It's A Windy View: What A Summer

As another summer comes to a close, I can't help but smile inside and know in my heart that this summer was nothing shy of wonderful. I am so blessed to do what I do for a living. It has allowed me the opportunity to spend so much more time with my family and I love every minute of it. Simple days, new goals, small victories and big adventures... we have experienced them all.

At the beginning of the summer, I asked the kids what three things they really wanted to do or accomplish this summer. Spending time with friends and family was a top priority for everyone.

My Brown Eyed Girl really wanted to spend more time with her cousins and stay up at the cabin with them.

Mr Blue Eyes wanted to spend more time out at the golf course hitting balls. Especially since he got a new set of clubs this year for his birthday.

I really wanted to work on getting my yard back in shape. Trimming trees, pulling weeds, new flowers, planing the garden... it was a lot of work but I have enjoyed it all summer. Ummm, maybe not the constant weed pulling.

We started a summer book club!

Ok, so maybe this didn't make the kids' list of summer fun but I tried to make it fun. We all bought new books at the beginning of the summer. We agreed we would try really hard to take 30 minutes every day to read our books and when someone finished a book we all got to go get ice cream! The person who finished their book would get to choose where they wanted to go but they had to share what their book was about while we ate our ice cream. Like a mini book report.

Mr Blue Eyes finished his book first and chose Dairy Queen!

My Brown Eyed Girl was second and she chose frozen yogurt where she could add a ton of toppings to it.

I was third to finish my summer book and by popular demand we indulged in more frozen yogurt. We are all on our second books. Mr Blue Eyes asked me over last weekend if our book club had to end now that summer was over. Of course not! I think he has one last chapter to finish up and is hoping we have another ice cream date.

For the last two years I had been talking about getting new bikes for all of us as well as a bike hitch for my car. I wanted to be able to take our bikes out and ride along the Cherry Creek Trail during the summer. Well this year was the year!! All three of us had bike rides on our summer wish list and at the start of summer we all got new bikes and helmets!

We finally worked up to an average of a 10 mile ride. We had a blast this summer taking turns leading, stopping for ice cream and enjoying being out. We finished out the last day of Summer with one final bike ride and lunch at the kids' favorite place.

This mom also wanted to finally finish our deck remodel this summer.

This was NOT on Handy Man's list of summer to-do's by choice.

Eventually he embraced the idea!

I definitely gained more than a pretty new deck.
I loved watching Handy Man 'pass the torch' and teach our Mr Blue Eyes how to screw in the deck.

He even learned how to use the jig saw. The smile on his face and look of accomplishment was priceless!

The new Project Manager diligently watched the job site.

I am one lucky girl to have such a skilled Handy Man.

This summer, we were blessed to spend the Fourth of July with family friends.

Our Brown Eyed Girl made it all the way to Regionals in Gymnastics this year.
The highlight of her season was finally making it to the top of that podium when she scored first place with her floor routine at the last meet of the season.

We took a trip to South Dakota to see family in the Black Hills.

We spent a few hours at the drag races until we got rained out.

The kids had an epic Grand Kids Trip with Grandma Rhonda and Mike this year in the mountains. Zip lines, boating, swimming, archery, horse back riding. They did it all and can't wait to go back next year!