Summertime... and the Livin' is Easy

 

There's no denying it:  summer is here in full-force!  It seems like we waited so long for those temperatures to rise, and now we're complaining about how hot it is!!  Well, I'm complaining anyway...maybe you all are more appreciative, but I've spent far too much time these past few days watching the sky turn black from those eerie summer storms rolling in.  And far too much time sweating from places I didn't even know sweat could come from.  Regardless, I am pretty darn happy that the sun has been shining down on us so we are able to enjoy tried-and-true summer activities like...

He kept busy collecting sitcks, then counting them: "9, 8, 7, Sticks" 

Playing at the park.  We live 1 1/2 blocks from the coolest little city park (we call it "Perfect Park"), tucked away in a nook under cover of trees and away from traffic.  Our bikes have put on a lot of miles heading over there lately.  Noah's favorite pastime while there: collecting sticks. (?) His sister, the gymnast, has been practicing her monkey bar routine.  That kid can fly back & forth across a set of monkey bars 6 zillion times before she even begins to look tired out!  You should see the "pipes" that girl is sporting - makes me think maybe I should incorporate her routine into my workout schedule!!

Watching good old-fashioned American Baseball... Noah's first trip to Newman field was at 3 months of age, he got rained on and it wasn't a real fun time. But this time, my team from work got to hang out in the company box seats (air conditioned inside, under shelter outside). Asha ate a metric ton of junk food, Noah was fascinated by the RedHawk mascot, and Mom & Dad got to hang out with other real-live grownups! We had ourselves a pretty darn good time! 

Checking out the action at the RedHawks baseball game

Enjoying a beautiful afternoon in our sweet box seats!

Going to the movies!  Bam-Bam's first trip to a movie theater to see Cars 2 (The original Cars ranks among his top 3 favorite movies of all time).  Great idea, we though, spending some quality family time in the air conditioned comfort of the theater - and we had free movie tickets to use too!  Oh, but we were not prepared...
#Epic Failure.  That whole "sitting still for more than 10 minutes" thing really took a toll on everyone's patience.  Consuming buckets full of buttery popcorn and gallons of Mountain Dew probably didn't help with the energy level either, in hindsight.  And where acceptable movie-theater vocal volume = 2, Noah volume = steady 10.  Maybe even 11.

Quick pic snapped in the short time he was seated!

"HEY MOM! LOOKIT 'MATER!"

*whispers* "Yeah, buddy, that's awesome, but you have to be quiet so the other people can hear the movie too, ok?"

"OKAAAAAAY!"

"Ok, let's try a little harder. Can you whisper?"

"K, I WHISPERIN' MOM!" 

"Noah, seriously. I'm glad you're excited, but I need you to whisper please."

 "OKAAAAAAY!"

*Silence, for 10 whole seconds.

"SEE LIGHTNING 'QUEEN?!  YEAH!!"

Hanging out indoors where it's nice and cool...

It's so hot, a guy's just gotta find relief any way he can (settle down, it's just sparkling cider!)

Sometimes you just can't help but try to look hot, when it is hot.

Taking a dip in the backyard pool...

Uncool in the pool...

Too cute to be this nerdy already!

Indulging in delicious summery treats...

Orange Push-Ups... the only reason I tolerate the Schwann's man coming to my
door every Monday night for the other 11 months out of the year!

And enjoying summer outings...
Monday night was the main event of the summer: the Microsoft Fargo annual company picnic!  Every summer , this is a huge and fantastic family-friendly event for the full time employees on the Fargo campus.  They have never failed to disappoint, and this year was no different! We were served a huge buffet of burgers & 'dogs for the grownups, mini corndogs and mac & cheese for the kids (errr, for me), chips, corn on the cob, and root beer floats for dessert!  After snarfing down a ginormous meal and 6 gallons of water in the 112-degree shelter tent, we headed out to the field to play our butts off.

Taken out my office window at about 8:30 am, before they blew 'em all up.  There's about 2 football fields worth of land that they hold the picnic on -- full of inflatables & fun stuff as far as the eye could see!

This was taken at last years' picnic - I forgot to snap one of the whole setup this year!  Pretty incredible!

They had some fun waterslides, a couple kiddie pools, drinking water stations scattered throughout, and a 'misting tent' to keep everyone cooled off in that blazing hot heat. I'm not sure the misting tent was necessary, because there was enough water vapor in the air to make me wish I had developed gills so I could breathe!!

Ash was mostly out on her own, she found a couple friends from daycare and they were off like the wind to run through the obstacle courses and slide on the giant Wet 'N Wild!

Someone's excited about the big event!

The two little buddies Heston & Noah, looking for some trouble.

Noah's BFF since infancy, Heston, was also at the party.  Those two little turkeys didn't slow down for one second, and ran their Mamas ragged chasing after the two little sweaty speed demons.  I have no idea how they didn't just drop after playing in those bouncy-castle hotboxes!  But their little red faces were all smiles, despite the difficulty they had trying to slide down the slides. The humidity caused their little sweaty legs to slow them down significantly, so they just adapted - by jumping off them instead of sliding!  The lil' dudes spent the majority of the evening having a ball in the kiddie pool, getting good 'n muddy while cooling themselves off.  And of course, they then topped off the night by throwing massive temper tantrums when it was time to leave.

Our little miss slugger!

Our tough little cowgirl (her nickname: "BadAsh") was feeling quite brave in her little Miss America swimsuit.  She jumped right up on that mechanical bull and stayed on for a full 30-ish seconds?  It was pretty darn epic...