closing down summer freedom days

School starts tomorrow.  Ahhh!  I am so not ready for it.  Summer freedom days, please stay longer.  Really, we shouldn't even think about school until September.  But that's just my opinion.

We went to town today to get school supplies and groceries.  I was putting off going.  Actually I was thinking about waiting until Friday so that I could just go with the little 2 in the little car, but the big 3 wanted to help get them.  They don't really need their supplies the first couple of days, right? 

Stats for today:

miles traveled to town and back: 97

places visited: 2 - Target and Winco Foods

money spent on school supplies: $131 (and we didn't even buy any backpacks or lunch boxes)

money spent on groceries: $245-ish

hours gone: only 5

rating of trip: 9 out of 10 stars

  In Target, I strapped Zoe in the cart so well that she didn't have a chance of escaping (after I had to run past a few aisles to get her.  She is getting so fast - even though she had 2 left sandals on (which I didn't notice until we got there - we have 2 of the exact same pair that were hand-me-downed from 2 different sisters of mine)).  She was great after she knew she couldn't go anywhere.  And the bag of popcorn helped, too.  

At the grocery store we had "the limo" (as we did in Target) and Zoe and Jiles were strapped in tightly and I gave Spencer the job of pushing the cart.  That entertained all 5 of them, and they were actually pretty quiet.  I had the wonderful pleasure of walking - by myself - ahead to get what I needed and just put it in the cart.  It is so nice having Spencer - big 10 year old - to help me.  I paid for the ice, but forgot to get it, and had loaded everyone up already, so I sent Spencer back in to get it.  I was a little nervous about it and stood on the bumper trying to watch him the whole way, but it was so nice to just send him in and not have to take everyone.  It is so funny the looks/comments that we get when we go places.  My favorite today was when I picked up a watermelon to put in the cart.  An older man in a motorized cart said, "Now you're carrying 2 of them."  I said something about that one being a lot more refreshing. 

Anyway.  With Summer (the school-less part anyway) dwindling away this week, we were trying to do some more things on our bucket list.  I know that we still officially have another month of Summer, but still, it just isn't the same once school starts.  We will be trying to do the stuff we didn't get to, though.  Because it's fun.

This week we checked off drawing on t-shirts, having a bike/carwash in swim suits and having a picnic - oh wait that turned into swimming at picnic rock (which was also our family home evening activity on Monday night).  The kids have mainly just been wanting to ride their motorcycles every second they can.  They have also been working.

Drawing on t-shirts with fabric markers:

Ezra's creation

Kate's Dalmatian

Can you guess who this belongs to?

Zoe had a stain right there on this little tee.

This seriously cracks me up.

"I am 7." "Wen your 7 then you have a dirt bike."
P.S.  putting them in the embroidery hoop made the shirt a lot easier to draw on.

afterthought #2: "& 50% awesome"
except I'm not seeing the percent sign on that one.

cute boy!  The embroidery hoop also allows you to make a cool circle design.

On the back of Ezra's shirt:  "By.  I am going somewhere."

with a few more drawings/color.  this boy loves to do anything art-y.

Miss Z.C. modeling her tee.

And a few more cuz she's so daggone cute:

while holding either Todd or Melissa (they're identical twins...can't tell them apart) - my baby dolls that I got for my 6th bday.

And Miss Dalmatian-lover "why does everyone want to take a picture of me" Katie-Kate's t-shirt (this was the best I could do before she fled):

Super cute design, right?  She does such a great job!

Carwash/bike wash jammin' to Bob Marley's Confrontation album:

Jiles has turned out to really like dancing.

And he likes to dance "with my Hoey."  

When Weston started up the 4-wheeler later, there was quite the spout of water coming shooting out of the exhaust pipe for a minute or 3.  BUT IT WAS CLEAN!

Zoe got sprayed.  She REALLY does not like to be sprayed.

A little later, when the rancher was done with his ranching for the day, we followed him out to picnic rock for a swim.

Oh wait, we did stop for him to change the irrigation tarp.

I don't know much about motorbikes, and how big or small people should be to ride which ones, but to me it looks like Kate is a little big for that little 50.

Woohoo!  Refreshing:

"BY!"  He's going somewhere.

Oh, right, to negotiate riding the bike.

I love this time of day.  It is so golden.  And the clover smells soooo sweet (even though it makes most of my family sneeze).

flight of the bumble bee.  that thing has some pretty cool legs and feet.

We left the swimming hole because we heard this truck coming that Weston was expecting.  It broke down half way down the driveway and Weston had to pull it with the tractor to jump start it.  We have never bought wood, but Weston wanted to "try it" this year.  We'll still need to go get more.

That smelled good, too!  Mmmm!  Fresh cut wood.  The kids have already stacked all of that.  Well, except for the few full sized ones.  It looks so pretty stacked.  It's cut a lot thinner than Weston cuts it (because it's the leftover sides from lumber cutting, I think), so it was easier for the kids to manage.

Now time for 9pm waffles. Gotta love Summer nights!

(This was all in one day, by the way.)  

And one last picture.  I left Zoe for 2 seconds in the bathtub that night and came back to find her like this, fully enjoying the moment:

(i had just scrubbed out that trash can, by the way, and had it upside down on the back of the tub drying - so at least it was clean.)