Summer in the City - Week 1

Lauritzen Gardens

Happy Summer y'all!

Summer has officially started. MrC is now FREE of school till August 17th I think and has made it through the 3rd grade and will be advancing thru to 4th grade this year. He is turning into a kind and thoughtful young man who is really really good with little kids and it's been interesting watching his interest in all kinds of building type things. MissG is on her last FREE year before she enters her school years. She starts preschool in August 2 mornings a week and her schooling will continue for 20+ years if she decides to be a doctor. She has been saying that since last Sept/October before she turned 3! She told my chiropractor she wants to be a doctor of bones.

I thought I'd take a page from The Seasoned Mom and share some of the FUN activities we are doing this summer. Heck this might become a series! Hope she doesn't mind! There is so much that is shared online that is FREE and The Omaha Public Library is the very first place I check starting in April as I plan our summers.Everything else we do is planned around their activities!

So here we go:

Monday I had no kids since it was a holiday. 

Tuesday we began our day at the YMCA. MissG still had 3 days of swimming lessons to go. She was so excited about going to lessons and swimming and playing with MrC and then she would get stiff as a board and fight the teacher. It's a simple introduction to water and swimming so it was to help them get comfortable getting their face wet, moving in the water, lying on their back and crawling in the water. She does ok until the teacher asks her to lie back and put her head on the teachers shoulder and then she stiffens up. She did make it through the lesson though. Afterwards I had a chiropractor appointment. We were early about 40 minutes so we stopped at the park to play for a while. 

 

Wednesday ~ MrC got a cool surprise when a former daycare mom stopped by during naptime with a HUGE drawer thing filled with Knex, the motors and even a solar panel to make the motors run. After nap we went to our first library activity & both kids had a blast! M.E.S.S. stands for math, engineering & science stations. This weeks activity involved racing balloons, creating a gas with baking soda and vinegar to blow up a balloon, etc… The kids loved it & I loved that it worked for both kiddos.

Thursday my bathroom was getting painted in the morning. YAY! This has been a 6 year battle with my landlord. His mother was dying and all his time and resources were tied up in her care till about a year ago. My bathroom floor was falling apart and the wall behind the toilet was having issues. My landlord is 70 now and he told me he didn't expect it to be such a HUGE job (It's been over a month and my litter box is still in the living room till the baseboard is finished - hopefully in the next week or so). I love my new padded flooring and the ADA toilet which is higher than most. I have a bad hip and it has helped me with my pain so much! YAY

Anyway, the kids and I went to Lauritzen Gardens on Thursday morning to get out of the house. We wanted to go see The Amazing Stinko which is supposed to be a rare plant that rarely blooms. It's supposed to be the stinkiest too & I wanted a picture of them holding their noses.... Entrance to the gardens was supposed to be free until it bloomed - you guessed it - it bloomed 3 days before we went. I decided to go ahead and pay to get in so the kids could see the trains, childrens gardens, the new observatory which is a huge rainforest. There are bananas and a huge trumpet shaped carniverous plants in there! (It eats bugs!!)

(I will be posting all my pictures of Lauritzen gardens as well as review in another post. )

Friday ~ MrC wasn’t feeling very well in the morning. He seemed very tired and Ms G was doing great (no swimming lessons!). I put her down for a nap because we were going to the farmers market to listen to music that night and so she could dance. You guessed it – the music was over by the time we got there, we went home and her Dora book wouldn’t work even with new batteries…. Friday was a very difficult day & it didn't help that no one got to play with the knex because they were left out the night before. You see we have a little rule - if I have to put them away they are MINE for 3 days.... They'll get them back on Monday.

Saturday night: Mr C and his mom took me to see Peter Pan at The Rose Theater. That was fun and it was nice to actually do something non work related for a change.  Review

What did you do last week?