Our summer .... summed up in one picture

This spot in our yard, this barren, grass-less patch of dirt, is where my boys spent hours and hours of their summer playing.  It was a perfect spot for excavators to dig, dump trucks to haul and tractors to plow.  

This spot was a favorite as well.  It's funny how what I see as an ugly, broken section of sidewalk, Carter saw as his personal quarry pit and a perfect place to dig and haul rocks.

This is what our summer was made of.  Playing.  Playing in the dirt, playing at the park, playing in the water, playing at our friend's houses ... we just played.  And it was perfect.  My boys weren't in baseball or swimming lessons or karate or soccer or any other organized activity.  And not that those things are bad, but I figure we have the rest of our lives to race around to practices and games and live according to everyone else's schedule.

But not this summer.  This summer we played.  We set our own schedule and we came and went as we pleased.  If we wanted to have a picnic at the spray park, we did that.  If we wanted to stay in our pajamas all day and watch movies, we did that.  If we wanted to play tennis, we found cheap rackets at a garage sale and learned how to play tennis.  When Brooks wanted to learn how to play marbles, we pretended we were in the 1950's, bought marbles and learned how to play "Ringer" in our living room.

We took impromptu trips to see hot air balloons launch, took hikes in the woods and ate popsicles in quite possibly the messiest way possible.

We celebrated birthdays, played with grandparents, and had a whole lotta picnics in the park. (because food just tastes better when you eat it outside!)

Brooks' birthday dinner

Most days Chris would come home from work, put something on the grill for dinner and play with the boys in the yard.  They'd hunt for grasshoppers, ride bikes around the block, or inspect our sunflower seeds we planted in the spring to see how much they'd grown since the day before.

And this little dude just came along for the ride :)

It was an amazing summer.  And I'm already excited for next summer when Bennett will be 18 months old and running around with the the rest of us.

 (ok, that was more than one picture.  sorry.)