The Death of Summer

Well, that was short.

I know those outside of the education field will probably grudge (begrudge?) me for complaining about my mere two months off of work during the summer (paid), but I'm going to anyway:  summer was way too short this year. 

It was.

Yuck city.

Probably had something to with us buying a new house and spending the first month of summer moving into it and settling down.  That, and only having the pool up for two months sure as hell didn't help - we didn't get a chance to put it up until the beginning of June (opposed to last year, when we were swimming by mid-April).  Consequently, we were forced to tear the damn thing down two weeks ago when a pinhole appeared and water began leaking into the yard.

Ever been to Mackinac?  This smelled like it.

Sure, we could've easily patched up the pinhole, but that would've required doing so after draining water out and letting the area dry first.  Then we'd have to refill the pool (which takes awhile), add more chemicals to the water, take the sample to Pinch-a-Penny (our local pool store) so they could check our levels, adjust the chemical levels in the water if need be, and wait a day or two to let the balance adjust.

Ultimately, with us taking the pool down in a couple weeks anyway, we just said 'screw it' and tore the damn thing down.  August, ergo, has been a pool-less month. 

Check it out . . .

Getting ready for some quasi-serious gardening with Daddy. . .

Picked up a couple of $1 flowers from Home Depot so the girls could re-pot something while I tended to the larger plants. . .

. . . they lost interest pretty fast.

Abby wasn't down with this at all. . .

Week 2 of Kris attempting to dry out the pool (not as easy as one would think, what with the amount of rain we get down here.)

Wasting expensive soil, as could be expected.

Our girls are huge fans of peeling paint off things.  They always have been.  Their bedroom dresser had originally been painted a dark blue, but when we bought it we repainted it a pale green to match the original nursery.  Sure enough, the green paint was slowly peeled off, and it looked terrible in their new purple room.  So Kris decided to repaint it. . .

Eerily enough, the kids were quite well-behaved in assisting in the paint job.

Alayna masters how to tie her own shoes (note the finished dresser in the background)

(. . . also note how messy our kids' room is.  I blame my roommates)

Diva time. . .

Duplos are like crack. . . even for big people.

This monolith was way better than anything my kids can build. . .

NEVER leave your children alone with markers. . .

Fortunately this came out, but it reinforces our decision to abstain from buying new, nicer furniture until our children grow up into civilized human beings.

Showing off another new dress.  Always a big deal in this house.

- Brian