Summer so far!

I really cannot believe that summer has flown by so fast! We are leaving for our trip on Friday and when we get back, there will only be two weeks until school starts! Why is it the school year seems torturously slow, yet summer is over in an instant?

For the past 10 summers, I had but one goal - get the heck out of New York!
It's really hot here in the summer, but that's not what kills you - the humidity is unbearable. So we've always abandoned Rick to his sweaty commute into Manhattan and headed for Utah and the waters of Cherry Hill & playing with cousins in the cool of the evening after the sun goes down (which NEVER happens in NY, it's hot and sticky all day and night.)

This year would be different, Rebekah is old enough for a summer job & would be taking drivers Ed. and Emily would do summer swim team. My kids are growing up and our days of taking off for 5 or 6 weeks in the summer are over. I knew this was coming, which is why we took our big road trip last year.

At first I thought I would be bracing for it, but as the summer drew near, I was excited. There's no room at my parents house for us to have a long stay right now anyway, and it would be fun to stay here. We always abandon our garden right after all the spring effort I've put into it. We wouldn't have to leave Rick for so long. We'd save money not flying the 6 of us somewhere and my kids probably wouldn't get sick breathing airplane air & adjusting to time zones. We could really get our money's worth out of our pool membership, and explore some of our outlying areas. We could use more of our zoo membership & go the the 5 zoos & aquarium that it covers. I'd join the Children's Museum. Yeah - it was going to be great.
There were skeptics - my sister Sara said "You say that now, but wait until you're in humid August, then you'll be sorry." (Sara has been here in the summer!)

Actually, the past school year kicked me in the rear! I was exhausted the whole time, and felt like I was always playing "catch-up." The Little's had pretty much the same schedule the bigger girls had when they were that age (which worked beautifully then), but I think the combo of that & the big girls (read: early morning seminary + a bus for Emy 20 mins after we got back from it, and late night activities for bek) just caused me to struggle. All. Year. Long.

So then it rained 26 days in June. In case math isn't your strong point - that's only 4 days the entire month that we didn't have rain. Poor Emily was swimming in the cold rain for swim team every afternoon. I was wondering what I had signed myself up for. Then July hit. If ever there was a year to stick around NY in summer, this was it. There have been only a few humid days, and I can think only 2 that felt truly miserable (we went to the aquarium on one of them!)

Knowing we were going to stay here we wrote up summer goals, and I asked Emily's piano teacher to give her lessons during July (we're still taking August off.) I envisioned lazy days with early nights & me finishing lots of projects, and I could make it to the gym on a regular basis. (what could be better?)

Because I like structure and LOVE lists, I made up a schedule for our summer days.
(Really, it's also because my memory is shot and I can't function unless I write everything down.)

7am – 8:30am
Rebekah to get kids up and dressed, make beds, eat breakfast, scripture & A of F memorization, breakfast clean up. (Mom to gym)
*Rebekah free for day after this (drivers ed, summer job, personal progress, summer theater.)

8:30am – 9:30am
Morning cleaning jobs.

9:30 – 9:45
Pack bags for pool & leave.

10am – 11:30am
Swim team practice for Emily (Mom, J & J to play & work on swimming.)

11:30am – 1pm
All play at pool & eat lunch. Go home. (Hang towels to dry, etc.)

1:30 – 2:30pm
Quiet time.
I gave Emily a summer job. She has a huge list of American Girl stuff she wants to buy, so I told her I would pay her $2 a day to spend ½ hr each with Jacob & Jane - working on alphabet, reading etc. Whichever one of them was not working with Em could look at books, do puzzles, play on starfall.com, etc.

2:30 – 5:30pm
Free play (sandbox, trampoline, crafts, play with friends, etc)
Work on summer goals.

Specially assigned free time days -
** Wednesday is gardening day
** Thur, Fri, Sat; may take trips to zoo, aquarium, Children’s Museum, beach, etc.

5:30 – 6:30pm
Dinner
(the lettuce and tomatoes for our vegetarian taco salad this day came from our garden. yummy!)


6:30 – 7:30
Baths, brush teeth, read story & scriptures. Family Prayer.

7:30
Bed for Jacob & Jane
Piano practice for Emily.

(Don't you love that he' sleeping with his light-saber. Lately he's also been taking his Book of Mormon to bed with him, which I love even more.)

8:00 – 8:30
Reading time for Emily, then bed. (Personal scripture study for Mom.)

8:30 – ? (Tania Time)
Mon - finish laundry
Tue - finish cleaning
Wed - ironing
Thur - Crafts / projects
Fri - Time with Rick / date night
Sat - Primary / Sabbath preparation / earlier night!

Here's how it's gone down - overall surprisingly well. Even though we've had to deviate from the plan on MANY occasions, just having a plan has been great.
This is mostly what we've had to change; Rebekah dropped summer theater in favor of working more. Getting her to & from work has definitely been a spanner in the works of the plan - but for a good cause, so that's been OK. I thought drivers Ed was at the high school, which she can walk to. It is there every other day, the in between days I have to drive her and we need to leave at 8:15, so most of those days I skipped the gym. I know, I could have gone at 6:30 and been back in time but I get up early all school year - I wanted to sleep a little later.

The beginning of the summer was heavily stacked with swim meets, team photo's, the team BBQ, exhibition meet, etc. There was one week I thought we should just sleep over at the pool to save travel time! It cut into learning & free time, and Em missed several piano practices - but we only had to reschedule one lesson, and her teacher has been great about understanding if she isn't practicing 6 days a week (her usual practice is every day except lesson day.) Plus, it's for swimming, and we'll do almost anything for swimming.

I had imagined that I would have "quiet time" during that hour too - and get some of my projects done, but I have had to be around to supervise a little more that I thought. The one not working with Emily, generally wants to be included. Sometimes Jacob (who is not a big fan of quiet activities) would tire of working on the what I set up for them, or Emily would get frustrated with him and I would need to be around to intervene. I didn't get projects done then, but I did usually work on folding laundry, ironing or cleaning up in the basement while they played.

We've had some fun outings, and our days have gone relatively smoothly. The kids have accomplished many of their summer goals - and still have time to finish the remainder when we get back from our trip. Really, my only complaint this summer is how quickly it seems to be ending!