Ali and Mark's Blog: Summertime!

Elliott on the last day of 2nd grade with his teacher Ms. Veschio. She loved Elliott a lot, and she was such a sweet teacher to him.

His class on the last day of school. They have all grown so much this year!

Summer this year is only 4 weeks long for the big boys before they have to go back to school. We did out best to fill it to the brim with fun. While William was at computer coding camp the littler boys had a blast at the splash pad.

Then William had a week with his good friend Ethan, who is back for the summer from Texas, attending sailing camp at the Back Bay. He was NOT excited about the swim test in the water the first day, or the capsizing of the boats in the same green murky water the second, but it made it much easier to have a friend doing it with him.

Peter got some one-on-one time with Mommy and Ahma while the bigger boys were at camp to do some strawberry picking.

I think he liked playing with the wheelbarrow and little tractor far more than picking the strawberries.

There were lots of swim lessons with Coach Debbie. It was Peter's first year of doing lessons and did amazingly well. The first couple lessons were hard, because he didn't want anything to do with Coach Debbie, but soon he would just get to the pool and head right over to the stairs ready for his lesson.

By the end of the 4 weeks, he was kicking and swimming himself along the water beautifully.

Whenever he would do something hard Coach Debbie would tell him to say "I did it!" and give a thumbs up. This is how he would give a thumbs up. It was so cute!

The big boys had their lessons too, and got to swim with their friend Ethan this year.

Debbie was always so patient with them.

They both made quite a bit of progress this year too, and are becoming very proficient swimmers.

Peter loved spending Saturdays outside with Daddy watering plants, feeding the birds and squirrels, or watching Daddy draw amazing things with chalk.

He is such a good helper!

We even squeezed in a trip to the Nature Center with Elliott and Peter while William was sailing.

These two are so cute together and Elliott takes such good care of Peter.

They loved finding the best sticks they could and trying to catch some crayfish.

After hiking we had to swing by Balboa to get some Balboa Bars.

And we couldn't forget William. We weren't sure his was going to make it back to him without melting in a puddle, but it did!

Our last week of summer was filled with Hero Camp. The boys had been looking forward to it all summer, and it didn't disappoint. The theme this year is "It's My Story" and each day was a different movie theme. I lucked out in being assigned the Star Wars day to help with which is by far one of the boys favorite movies. I sewed all of the costumes for the pictures, and although they were challenging without a pattern, they turned out very well. The kids all looked darling, and my boys were glad they got to keep the costumes to play with at home.