HAKAS

Does anyone else remember seeing this all over their school yearbooks?  For those of you who weren't teenagers of the '90s, it stands for Have A Kick A** Summer.

The kids and I are totally having a kick-a** summer.  In fact, probably the best summer ever since the days when I had school yearbooks.  We've been sleeping late, going on fun outings, eating tasty summer food, and getting thoroughly chlorinated, which is pretty much all it takes in my book.

 Let's see . . . where have we been up to this summer?  We went strawberry picking.

The zoo.

Truck touch.

Port Discovery in Baltimore, where Ingrid followed the costumed Curious George on his entire tour of the building like a tiny, adorable fangirl.

Hiking (or, as Ingrid says, "We walk in the woods!").

This random zoo in the middle of a suburban neighborhood.  The goats in the petting barn scared Ingrid out of her everloving mind, but she loved the kangaroos two feet away from her, and Henry rode a pony.

The pool, the pool, and the pool.

My son has swimmer hair.
It makes my heart sing.

Playing and picnicking at the water park.

Eating all the ice cream in town.

We also just had a truly excellent trip to Vermont, which will get its own post, and have another big trip to Seattle coming up.  Ingrid's birthday (with pool party, of course) will round out the summer.

It's actually really impressive that we're having such a good time, given that Karl was gone for 5 of the first 7 weeks of the summer and I simultaneously endured an entire first trimester.  The kids have both been in a really fun and relatively easy stage.  I'm grateful that we had such a fun and relaxing summer of enjoying each other and the city before Henry starts school full-time, which will mark some big changes to the daily routine for all of us.  I'm going to enjoy the heck out of these last three weeks of carefree sunshine and swimming.