Summer Updates

We've been spending a lot of time this summer having "pool parties". Pool parties can sometimes just be me and the boys having an afternoon swim, but often it has been a group of friends playing and swimming and drinking wine and grilling. It is by far my favorite summer activity. The big news of this summer so far is that both my boys can swim! No life jackets or help or anything. They just swim. And I can sit on the side. I still have to watch them closely, Sam especially, but this development is pretty awesome in more ways than one.
I really like spending time with the boys this summer. I'm glad we have this break from school and that I really get to spend huge amounts of time with them just hanging out. And they love to spend huge amounts of time with each other. They are best friends. They play all day every day for hours. They fight, sure, but usually work it out in minutes so that they can get back to playing together. We are spending the summer with way less routine and schedule and we are all really embracing that as well.
The summer is great and over all has been wonderful, but this week has been a little rough. We have had huge amounts of rain and storms and this has caused a couple of problems. The main problem is that we discovered we had a leak in our roof. This coming only a couple of weeks after we had to replace our entire A/C unit has been a major blow.
Also we are trying to get down to the river this week to beautify it ahead of a camp out we plan to throw this weekend. But we can't get down there at all with all the rain and the very camp out itself is in jeopardy if it rains anymore. (let me know if you want to come to the camp out and I left you off the evite). And the rain has really put a damper (ha ha pun!) on our pool parties.
I also can't get out into the garden because it is too muddy. This is good and bad. Bad because I'm sure caterpillars are boring their way through my squash and eating through my tomatoes with abandon and good because I am sick of having to deal with those nasty caterpillars and this is a good excuse not to. I love having fresh vegetables and teaching my kids about growing. I also have a sense of pride and accomplishment with how much I've learned and achieved with my garden. But it is hot, hard work. It takes huge chunks of my time and I can never catch up with all that has to be done. I feel overwhelmed with it all the time. And caterpillars are nasty. So we shall see if I can continue to garden after this season.
And I got my feelings hurt yesterday and I'm working really hard to get over myself about them.
But I won't end with negative stuff. I've got a lot of positive things this week to mention as well. I got to have a pool party yesterday in between clouds. I made biryani from scratch and even though it was testing the boundaries of my cooking knowledge, it turned out awesome! It's going into a regular rotation and I'll give you the recipe soon. I couldn't stop eating it. Yum. I got to have a girl's night out with a movie. I got to spend a day talking wedding plans with one of my oldest and most wonderful friends. And I cannot say enough times how awesome it is that my mom is my best friend and that I live on the ranch with her. It rocks.
So there you are. The good, bad and ugly of the first couple of weeks of June. Let's think sunny thoughts for the rest of the week okay?