What do you do in the summertime?

This summer, I really want to have a fun memorable one before Boston heads off to the world of SCHOOL for the next who knows how many years of his life.  Here are a few of the fun things we've been up to (picture overload):

THE BEACH!  Galveston beach is NOTHING to brag about BUT its a beach.  The kids don't care how nice it is.  They just love the sand and the waves.  We went with a few friends a few weeks ago and the kids had a blast.  Hudson was eating sand and I was finding sand in every crack of his body for the next week.  He didn't seem to mind.  He LOVED his first visit.

 The kids LOVED just playing in the waves.  The older kids were bodyboarding and later the younger kids attempted it too and did pretty good.

 Hudson was content eating anything and everything he could find (food, sand, wood, etc).

 They built sand castles (I'm pretty sure Hudson went behind them and destroyed them...sorry boys).

 It was a successful day and the kids were past out in a matter of minutes when we left.

 I found this idea on pinterest one day so I decided to try it with my boys.  COMPLETE.SUCCESS.  You make your own "sidewalk paint."  The boys loved it.

 Hudson of course painted on the sidewalk for 2 minutes then decided painting himself was more fun.

 Boston kept saying "Mom Hudon's painting on himself and not the driveway!" I told him that was fine and then he asked if he could do that too.  When I told him yes I think he was in TOTAL shock and then went to town.

 He even decided to paint his toes.

 Much more got on them versus the driveway....

 And the house got its fair share of paint too.

 When they were all finished, I just turned on the sprinklers and they had just as much fun cleaning it off as they did putting it on.

 I got this next idea from a friend.  Painting in the bath tub.  The boys did this for over an hour and loved every minute of it.

 Again, Hudson found more joy in painting himself then the bath tub.

 And of course, Boston decided that was more fun too!

I also have to give Kent props for accomplishing wakeboarding.  Last summer, he tried and could quite make the cut.  His wife showed up him and he has been needing to redeem himself ever since.  So one morning a friend invited him on his boat to try again.  I got this picture sent to me that morning.  I guess he finally did it....although part of me is still trying to figure out how they rigged this picture....  Now, I'm anxious to see this in REAL LIFE!

 

We have spent LOTS of days at the pool.  Luckily for us, all of our friends have such fun pools in their neighborhoods so we get to take advantage of them all!

Last weekend we drove almost an hour to the Bluebell Aquatic Center to swim.  Boston loved it.  He went across this thing over and OVER and got really good at doing it himself. I actually got a TAD grossed out by the water.  Although it LOOKED clean it just felt dirty.  BLAH!

The boys played at the park.  Two seconds after this picture, Hudson's arm got a burn from the slide...

Hudson is at that active age where he doesn't care to stay in the water too long.  He is in and out and in and out which means I'm chasing him around alot!  He likes to go back and forth to my bag for snacks CONSTANTLY. 

Afterwards we headed to one of our favorite BBQ joints---NATHAN'S BBQ!  I was really craving this and was ultimately the reason we chose to drive an hour to the aquatic center.  As we were eating though, I saw a DEAD cricket on the floor.  I tried to forget about it until I saw a LIVE cricket hop by.  THEN I noticed TONS more by our feet!!  Kent assured me there was nothing gross about crickets and that they just snuck in from the door since we were surrounded by fields.  This did NOT comfort me though and I completely lost my appetite and sat with my legs propped up on Kent the rest of the meal.  SO GROSS!

Hudson didn't mind the crickets ONE bit as you can tell by the BBQ sauce ALL OVER HIM!

And of course we have swam even MORE with friends.

And also taken advantage of days (or evenings) when its not TOO hot outside and to play (pretty sure those days are over there since we hit record highs yesterday).

I seriously LOVE summer.