Summer Bucket List Highlights

Happy Labor Day!

Well, it's here guys, Labor Day. The day that signifies the end of summer even though the calendar still shows a few weeks til fall officially begins. 
This summer has easily been my favorite summer in years. I feel like we did more with the girls this year than we had the past 3 summers combined. At the beginning of summer I made a bucket list of things that I wanted to do with the girls. I was completely shocked and thrilled that some how we managed to mark off the entire list.
Today I wanted to highlight my top 5 bucket list favorites.  Here they are in no particular order.
{ONE} Take the girls to see the "big" fireworks.
So worth the late night and being a bit sleep deprived the next day.

{TWO} Go to the pool.
Not only did we hit up the pool almost weekly the girls took swimming lessons as well. We can put a BIG check by this one!

{THREE} Overnight without the kids.
We went on our first overnight get-a-way since having kids... we should have done this YEARS ago.

{FOUR} Go to the drive in.
The perfect chance to take the girls to see their first drive-inn movie.

{FIVE} Go camping.
Our first family camping trip was definitely the perfect way to end our summer. 

BEST SUMMER EVER!!!

We had so much fun with our summer bucket list that I have decided to work on one for fall. I will post my list on the first official day of fall, September 23rd. Join me if you would like!

What are some must do items that you would include on your fall list?

Blue Moon 10K Recap

Saturday night was the 3rd and FINAL race in a 3 part summer racing series.
The Blue Moon 10K
Let's start by talking weather. What started out as an average hot summer day made a weird turn when it started raining in the early afternoon. I pulled up my phone and sure enough 0% chance of precipitation. Definitely a forecast FAIL.


So when it finally did stop raining and the sun once again reappeared, it mad for some lovely hot humid southwest Missouri summer weather. AKA miserable humidity.

My goal for this race was to beat last months time. I had said under an hour would be awesome but as long as I was under 1:02:15 I would be happy. Sometimes when the weather gets bad you just have to adjust your expectations of how you will be able to perform.

Upon arriving we as always had to snap our traditional pre-race pictures. 

And before we knew it we were rushing to the start line. With a larger than normal turn out we didn't expect the race to get started on time. Boy were we wrong!

With no on course race photographer I don't have any "lovely" action shots to share with you this time. Oh darn ;).
We ran and ran our hearts out. Our pace the first 3 miles was much faster than we expected, but we felt great. We slowed down a bit for mile 4 while going up hill but picked the pace back up. I think it was somewhere around mile 5 that I started realizing we were likely to make our goal and and by mile 6 I was almost certain a 59:something time was in our future.
Final time 58:30 average pace 9:26 my new PR (personal record) That, that I never imagined happening on a horribly humid night race.
I also learned a valuable lesson at this race, only wear black pants for summer races. Why? The INSANE amount of sweating you will do. Just trust me, or check out this picture. 

I promise I did not pee my pants, eeekkkk! My shirt was soaked my body was literally dripping with sweat and as you can tell by this picture everyone else was to. So nice to have great friends to sweat with. 

With the summer night series completed we received our finisher medals. Now we only have 12 short weeks until 13.1 miles of fun in Springfield, MO!

Let the half training begin!

Far From Being Fish, But Better

Last week we wrapped up our second week of swim lessons.

Two weeks of swim lessons resulted in some very busy mornings, the husband riding his bike to work every day and a lot of laundry but I couldn't be happier that we decided to enroll the girls. 
I would be a liar if I said that it was a lovely experience start to finish. In fact I don't have a single picture from the first day of class. If I had to rate how bad day #1 was I would say off the charts epic failure. Marissa screamed and cried the entire 45 minutes, refusing to go to class and her sister was only slightly better about half way through class. After some a lot of disciplining and talking the rest of the day and evening, the rest of our lessons were wonderful

Marissa started off terrified, worked up to scared and ended up being a nervous but definitely more confident swimmer.

She tackled and conquered two huge fears of hers. Putting her head in the water and going down this slide aka getting her face wet.

Emily ended up having one on one lessons due to her class size being small. The main thing she learned from lessons was how to be more comfortable in the water. She loved using the buoy to kick around on and playing with her teacher. 

After two weeks of work it all came down to one last day.

First a quick skill test then they were able to go down big blue the slide over and over and over again. 

 The girls are still far from being fish, but with their new found confidence and skills I am excited to see how they progress through the year. We plan on making weekly trips to the YMCA to work on our swimming. That is what you call home school P.E. folks. 

Now I am left with two very sad little girls but I keep assuring them not to worry, we will definitely go back for swim lessons again next summer. 

It's The Little Things/ Drive-in Movies

For weeks I stocked the local drive-ins Facebook page. Every Monday morning I would eagerly await the announcement of that weekends movies. I was waiting and hoping that a kids movie would play for what seems like weeks. I was so happy when a friend text me last week saying the week was finally here, Planes Fire and Rescue was showing. 

Finally the girls would get their first trip to the drive-in.

On Sunday night we packed up and headed out. They were so excited but they didn't have a clue what to expect. "What is a drive-in movie?"

We showed up early to snag a spot in line. It is pretty normal for the cars to be lined up for over a mile. Waiting gave us the perfect chance to squeeze in another picnic.

Finally after waiting for what felt like a whole day in "little time", it was finally time for the gates to open.

Playground time was finally here. 

Front row seats! So worth getting there early.

Hanging out with friends, watching an awesome movie and eating way to much yummy food and snacks. Definitely another great summer night to remember.

We are totally rocking this summer. I can't believe it is almost over already.

Have you been to the drive-in lately?

It's The Little Things/ Swimming

My biggest goals for summer this year was to swim. I know that sounds pretty lame and completely expected for summer. But that isn't always the case with us, in fact I don't even think we made a single trip to the pool last year. That is, or should be some sort of summer hypocrisy or crime of some sort.
With swimming being on the top of my summer fun list. We have taken any chance that we find to go. One of the best ways to do that has been attending free swims. Joplin has 3 nice aquatic centers and each park has one day that admission is free for 2 hours. This has allowed us plenty of chances to swim for free!
Here are some pictures from our summer swimming adventures.

We have had so much fun this summer and I am so glad that finally swimming is able to be a consistent part of our summer routine. 

BEST SUMMER EVER!