Summer Resolutions.

Ah, summer. My least favorite season, hands down. I know that I'm in the minority on this, seeing as how I've seen so many blogs & facebook statuses lately that have been all about a love of summer. I think what I despise the most is the scorching temps we seem to get in July and August- yuck. It just doesn't seem to end!  Despite that fact, I am determined to have a great one, and I've even made a list of goals- a set of resolutions if you will, to get me through. In no particular order:

Take more pictures. Over the past year, I've really neglected my camera and the amount of pictures I have (or, don't have) really reflects that. I need to get my camera out every day, and start taking it with when we go fun places. Even if it's just with my smaller point & shoot camera, I can't risk missing sweet and unexpected shots like this one:

Make yearbooks. This is sort of an extension of the last one, but I've got several memory cards full of pictures that have never been printed. In 10 years from now, I'd love to have a shelf full beautiful picture books that we can look back on- not a drawer full of memory cards. I started creating a book on Blurb for 2011, so my goal is to finish that one and get up to date on 2012. I don't have a lot of time to make every page look custom or fancy, but Blurb has great layout options and I cant wait to get it in print!

Book 2 vacations. Jon and I are just weeks away from celebrating our 5 year anniversary, so the plan is to book a (short) vacation to Las Vegas for the early fall. I am also dying to book a beach vacation (it's been, oh... 5 years!) for our family sometime next spring.

Play tennis at least once a week. I've been hitting the tennis court for several weeks now with my friend Kathy, and I really enjoy it! It's not much, but it's nice to get sweaty on a regular basis and I really don't have the desire to join a gym to work out right now.

Build a twin bed for Cameron. Building a bed has been on my to-do list for quite some time, but I (not surprisingly) have experienced a bit of burn out after building Kylie her bookshelf.

Go on 6 dates, seeing 3 new movies and going to 3 new restaurants. 6 dates is the easy part- but we tend to get stuck in a rut of the same restaurants or doing the same thing every time we go out. Some of the wait staff at PF Changs is starting to recognize us by name when we come in!

Finish the basement. The darn basement. We were going full steam in the months after we moved in, but cant seem to wrap things up down there. The bar tile is in and the countertops are on order. We're so close, but there's still a fair amount of work to be done.

Go to the dentist. Not particularly excited about this one, but I haven't been since I was pregnant with Cameron. So yeah, 4 years ago. Eeek. I've got to book an appointment and book one for Cameron too!

A fairly lengthy list but I feel it can be accomplished in 3 months time. Anyone else have any summer goals or resolutions? Or hate summer like I do? =)

Snippets.

I wish I had a few more (uninterrupted) hours in each day to spend time on crafts and projects, like these little wood color matching peg dolls I made for Kylie. As much as I love a more complex, labor intensive project, I almost enjoy something as simple as this even more- especially since I completed it during the course of just two of her naps. How cute are these?
 



Cameron just finished up his first year as a Cubbie at Awana Club! I honestly wasn't so sure we'd make it until the end because he got pretty sad when I left him for the first few weeks (back in August). After the first month, it was smooth sailing and he couldn't wait to see his friends and teachers each Sunday!




My little Kylie has developed the curliest little blonde hair these last few months. It must be the humid weather- but I'm loving her curly tendrils. When I was pregnant with her, I wished for a baby who looked just like Cameron- one with dark eyes, dark features and dark hair. God must have laughed when I said that because she's the complete opposite with her light blue eyes and light golden hair. Really, I think the only similarity between them is their skin tone and nose. But darn it, they are both so stinkin' cute.

 

On a sad note, we lost our duck Cinco last week. Now that they are full grown, we've been letting them out during the day to roam as they please. They always stay together, mostly staying around our house with the occasional dip into the lake. We came home one day and Cinco was missing, so we're pretty sure he was taken by a snapping turtle. This was just a few days after an incident where Howard was attacked (again, most likely by a turtle) and got part of his upper bill torn off. It was pretty awful looking at first but he is much better and seems to be thriving as much as the others. I wish we could always protect them!