June meant we started doing school 2-3 days a week again. (We actually did a few days in May too - mostly "field trips", but June felt more like our official "summer schedule" kicked in.) It was too hot to do much outside most of the time anyway!
The kids all waited in anticipation for our van mileage to turn over to all 1's. :)
Our buddy Josh had his 3rd birthday party at the Children's Muesum.
All the kids got superhero costumes at party favors:
The next day, I couldn't find Abby and finally I saw her outside jumping on the trampoline like this:
Rock Hill offers free swimming lessons for kids (you just have to make sure you don't miss sign-up day in May because all the slots for the lessons fill up in a couple hours.) Caleb took Beginner Lessons:
Doing pretty good with the float:
His lessons were in the evening, and most days it was usually still hot, but one day was really cloudy so the water must have felt cold:
We also had our Parent Practicum/Tutor Training 3-day event for CC. I have NO IDEA how people do it who have to get their kids to school every day because after 3 days of packing lunches and making sure we were all ready and out the door by 8:00, I was ready to CALL IT QUITS! The kids did classes while I was in the parent and tutor sessions. On the third day, they did a short presentation for us. Here is Abby with her "armor of God":
Carroll Financial hosted an employee picnic one evening at the Charlotte Knights' Stadium. We got to watch baseball and eat good food, and they even gave everyone something like $25 credit to use at concession stands and merchandise stores within the stadium. It was pretty hot, but part way through the game the rain clouds started to roll in so we made a bee-line for the ice cream place. (Although Ben and I were doing the Whole 30 diet this entire month, so we couldn't have ice cream.) :( The kids enjoyed picking out some baseball cards and big giant foam fingers at the merchadise stand.
Sometimes they are best buddies who have to even sit on the same chair:
Grandma came for a visit:
At Abby's swim lessons. They have specific ones for 4&5 year olds. Unfortunately, one of the lifeguards was a man, so Abby steered clear of him. :) She would sometimes work with the other (girl) lifeguard.
Practicing making "ice cream scoops" with their hands as they walk through the water.
One day while we were doing school, two neighborhood boys stopped by to use our basketball hoop. But they got too hot so they came in and did school with us. :) Here they are doing Bible work. When the one boy was done and said, "Let's go play," the other boy said, "I can't! I haven't finished writing the memory verse yet!"
One of the highlights of the summer... we discovered that with our Rock Hill YMCA membership, we could use a YMCA in a neighboring town that has an AWESOME water park in it. This is just a small section of the kids' area. The kids LOVED it, so we tried to go about once a week. Being in water is about the only way we can do anything outside because of the heat. Also, Micah taught Abby how to put her head under water, so that helped her be a lot more comfortable with her swimming lessons. Most of the time, I could sit in the shallow end with a book while the kids played, so they definitely did not have to twist my arm to go there. :)
We visited the York County Museum while they had a special dinosaur exhibit. Maddox and Zuri came along.
Babysitting Joshua's baby sister, Janae, for the first time:
Justin and Sheila, friends of our's (and neighbors to Karl and Lindsey) had a shrimp boil one evening in their backyard. SO MUCH FUN. They boil a huge pot of corn on the cob, potatos, seasoning, shrimp, and crayfish then dump it all out on a long table and we all just gather around and start eating.
We took advantage of the free programs Wednesdays at the library (acting groups putting on plays for the kids, musicians, jugglers, etc. that they brought in.) The kids had a lot of fun at most of those. We even went to one or two of the $1 movies that are offered during the summer at the "nice theater" here.
At the very end of June, Micah started a summer basketball league at the Y.
Carroll Financial also hosted a "night at the symphony" one evening at their building in Charlotte. They bring in fancy catering and we sit out on the patio talking with clients and listening to the symphony playing in the park across the street.
Like I mentioned, we did the Whole 30 diet all month, so I didn't get to enjoy fully all the fun food we were offered this month. :( I had been having digestive issues for well over a month, so we tried doing this to help remedy some of those problems. (I had had a little bit here and there throughout the winter and spring too, but the end of April through the beginning of June was rough. I'll spare all the details, but food just shot through me, and I would wake up feeling irrationally anxious even though I had nothing to feel anxious about. There were a lot of unexplained emotions going on. My whole body just seemed out of wack.) So for Whole 30, you eat all unprocessed foods, no dairy, no grain, no sugar, no soy, no legumes, no nitrates or specific other ingredients, no fun... for 30 days. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be since there are all sorts of good Whole 30 recipes online, and we did feel much better at the end of 30 days. The good news is that as I reintroduced each of those "trigger foods", I didn't have a severe reaction to any of them, so I think I'm still safe to eat anything in moderation. Ironically, dairy seemed like the only thing that upset my belly a little, but not so much that I have to cut it out. When I went to the doctor and he asked me a lot of questions about my past year (my crazy busy schedule with all the adoption paperwork, gigantic yard sale, Both Hands project, etc), he said he thinks I am just a classic stress stuffer, so once all the extra stress was over (dossier submitted, Both Hands project done, school year officially over), my body decided to let everything out. He said the best thing I could do was to start a regular exercise routine and ideally get AWAY from the kids a couple hours a week so my body could really just get all it's stress out in a healthy way. I'm writing this post about June in retrospect (all the way in November), and I can say that it seems like getting away to the YMCA to exercise a few times a week has made possibly the biggest difference in everything and most days I feel like completely like my normal self. My stomach still gets a little upset if I have an extra busy/stressful week for some reason, but I'm so grateful that it's nothing like what I experienced this past spring!
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