Welcome, Summer!

Summer unofficially started with a bang for our family. We had a great weekend. "It rocked!" as Brandon told his teacher at school this morning.

First, our real estate agent (who is also a friend of ours from church) invited us to sit in her agency's box seats at a Grasshoppers game. (They are a local minor league baseball team.) It was a perfect night for baseball. The weather was gorgeous. Our team won. And the whole nine innings were over in an hour and 48 minutes. The announcers said it was a record for the shortest home game for the 'hoppers. This is a very good thing when you have a 3 year old and 5 year old. Here are the cuties with short attention spans
before the game started.

Also, on Friday nights, they do fireworks after the games. It is an amazing show! I LOVED it. Oh, and I think the kids liked it, too. Neither of them plugged their ears or jumped when they exploded. Is that a good thing? Maybe Brandon's too accustomed to all of the explosions on his Lego Star Wars video game. Maybe he's becoming desensitized to violence....Ok. I'll stop freaking out and just be happy that they enjoyed the show as much as I did.

Then on Saturday, the water park opened. Yippee! The kids and I have been waiting for several months for this day. We made a quick stop by there and did a couple rides and then hurried home so Andrew and I could get ready for our date.

I am basically always the one who plans our dates and gets a babysitter and Andrew was saying just last week about how he feels bad that he never pitches in. I told him he could have a turn any time he wanted. So, he took me up on my offer and he came through in a BIG way. He called the babysitter and didn't tell me what we were doing. He just gave me guidelines on what to wear and we were off. He drove me to the church and a couple of friends in the ward were there waiting.

It was Seth and Carrie, who are
experienced ballroom dancers!

Andrew had talked with them and arranged a private lesson for the two of us at the church. Is that awesome or what? We learned the Rumba and the Cha cha.

Here I am practicing my turn.

Carrie and Seth were great teachers and we had fun learning something new. After our lesson, we took them out to dinner and then went to a restaurant that has a dance floor so we could try out our new moves. It was a blast. And, we'll even be able to use our dancing on our cruise next week. Double bonus. Andrew may not plan the dates very often, but when he does, he goes all out.

Monday was water park day--all day long. LOVED it. Several of our friends have bought passes for this summer, so we met up with them there. The husbands and wives took turns watching the kids so the adults could ride some of the scary rides. I felt like a teenager again--laughing with my friends as we waited in long lines and then screamed the whole way down. Brandon's tall enough that he can go on some of the scary rides, too. I took him on two and he was very brave.

I didn't take my camera into the park, but
here are the tell-tale signs of a successful
water park day:

Sun-kissed cheeks,
red eyes

and exhausted.
Whit didn't even survive the
15 minute ride home.

Now it's back to the real world of more packing, making appointments with contractors, end-of-year field trips, making the repairs that were requested on our current home, laundry, etc.

Phew. I'm tired just thinking about it.