Happy Friday! This has been a pretty great week! I hope yours has been too. I have some favorites to share with you, so let’s get to it!

Favorite 1: SWIM!! The boys swam in their first swim meet of the season on Saturday. It was so fun to be back at summer swim meets. They both swam really well and had a bunch of fun! Jack and Luke swam in the lane Jeff was timing a few times so that was fun, too!

They had team pictures last Friday and played games afterwards. The big kids love the water bottle game. Have you ever heard of it? You fill a plastic water bottle with water and take the label off. The kids are divided into two teams – one on each end of the pool. Their backs are turned to the middle of the pool and someone throws the water bottle into the middle of the pool. The teams try to find the water bottle and get it back to their side of the pool. They can swim with it, throw it to one another, or walk it. It’s really fun!

Favorite 2: BIRTHDAY! We celebrated my mom’s birthday last Friday. The crabs were delicious and I made a blood orange cake from Trader Joe’s. It was also yummy! When I make it again, I think I’ll make it like a poke cake so the glaze goes down inside.

Favorite 3: MUSEUM! For Luke’s birthday we gave him a museum day. He could pick the museum and picked the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum. We have been to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, DC before but have never been to this one. It was amazing!! We were there from 10 – 3:15 and didn’t see everything. We started in the space travel area. The Discovery space shuttle is there and it was awesome to see it in person. I thought it was very interesting that each piece has a code on it so there is no chance of a mistake in building.

We went to the IMAX theatre and saw Blue Planet which was a great show.

There were so many planes, missiles, rockets, and other flying machines. We saw the Enola Gay, a Blackbird, and Dusty Crophopper!

Luke and I did a flight simulator. It was a lot like the Top Gun Nintendo game except we did actual barrel roles and spent the majority of our three minutes upside down.

This museum was so cool! We will definitely go back and take Jack with us, too.

**Favorite add on: EXPERIENCE PRESENTS! I loved that the boys’ birthday presents this year were experiences and not all stuff. It’s a favorite and we will continue doing this! Jack went to Opening Day at the Nationals game to see the Braves in March.

Favorite 4: COUSINS! After our swim meet on Saturday, we went to Jeff’s parents’ house. His brother and sister and their families came, too. It was fun to have all 6 cousins together at the pool and at the house. The adults had a great time together, also!

Favorite 5: GOLF!! My dad took the boys to play golf last week and took Jack to play golf yesterday during Luke’s museum day. The boys have the best time with Pop!

Favorite 6: ICE!! I am still loving our nugget ice maker. I moved it into the office and off the kitchen counter and I am thrilled. This piece of furniture added some extra storage (woohoo!) and holds the ice maker, too!

Favorite 7: SUMMER READING!! We always do the Summer Reading program at our local public library. With our 30 minutes of reading a day before screens routine, both kids met the first goal of 300 points. When you reach 300 points, everyone gets a free book to keep. Luke and I went to the library yesterday to checkout new books and he picked out his first book. I didn’t see anything I was dying to read, so I let him pick one for me. You’ve got that right, I do summer reading, too. Adults can sign up and you should. Ours can be done totally online (super easy!), but of course you should go into your local library branch! We are still working towards our 1000 point goal.

Currently

I thought I’d have so much time to write blog posts this summer, but I sure don’t. The boys are staying up later, so I am spending more time with them and staying up later, too. That’s a great thing, but it also means I am sleeping in a little later. I’ve been spending a bunch of time at the pool with friends and Jeff which is also a good thing, but it leaves less time for blogging too. I am trying to soak up all the summer quality time and fun!

I will definitely be back on Monday for Hello Monday with Holly. I am hoping to be back to share a reading update on Tuesday, Let’s Look on Wednesday, Fashion Files on Thursday, and Friday Favorites on Friday. That’s a pretty lofty goal for Summer Sarah, but we’ll see how it goes. Have a great weekend full of sunshine and books!