Weekend at Home

It was a hot, humid, stormy weekend, and we had lots of little things going on - birthday parties, graduation open houses, and plans with friends. When it was 90 and sunny, we got out the sprinkler pool (of course) and had a great time watching Annie, Jemma, and Jonathan frolic in it in various stages of undress (there was complete nakedness by the littlest ones at one point). When it was pouring and we lost electricity, we stayed inside, ate Panera sandwiches for dinner, and watched the lightening. And when the storms subsided, we took walks outside, Annie on her new, big-girl bike (a pink Schwinn hand-me-down from one of Jason's co-workers, straight from the 1980's) and Jemma in her rain boots. She loves puddles; when she sees a particularly good one out in the street, she stops, turns around to look for me, holds her hand out to grab mine, and marches off to splash in it. I take this as a hopeful sign that she knows she couldn't otherwise go out in the street. And I love it when I can relax and be the kind of mom who takes time to splash in puddles with my girl, not caring that she's still wearing the little white dress she's had on since church in the morning.

Now that the never-ending Red Wings/Pistons sportswatch saga is finally over, Jason and I have been turning off the TV at night and making time to sit and talk outside, hang out with neighbors after all the kids are in bed, and have summer drinks together (so far: coconut mojitos and raspberry lambic). We're talking about plans for the rest of our summer weekend and realizing, as are other fellow bloggers, that we have lots of weekend plans already, straight through September! And while it's almost all good stuff, we started to freak out a little, too, about the lack of "free" weekends left on our calendar. We might just have to take the ones that are left and make a prohibition on plans for those few precious days. Because, for us, it's so often the unplanned weekends that end up making the most memories.