Summer. Yes please. I love it, and what’s not to love? Slower speed, lazy days at the pool, grilling outside, fewer things on the “to-do” list. The days are warm, and there’s a constant stream of kids in and out of my front door. The laundry gets done when I get to it. When there are no groceries, we say “Oh well, better head out for breakfast donuts.” Instead of homework and deadlines, we go to golf lessons and swim team. It’s dreamy and we all look forward to it for months…..
SCREETCH…….wait a minute. Back up. Hold the phone.
Sadly, that is not my life this year. Summer of 2018 is going to look nothing like that. Instead, I will cram all of those activities listed into the day….AND I will pack up and move my life to Denver. We will still have golf lessons and swim team, but once I throw the kids out of the car at the Club, I will race home to meet the appraiser or inspector or various repair person, and then race back to retrieve my children. There will be no visiting with my girlfriends during the weekly swim meets. Instead I will beg each of them to take a picture for me and drop my kid at home when it’s over. The play dates and laundry will coincide with packing boxes, packing crates, packing a home. Sigh.
In preparation for this monumental task, I spent the first day of summer gearing up. I indulged myself in one lazy pool day. White legs? Check. Magazines? Check. Beverage? Check…(could be a glass of wine. I’ll never tell as there’s no photo evidence. Hey, I NEED it). Happy kids? Check. Check. Check.
Later on that same day, I heard the words every Mom dreads….”I am bored.” and I was forced to bust out the “craft bucket” and say….”Get creative. Entertain yourselves, while I wander the house looking for rogue piles of puppy poop.”
The Barbies have clearly been on Malory’s last nerve too. I walked in on this situation, and asked her what was going down. She told me that everyone was in BIG TROUBLE, and were in time out. What I can tell you is that they must have been really naughty, because they stayed that way for a few days and if I tried to jail break them, I was put in time out too. Lesson: DO NOT get on MJ’s bad side.
Swim team is one of our favorite summer activities. Reese is a pretty good swimmer, and loves the competition goofing around with her friends every morning. She is the polar opposite of a morning person; she wakes up nearly in tears every day of the school year. But, this girl wakes up every morning for swim team with relative ease…no tears, no complaining…and jumps into a freezing cold pool. Olympics 2028, here we come. Unless there’s an opportunity to sleep in.
But, look who else decided to give swim team a go this year? Look at that sweet, chubby little body jumping off the blocks like a boss. Fast forward about 3 days, and she was “over it.” We’ll try again next year.
Next up in the busiest month on record was the event that was a year in the making. John set out a year ago with the goal of becoming an Ironman. Like with everything else the man does, he went at it with full focus, 100 mph speed, and a never quit attitude. June 11 was the BIG DAY and I think both of us were ready….for different reasons😏.
I think I’ve mentioned before that triathlons are not very spectator friendly, and the Ironman is a 13+ hour long event. He started his swim at about 6:30, while the kids and I were sound asleep. We didn’t even head to Boulder until early afternoon, once he finished the swim AND the 100+ mile bike ride. After that, he had the piece-of-cake task of running 26.2 miles. The loop was so long, that we only saw him once every hour and a half. It was a long wait….so, we did what any good cheerleaders would do….
We drank margaritas at the bar. We had a cardboard cutout of him displayed at the head of the table, just as he would want it.
When he had 30-45 minutes left in the race, we went to meet him near the finish line and were able to catch him while he ran along the creek path. At this point, I walked with him for a 100 yards or so while he “rested” his weary legs. He said to me something I had been hoping to hear….”I don’t ever want to do this again.” Now, I realize that this type of statement is similar to what a mother would say during the throes of labor, and is quickly forgotten once the pain and exhaustion subsides. BUT, I have put it in writing, so it MUST be true.
A few minutes shy of 14 hours after he started, he crossed the finish line and heard them say over the loud speaker that he was an Ironman. He was sweaty and stinky and exhausted, but grinning from ear to ear all the while. We were immensely proud of him, for that is a task requiring both mental and physical fortitude. Nicely done, Ironman!!
For the rest of the month, we tried to make summer as normal as possible….while still packing ourselves into the car Sanford and Son style during house showings, inspections, appraisals, etc. This was a regular occurrence for a span of 3 weeks….
I have been sitting here for 20 minutes trying to come up with a witty transitional statement to continue, but I can’t and I must move on. Otherwise, I end up looking at Pinterest, or shopping online, or getting angry at Facebook….and I think we’ve already established Mama ain’t got time for that. So, I’ve basically just written descriptions of each picture. I am so creative.
Jackson golfed…like any good farmer in his Pioneer seed cap.
We had ice cream for dinner….again.
We trained for our own Iron(woman).
We wrote songs.
We simultaneously loved and hated this guy. He’s 100% puppy and has chewed every item that I haven’t managed to throw into a box while packing. But, he’s also incredibly sweet and makes these adorable grunting noises when he sleeps.
My sweet Reese. And by sweet, I mean full of sugar…in the form of cookies, cereal, candy, etc. Given the choice, this girl would eat candy 24/7. I made the HUGE mistake of taking her grocery shopping with me one afternoon, and because my defenses were down (see aforementioned schedule), I came home with a few “extra” items in my cart.
Lastly, this guy and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary at the end of the month. While it looks like we went to some sort of awesome party, that is profoundly incorrect. This was a white party theme at the Country Club and we were so excited….thinking that all of our friends would don their best white attire and we would party the night away.
Yeah, I think we were the only people there. It was officially the lamest party I’ve ever attended. We had MAYBE two drinks and were home in bed by 10. Total waste of a babysitter.
#marriedlife
