Occasionally Chic: All in the Family

Showing posts with label All in the Family. Show all posts

Summer is officially over for me (YAY!!!) with the kids starting school today. You already know all the movies I watched this season and the places we traveled. We also did a whole bunch of small things. For all you know my kids might fondly recall these mundane memories of small things than anything else, when they are grown up.

Water Park - We frequent NRH20, a small-to-mid size water park for younger kids. The rides are small and keeps the adrenalin filled teenagers at bay. That makes it less crowded than other water parks. My kids have out grown NRH20, so next Summer we graduate to Schlitterbahn.

Community Pools - I usually enroll kids in swimming classes but did not do so this year. I have plenty of reasons/excuses - travel plans, too hot (yes there is such a thing as too hot for a swim), job switch, etc etc. But the primary reason is that I just did not feel like doing anything structured this Summer. Instead we played in the pool and came down the water slides until I remembered exactly every twist and turn in the slide.

Beyblades - This tops the chart this year for the most popular toy. When I made this comment to a friend of mine, she said, her kids played with it when they were young many many moons ago. It comes as no surprise. A beyblade is nothing but a mass production spinning top with a fancy launcher to set the top spinning. All said and done, we love this and had way too many family battles. My son for one reason or the other declared himself the winner every single time. It is true isn't it - the little ones do get away with a lot.

Chess - We had a little bet this time. My daughter has to win me over a game of chess. Her grandma is her coach. Do you have any idea, how much chess masters charge to train kids? What happened to the old fashioned ways of parents/friends/neighbors/relatives teaching kids to play?

Gardening - We had no luck with the vegetable garden this year, what so ever. Not even okra and mint, that grow like weeds. The only saving grace was basil, lots of it and a few cucumbers. Roses were far and few.

Lessons - Three months is a long time to keep brains inactive, in a specific academic way. I buy grade books for the following year and the kids work on it twice or thrice a week. When they complete a few chapters or so, we treat them with a trip to Barnes &Nobles and head to our favorite yogurt place.

Others Include

Making soap from a kit
Painted on a ceramic jewel box and horse in a place called 'Art From The Heart'
Trip to the libraries
Froze various sorbets
My son's experiments, which closely resembles what is known in the parent world as a mess
Painting the patio with chalk and cleaning it all over by spraying water on each other through a hose
Umpteen unscheduled play dates that start early afternoon and stretch all the way into the night.