summer is here!

It is officially this house's first summer vacation! Ava only went to school three days a week in the afternoons, but when you think of three days of making sure you are home by lunch, it doesn't leave a lot of room for big plans. So I am not sure what our big plans will be. I am thinking of making a list of fun things we can do this summer and when I get stuck, we can just look at the list and go from there.

Our gym has an outdoor pool, with a zero depth section. So we will be spending a day or two a week there. I am going to tell myself that we won't go to the pool unless I go first to work out. I am also not going to go to the pool EVERY time I go to the gym, or getting the kids there in the fall when we aren't going to go to swimming is going to be horrible. They are easily trained in routines.

We will probably have some fun nature walk days. There are tons of paved paths in forest preserves around us, even some paved paths through protected wetlands. We will do some berry picking, baking of fun thing, jam making, free movies on rainy days, and maybe even go to the zoo a few times. I would love to go camping a couple times. I would also like to take the kids to the beach at Lake Michigan. I just haven't figured out the whole parking thing yet.

What else should be on our list?

vile association

It is no secret. I have a serious hatred of our homeowners association. I appreciate that I pay to clear the snow, have my shrubs trimmed, lawn mowed, roof tiled. Other than that, I don't have much use for them. I don't enjoy that they say we can't do other things. There aren't many perks to it, just a whole lot of don'ts. In the latest letter, they have suggested that we take pictures of people violating the rules and send them in. They said they have a huge problem with pets. I will admit, it is annoying to see dog poo on the side walk or on the tree bank. It is because it is clear that people took their dog for a walk and didn't pick up the poop. Other than that, I really don't see many other violations. I let my dog out on my front door and she poops 5 feet in front of the door and I don't pick that up. I am the only one who can be annoyed by my dog poop because nobody else can see it or even comes near it. The whole concept of encouraging neighbors to send in pictures of each other violating the rules definitely turns neighbors against each other. I had actually started wondering if the reason we never really talked with our neighbor was because he was reporting us and thought we were violators. The other night we actually talked because I saw him outside putting down grass seed and assumed he had been reported also. He was and now we have a general shared hatred of the association and their letters. I should run, but I would never be elected. I would want to let everybody pull up their ugly juniper bushes and plant real gardens of flowers....Or that is just what I would want to do.

Nothing

We are stuck in the middle of in between around here. The season can't decide what it will be. 5 more days of preschool for Ava. Count down to Ava's dance recital and then we will be done with dance class for the year. I am not reading any books at the moment. I am supposedly working on three knitting projects but I am not actually working on anything. We have just been busy with a lot of little things. Both of the kids have been really awesome and difficult every day. I am just trying to focus on the happy, funny things, not in the constant messes and disasters and more messes. I feel like this stage is really on the verge of ending and I am trying to just suck it up.