Summer is coming to an end!

 Jake and I on a date at the PTM with Henry and Jeannie. 

 Somehow I land myself back in the ER, thankfully this time just with a broken big toe! Stupid door frame in the dark took me out! Recovery is more annoying than anything else.

 This picture just makes me laugh. I think this is Luke's "serious" soccer face. And something about the shin pads and sequins is just pure, quintessential Julia. 

 A downright COLD day in the middle of August had us fleeing the pool! The weather has been really strange this summer. 

 The kids have started up a jewelry business. Its pretty cute and they are really into it. They make beaded bracelets and necklaces and have now branched into the rainbow loom and the little rubber band bracelets. Keeps them very busy and they work well together! Win Win all over the place.

 My Jake. This kid just kills me. After about a 3 month stint  of being very "three" Jake is back to his normal sweet and easy self. I wish I could just freeze time right now. Everyone is so much fun at their current ages and life just feels so easy ~ our problems small and our worries very few.

 Breakfast at Penns Table. 

 A fun Sunday at the bluerocks game with the Reeds. 

 A great day at the Mill dam with the Carr's and Bickharts. 

 I've been getting in lots of golf, broken toe and all. This was me being very nervous heading out to CVCC to golf with strangers as the representative of the Mangan family......very intimidating!!

 Doing soccer drills in the front yard. They are really excited for soccer to start. 

At long last my homework room fantasy is coming to fruition! The desktop is not yet on and will be completed next week, but I'm totally thrilled. We are going to get the kids their first computer and Luke and Jules will each have their own desk/workstation. I'm going to put in an area rug and a big comfortable chair and ottoman for myself, and hopefully it will work out great! It has a beautiful view and is right in the center of our home. Its both beautiful and functional and I'm really excited about it! :)

Life has been so relaxing and enjoyable these past few weeks! The kids have just been fun, all around, enjoying the pool their friends, and these simple days. We go to the gym where they see their friends and go to art or cooking or whatever, then we come home and Jake takes a nap while the bigs read for an hour. Afternoons are filled with getting together with my friends and their kids, or hitting the pool, or a park, or the arboretum. We had a really fun outdoor movie night at ACAC, have been taking lots of bike rides over at East Goshen park, and have been hitting up several farmers markets a week. Julia is at a Phillies game today with Nate and the boys are going to be my dates at the pool once Jake wakes up.

Julia has started reading which is exciting, and they both like to read to Jake. Jake is really excited about starting school, he is going three days a week. I can't believe my baby is off to school! He is going 9-2 on mondays and 9-12 on Wednesday and Friday. I just got the kids bus schedules ~ Julia and Luke both get picked up at 8:35 (different busses as she isn't going to public school this year so that she can go to full day Kindergarten) and Jules gets home at 3:05 and Luke at 4:05. I seriously can't even wrap my mind around the idea that my two little ones are going to be away from me all day in about a week. Its just wild to be losing both of them at the same time for the first time. I already have all sorts of projects planned around the house and I'm looking forward to doing a lot of lunch volunteering at the kids school on Mondays, as well as picking up a shift at the Food Cupboard. My first fundraiser that I coordinated, getting Doc Magrogans to host a "dine out" night for us was a big success and raised a lot of monty and I'm thrilled to have convinced Kildares to host one in October! I really love the organization and am so happy to be a part of such a great place.

This is the last week of summer ahead of us as Luke starts back the day after Labor day. We have a zoo trip planned and Nate and the boys leave around noon on friday to go up to Stroudsburg. He has his 20 year reunion that night and was originally going to go to a PSU game the next day. He was going to take all three kids and give me a kid free weekend......but after enjoying my week with Jake so much I decided to keep Jules home with me and make it a special Mommy/daughter weekend. I'm ridiculously excited ~ we have some manicures and pedicures on tap, lunch with friends on Friday and Saturday, as well as bikerides and some school shopping, and a lot of cooking together on Sunday morning as we prepare for the boys to come home and the Corles to come over for dinner. I'm really going to miss my little sidekick when she is gone all day and all week, so getting to spend a little time alone before the onset of school will be a treat for me.

Things finally feel back to "normal". I will say that I was surprised to find that transitioning OUT of grad school was a difficult transition. I think that I just assumed that everything would automatically click right back into place ~ but after 22 months of virtual single parenting the adjustment to having Nate around more was difficult in some ways. It sounds strange to write that, but it really was. Thankfully the adjustment period feels over and our family feels like everything is flowing along really smoothy once again.

We are going to enjoy this last week of summer to the max! I hope you are as well.

Cape May, 2013

 They built this one all by themselves while I sat idly nearby with my book. The beach is the worlds BEST babysitter. Love the beach with older kids. Its a whole new world. Between playing football and wiffle ball and building castles and nap time and walks and looking for crabs in the rocks I actually got plenty of time to SIT and TALK or READ. This was so nice. Also, remembering last years vacation and how painful it was being on crutches, looking at the ocean instead of playing in it...well, I felt very grateful. I had thought Nate wasn't going to be down most of the week, but he ended up being able to be down the whole time. He worked at the house during the day but was there in the mornings for bike rides or runs on the boardwalk, and would knock off around 5 and join us on the beach or wherever we were, which was a very unexpected treat!

 We had a lot of fun with this football this year. 

 They lived on these things. As they are both good swimmers now they were able to boogie board without one of us in the water, I would just pull my chair by the edge and keep an eye on them. We stay on "baby beach" rather than next door on Windsor with the crowd, as that way there is a much more gentle beach entrance and it is much safer for the kids. You can go out about 50 yards and it is still only up to my waist. Perfect. 

 The Ocean City Boardwalk. An annual tradition that got nixed last year due to my broken hip, we had a blast. They loved the rides, we had ice cream, walked and saw the sights (mummers!) and had a perfect evening. 

 Julia and her Mom Mom at Uncle Bills. The sight of my first job when I was 14 years old, we make an annual pilgrimage there every year, just to pay homage to the awesome hostess I was. No, actually they have great pancakes. 

 I just can't look at this without laughing. Luke picked this civil war background (All I ruled out was the bottles of booze one......its tacky enough to do it without making it more tacky!) This was at 9 pm at night, on our way to get ice cream. The kids were so into it, it was just funny on multiple levels. Jake looks as though he intends to win the war himself, and Lukes sweet earnestness just melts me. Julia was so stoic you would think that she had actually sent men off to war. All around Nate and my Mom and I just couldn't stop laughing. 

 Samantha and Julia fishing for stripers!

 Lukes first striper. He was so proud. We caught about 50 on a great day on my Dads boat. 

 They entertain themselves so well. 

 Beach naps. This was the one day that Jules wanted to sleep in the stroller so Jake got to sleep under an umbrella. They all insist on taking naked beach naps, so they carefully take off their suits, make up a "bed" with towels (complete with a sand pillow)...crawl in, and go to sleep. Luke and Jules would sleep for about an hour, Jake for at least three. He is out COLD in this photo, completely oblivious to the families, chatter, and children running and playing around him. We would stay on the beach late this year ~ wednesday we were up there from 11-8, eating dinner up there and showering and going straight to bed. Beach naps give us the flexibility to do that, and provide a nice break from the heat and sun in the hottest part of the day. 

We stocked up on our Cape May sweatshirts for back to school! Back to school.....I think that I am avoiding blogging because while I am excited for all that is coming this fall....I'm really treasuring these long days with no schedule. I'm so grateful that we did this no camp thing this summer ~ our days are relaxed and long, and somehow (I think thanks to the gym and naps) no one has been driving me too crazy as I feared when I considered this campless summer. Our time in Cape May was our best week yet ~ it just gets so so much easier as they get older, simply getting to the beach is no longer the death march it was with a 3, 2 and 0 year old (oh, my toes curl just remembering how hard that was). Love this newfound freedom, love seeing my babies as happy children, feel grateful to be able to share the outdoors and my love of the beach, and especially my love of sweet Cape May with these people.

Heat Wave!

 Dinner at the pool. Every night!

 Ritas Gelatti's at the concert at the park.

 Jules and Tessa.

Sunday Funday at the Kluebers pool

The third week of July presented us with a massive heat wave! Nate was in Vegas for the entire week so the kids and I sweated it out alone. It was actually great as we could do whatever we wanted and I felt no pressure to put on big family dinners. The schedule was simple. We went to the gym every morning from 8:30 till 10:45, ran one short errand, then came home and the kids did workbooks while I made lunch. After lunch we did yoga in the nice cool basement, and everyone went up for naps.

I grilled or cooked something for dinner and packed it all up while everyone slept, and when they awoke around 3:30 we headed straight to the pool to meet up with friends. We ate there every night! No clean up! One night we braved a very sweaty concert at the park, but other than that it was all pool, all the time. Every other night we would come home at 7:30 for showers before bed, every off night we could come home right at 8, slip into clean t-shirts, and right into a book and bed. It was a heavenly week. The kids have gotten SO easy at the pool, I can have a nice combination of playing with them and actually sitting and reading or talking with my friends without being constantly terrified of someone drowning.