We love summer! Once the school year wraps up, we love jumping right into summer and all that means for the Strange crew…swimming, playing outside, trying fun restaurants, vacation, slower pace, loose schedules, fun, and TIME together! The first week of June was packed with most of those things. The second week of June was crazy around here because Clint had to go out of town for work, it was my last week in the office for the school year, and it was VBS week at church. It was totally nuts…but we had a blast! Fortunately the week went by quickly because we always miss Daddy when he is gone. He is definitely the glue that keeps things rolling around here! In a shameless effort to gain cool parent points, I did take the kids out for donuts before church while Daddy was gone.
All of this led up to my favorite week of June…family vacation! We normally head to Destin, but we switched things up this year and headed to Hilton Head instead. We are so glad we did…we had so much fun! We stayed in Sea Pines right near Salty Dog and we will definitely do that again. We all loved riding bikes, playing on the beach, hanging at the pool, eating at Salty Dog several times, and everything else that Hilton Head had to offer for the four of us. So much fun! Emma discovered on this trip that she really likes friend shrimp…like several meals worth! And…she lost her first tooth! How cool is that?? A tooth fairy visit at the beach! We consulted with Tooth Fairy friends and settled on $5 for the first tooth and $2 for each additional tooth. Somewhat of a lucrative revenue stream for the early elementary kids! Eli had an absolute blast at the beach! Last year he had only been home for a month and all he wanted to do was eat all the sand. This year he was much more into jumping waves, jumping into the pool, jumping off the stairs, and anything else that involved jumping! The best part of our vacation was doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. We had a blast and can’t wait to go back soon!
The last week in June, we hung around Acworth and did a lot of local fun things. We went to the driving range early one morning and stayed until we almost melted. We painted an American Flag on a canvas and did a few other home projects. Emma had her sweet friend Ella over for a sleepover…the first one for both girls with a friend. Emma and I helped make MUST lunches at church and the whole fan went roller skating one evening..Eli’s first time! Both kids did great with it…but they’ve got work to do to catch up with Roller Derby Champs Mom and Dad (who can skate pretty awesome backwards to be as big a guy as he is!).
We celebrated at Chuck E Cheese with our good buddy Jack as he turned 6. That puts him one year closer to him and Emma getting married. It was fun to reminisce on lots of fun adventures together as we celebrated Jack and had a lot of fun with other friends from school. After the party, we hit the road to Memphis to spend my third and final week of summer vacation in Memphis with my sister and her family. We had a great time with JD, Katie, Nora, Simon, James, my Mom, Kevin, and Marina. My sister has a pool and that is usually our favorite part of visiting in the summer since Emma and Eli both loves to swim! They also love Aunt Katie’s diving board and jump off it over and over again! We stayed with them through the Fourth and had a lot of fun catching up with everyone and doing some Memphis things that we haven’t done in a while. We don’t go to Memphis much, but when we do, we love eating at our favorite places and catching up with friends. It was a really great way to spend my last week off!
Over the month of June, it’s been so evident that Emma and Eli have grown up so much these past few months. Eli is getting really great about using the potty and his conversational skills have improved a ton! He is so hilarious and all of us love the crazy faces that he makes. He’s a little ham! Emma continues to love reading and math and is so excited about working through her first chapter book this summer. I like to read with a highlighter…Emma does too. I love when she does stuff like that. A great reminder that kids are always watching!
Clint and I are so grateful for these brief snatches of time where we can spend time together just as a family enjoying each other’s company and making memories that will last a lifetime. Some of those are huge adventures, but so many more of them are simply the day to day ordinary things of life where God shows us so much of His glory revealed through His faithfulness to us. Happy Summer!
