june.

June feels like a lifetime away. 

Here’s a tiny splice of our everyday June adventures told mostly by my iphone.

I spent one glorious Saturday at the beach with just my big kids and the Kruckenkids.  The beach is a different place with just big kids.  I laid in the sun, swam in the ocean, looked up at the cloudless blue sky, laughed at these kids shenanigans.  It was glorious.

Em graduated from Joy School.  This was my best joy school experience yet.  There were four little girls (one couldn’t make it to graduation) who were all totally into JOY.   I can’t say all of my Joy School years have been filled with Joy, but this one certainly was.  I love the things Joy School teaches, the activities it gets me to do with my kids, the themes it helps us to bring into our family dialogue.  I love Joy School (even without the perfect class). She also graduated (again) from the Rockland.  See her below with her darling teacher?  She had a great year there too.  I love that place.

As tradition dictates, we went to the scooper bowl (fund raiser for the Jimmy Fund).  It gets crazier every year as our kids get older.  This year I think that we downed 79 cups of ice cream between the three families.  Yum. The Loosli’s came out to visit.  I really should have taken a picture of where this whole crew slept in our tiny house, but I didn’t.  Darn.  We had a great time traipsing all around Boston and Wellesley and the north shore together.  Cousins are just so great to have around.  And I was in heaven having my big sister with me for so many days.  This is what it’s like living near family. I wish I lived near family! We did a Power of Mom’s retreat together, which I always love doing.  I come away feeling so pumped up to be a mom. Right after they Loosli’s left Charlie broke his wrist falling off some strange contraption on the play ground at school.  Poor guy took it like a champ.     He was performing like a rock star in no time.  This is him singing a Killers song at his piano recital.  Their teacher is great at getting kids to perform all kinds of things. We went up to the K’s lake house for a few days.  It was the perfect summer kick off.  Hiking, kayaking, swimming, eating, talking, playing.   

Peter’s hair is still as golden as ever.  Not sure exactly where he gets all that blonde, but we hope it stays.

technically we went to celebrate father’s day.  here are two pretty fantastic dads. Peter spent half the time “kayaking” on half lake, half sand.  He was in heaven in that little boat. This lake is one of my new happy places.  It is perfectly serene.  Soothing on the eyes.  Good for the soul.   These friends are practically cousins.  We are so incredibly grateful that they are such a huge part of our lives.

Em and Peter did lots of “helping” around the house.  Peter can actually do a pretty good job emptying the silverware.  And Em is my little cooking buddy.  She magically is able to taste and like most things if she cooks them with me.  That’s magic I need to tap into more often. Our neighbor Janine sold her delectable baked goods at various farmers markets.  Here we are buying up those tasty treasures. Don’t both my daughters look lovely in those outfits?  Hmm.  Must have been a bad week for laundry. For the first time ever I pulled things together to come up with a teacher gift that I was actually a little proud of.  My friend Emily helped me make these cute tea towels to wrap home made bread in.  (Actually she pretty much made them herself).  I felt so crafty, but I’m not sure I’m up to pulling something like that off too often.  The big kids were both excited to say goodbye to another year of school. And so happy to have built up such great friendships. Here Em is cooking again.  She and I have spent a lot of time folding laundry and watching the food network.  She’s quite a little domestic lady. Good friends invited us often to their pool.  June was HOT and it felt so good to have a place to cool off. Poor Charlie spent a lot of time and energy trying to keep that darn cast dry through all the start of summer fun.A rubber glove worked wonders keeping the sand out. Thankfully we got that darn cast off and changed to a waterproof one (just in time for bear lake).  Here he is bidding farewell to that old, smelly cast.  I can’t believe they even ask you if you want to keep those things.  A nice mom might have said yes.  Emmeline had her first violin lesson.  She is thrilled that she gets to learn the violin.  Her teacher is fantastic and we are all loving it so far.     Peter, oh peter.  The baby just doing whatever he can to fit in/survive/thrive/entertain.  Love that little monkey.   And last?  A trip to the temple.  The moment that I snapped this picture was breathtaking.  An early summer breeze, green and warm and beautiful after the long winter.  I like June.