What We Did This Summer - 2013 Version

I had promised myself that I was going to do a better job of keeping up with posts on my blog this year -- and this summer pretty much went by without a single post!  :(  It has been a busy summer - one for the record books, for sure, but not with our traditional summer activities.  My eldest daughter is struggling with anxiety over having to go back to school and how quickly the summer seemed to slip by.  She has asked me twice if I would post my usual list of what we did over the summer, so hopefully this will help her out by reminding her of some of the fun things we did!

- One of the last days of school, early in the summer, Daddy picked the girls up from school and took them to the zoo
- We had our end-of-year Girl Scout ceremony, bridging the Daisy troop to become Brownies
- We had a fun Lalaloopsy birthday pool party for our new 7-year-old (my youngest)
- We went on a vacation to New Hampshire to visit with our family
- While in NH we went to Newfound Lake, one of our favorite places to spend the day at the beach, and we had a picnic lunch with the family, spent the day in the water, and made sand castles
- Also while in NH I went to my favorite country store with my aunts and brought my two girls shopping with the ladies for the first time
- We went to Hampton Beach, NH and enjoyed a day at the beach, swimming in the ocean
- During our trip to Hampton, we went to Brown's our favorite seafood place and the girls tried lobster
- We went to Funspot "the world's largest arcade" in NH and played skee ball, air hockey, video games and then mini golf outside (and my little one desperately wanted to try ZIP LINING.... (daredevil!) but settled on swinging on a swingset until she fell off and scraped her knees big time!  (Barely a tear though, bless her brave little heart!)
- We went out for another seafood dinner with the whole family to the Weathervane in Weirs Beach, NH and then walked on the boardwalk, went into an old-time arcade, and got an ice cream
- We enjoyed time with family and I got to see a cousin that I haven't seen in years and the girls got to meet her daughter who is around their age - my girls always love adding new cousins to the fold!
- We went to the Genesee Country Village with Daddy one day for my 12-year-old to have a fitting for her costume for the Independence Day celebration on the 4th of July
- We volunteered as a family at the Lifetime Assistance Airport 5k - a charitable event that the agency I work for holds every year.  We all had fun and we got to see special guest, Abby Wambach speak right after she broke her world record for most goals scored!
- The girls and I went to the Genesee Country Village Independence Day celebration and my eldest once again represented Rhode Island (tallest girl, smallest state - go figure!) as a maiden for the day, walking in the parade and being at all of the special events
- The girls and I went back to Genesee Country Village in August and enjoyed Laura Ingalls Wilder Day - we have gone every year since it first began (5 or 6 years ago?).  The girls went in costume (of course!) and this year's special guest was Allison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on the tv show. She is so funny and entertaining -- we had a great time as always!
- For my birthday we went out on Grandpa & Gramby's sailboat, sailed around the bay and then over to an Italian restaurant on the bay for a lovely birthday dinner!
- We also had a special birthday dinner for my 7-year-old and Gramby who share the same birthday!
- The girls spent a lot of time with Grandpa, who watched them in the afternoons while Daddy and I were working - lots of lunches out, some visits to Great Gram, and at least one trip on the sailboat with Grandpa & Gramby
- My littlest girlie spent one week at Princess Dance Camp this summer (her 3rd year, I believe) and she had a great time and we all enjoyed her recital at the end of the week!
- She also spent two weeks at the yacht club taking swimming lessons -- she did great this year!  Next year, level 4!
- My eldest had a fun day with a friend that started as a "couple of hour visit" and turned into an all-day, stay for dinner affair!
- My little went to 2 birthday parties for 2 different friends
- Nana came to visit last week from Monday to Sunday and the girls enjoyed getting to spend every day with her!
- Shopping sprees for school
- Dinners out on a few different occasions - Red Robin, Shogun Palace, our favorite diner, Applebees
- A couple of visits to local playgrounds
- A fun trip to the zoo with a friend and her mom
- A fun afternoon with Gramby - lunch, playground, and creating beautiful pottery pieces at Color Me Mine!
- Probably some more things I'm forgetting...  like swimming in our pool!

Pretty long list, lots of stuff going on!  And that isn't even the half of it -- the biggest thing we did this summer was Daddy went on a couple of interviews for a new job in New Hampshire, which he got, and we decided to take it and move our family to New Hampshire!  Yeah, that was pretty big...  We're actually still in the process of that "activity" right now -- getting the house ready to put it on the market and now keeping it spotless for unexpected walk throughs by our realtor and potential home buyers is keeping us pretty busy!  More info on that to come!

Hope you enjoyed your summer and best wishes for a great new school year!