real, live theater to watch a movie! It was expensive, but it was worth it. It was a great movie and a great evening!

Between Kinneret's dancing classes and recital and Kit's band trips and concerts, Kyle has been feeling a little left out in the activities department. So I bought us a family membership to the Hoover Rec Center to sign him and Kinneret up for swimming lessons. I remembered from years ago that there was always a crowd on the first registration day, so I was glad to see that I could now register for swim lessons from home as early as 8:00 am. I dropped the kids off at daycare and came back home to get them signed up for swim lessons before I took the car to the shop (for three days it turns out). At 8:10 in the morning, 10 minutes after registration opened, Kyle ends up #3 on the waiting list. Thus, Kinneret got to have 8 swimming lessons during the month of July while Kyle stayed home. Kit's summer school teacher gave the final exam a day early and (supposedly) told the class that anyone who showed up on the last day had to run a 5K. That meant that Kit could go to youth conference with the rest of the group instead of having to be driven down later in the day. He had a great time, and hopefully learned that rules are meant to be followed and just because he didn't get caught outside his room after curfew and wasn't feeling well the next night when the others wandered off campus after curfew and were escorted back to campus by the police, that doesn't mean he leads a charmed life.

Jay's second summer session has begun and that means that for the next four weeks, Jay will be taking classes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 until 10 p.m. He is again half-benched from family life. I get Kit registered for school, spending less than I did last year because there were no band fees this year, and then it is time for Pioneer Day! A costume contest was advertised, so I found instructions on the internet for making aprons and bonnets. I finished those late Thursday night and found out that I still don't know how to measure. The aprons were too big around and the bonnets were a little too small. I added the piping to the aprons which detracted from the pioneer-look but now they have their own little aprons to wear. The kids enjoyed the soap carving (I was impressed with Kit's sculpture of a boy kneeling in prayer - unfortunately, Kyle destroyed it a couple weeks later in a fit of temper and I don't even have a picture since I kept putting it off) and candle-making, they liked tasting the butter but not churning it and playing with the yarn dolls but not making them, and the taffy-pulling was a good idea but didn't quite work. Their favorite activities were the races - gunny sack, wheel barrow and three-legged. Kyle and Kinneret each won their gunny sack races (no suprise there, considering how much time they spend bouncing on things at home!). I fear that Cordelia is on her way to becoming a perfectionist. She didn't get upset when she lost, but she did get very upset if something prevented her from finishing. She was very unhappy when the gunny sack slipped down far enough that she couldn't really hop in it and when she and Kinneret tripped during the three-legged race. Once I helped her get to the finish-line, she was fine.

Kinneret turned 5 on July 31st! Since her birthday fell on a Thursday, swim lesson night, we were planning on celebrating on Friday. I was informed the Sunday prior to her birthday by her former Sunbeam teacher that Kinneret was going to have a Tinkerbell cake. (I had been trying to talk her out of Spiderman for weeks but she wouldn't budge.) After the mess I made of Dora, I was excited to find a cute cake at Publix. I toyed with the idea of buying only the little Tinkerbell decoration and decorating the rest of the cake, but time constraints convinced me otherwise. (I had just finished baking and frosting 48 cupcakes for her to take to daycare.) Since I decided to buy the cake, we went ahead and celebrated on Thursday. I felt just a little guilty when she woke up on her birthday wanting to see her Tinkerbell cake, but she was thrilled when she saw it after her swimming lesson. Of course, with presents waiting, who could possibly eat any cake? Kyle had wanted to go to the McWane Center, so we convinced both him and Kinneret that McWane would be a great place to go on Saturday for Kinneret's birthday. So after taking our turn cleaning the church and stopping back at home for a quick brunch, we headed to McWane. The kids played nonstop for a few hours and we headed to Chuck E Cheese's for an early dinner. Kit celebrated his 5th birthday at Chuck E Cheese's and by coincidence we ended up there on Kyle's 5th birthday. And, again coincidentally, Kinneret started begging for a trip to Chuck E Cheese's just before her birthday. However, when we arrived at the restaurant, the line to get in was out the door and down the sidewalk. We promised her a raincheck and eventually she calmed down enough to agree to a movie instead. We went to the dollar theater and saw Prince Caspian (Kit and Kyle opted for Iron Man instead). After dinner at Zaxby's (Kyle ate the bread and Kinneret ate the french fries and neither one touched the chicken that Kinneret begged for), we went home and crashed.