Week in Review: A Strong Start to Summer

Summer is officially here!  The kids have already made lots of trips to the parks, playgrounds, forts, and the beach with friends and cousins...while I sit at my desk and work.  Boo.  We are heading up to Lake Winnipesaukee for a week soon, so I am looking forward to that family vacation.  And there are definitely days when the kids are bored and grumpy that I don't mind going to work while Phil deals with them ;)

But mostly, I just want to be at home with them enjoying our simple life in beautiful southcoast MA:

Vitamin SEA :)

The teen boys have been working lots at the ice cream store, and every once in a while they are all on the same schedule and we go visit the cutie patooties.

 JP is taking a five week Anatomy course and lab so that he can stay on track while he studies abroad next fall.  Andrew has been waking up early to attend football weight training, as he is trying to decide between soccer or football for his senior year of high school.  Maggie has been babysitting and she and Eamon started working at a concrete company where they wash the work trucks on Saturdays.  Phil has random summer jobs, including working at the high school and working at another ice cream shop (owned by his former students' family).  Family dinners when we are all home are hard to come by in the summer, so we do a lot of bulk grilling and always have leftovers in the fridge.  One of my fave summer meals is a Bubba Veggie Burger.  Nobody else likes them because they won't even try them!  

I bought my own Mother's Day gift this year...an AeroGarden and I love it.

The herbs grow so fast and I'm going to buy lots of chicken breasts from BJ's and use the herbs to prep some Freezer-to-Grill chicken.  After that I'm going to try growing some salad greens in the AeroGarden since we eat so much of it.  At least all the rabbits outside won't be able to eat it anymore!

Sometimes when I tell Phil the schedule for the day, I have to ask him to repeat it back to me because...

Ha!  I must admit I'm pretty guilty of this too :)

On my way to work yesterday morning, everyone was talking about JT's bad dance moves, and so I looked it up, and I don't think they're that bad.  Geesh he's a 40-something dad now not a teeny bopper in his prime.  I'm also the world's worst dancer who still loves to dance, so my opinion matters not.

My younger sister brought Eamon and Maggie to Canobie Lake (an amusement park) with her kids and they had an awesome time:

My *almost* Irish twins who are 14 months apart and such good kiddos.

While they were away and the big guys were working, Phil took the little kids to the beach with some friends and then I took them out for fried ice cream and we made a summer bucket list of fun:

Prayer requests:

Phil visited the hematologist this week and they took lots of blood to run tests and see why he has blood clots.  Hopefully it was just a weird occurrence and not a genetic condition.  More importantly, my 84 year old mum had a hip replacement yesterday, so prayers for a short and painless recovery would be much appreciated.  She has to have the other hip done in the near future as well.

And that's the weekly wrap.  I hope your summer is starting off strong too!