Summer 2022 Recap

Now that we’re well into fall, I’ll close our our summer posts. Our summer was filled with making oodles and oodles of memories, but it was WAY too busy. We were playing catch-up from postponing travel during more serious Covid-times, and many of our friends had the same idea. We packed way too much into an already short summer.

Our summer travel started with our Memorial Day weekend trip to Winthrop to celebrate Ben’s birthday.

While Ben’s school year was winding down we went to San Juan Island for a family/school camping trip. This was our first camping trip as a family of four!

We managed to squeeze in a week in Bend, Oregon in late June. All of us ended up getting sick with a stomach bug either on the trip or upon our return. It really put a damper on the trip and what we were able to do; however, we still had a lot of wonderful moments and made it to Crater Lake National Park, did a mountain bike ride as a family and visited Mount Bachelor.

Swimming lessons took place for both kids whenever we could squeeze them in. Ben made tremendous progress and is swimming well independently. He is extremely comfortable in the water and absolutely loves to swim.

Hannah has, in her own way, also made amazing progress with her comfort in working towards being an independent swimmer. She is getting comfortable jumping in and getting her whole head wet, but when it comes to doing a back float or actually putting her face in she just didn’t get there this summer. We are continuing private swimming lessons this fall and winter.

Hannah’s school is year-round, so when we were in town she continued to attend school twice a week. I’m pretty sure her school days consisted of running through the sprinklers, eating ice pops and going for hikes. Kid paradise!

Ben signed up for two weeks of summer camp – one week was at Hannah’s school {flower camp} and the other was mountain bike camp in combination with an environmental/wilderness camp. He was living his best life while at camp!

Somehow, despite being completely over scheduled, we have managed to be pretty successful in our garden endeavor. We started with literally nothing – Alex built a four-zone irrigation system with drip lines in 12 garden beds, along with installing a fence. Ultimately, we harvested green beans, snap peas, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, strawberries, watermelon, 4 varieties of squash, pumpkins and sweet peppers. Our garden unexpectedly succumb to a surprise mid-September frost.

We had so many visitors this summer. It was so, so wonderful catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in several years. If only that guesthouse would get finished!

One of Alex’s best friends from high school moved to Western Washington late this spring and came to stay with us one weekend, along with his family.

Just after the school year wrapped up, our friends, The Millers, came and visited us from Colorado. Another family, The Buffingtons, came to take part in the reunion. We had so much fun catching up – The Millers and The Buffs were some of our best friends when we lived in Seattle. Fun fact – we took an annual trip to Leavenworth together for 8 consecutive years!

Alex’s parents spent two weeks with us in mid-July and were here to celebrate Hannah’s birthday. Donna returned in late-August to help watch the kids for me while I volunteered at an event for the farmers market.

In early-August two of my high school girlfriends, Kailey and Cammy, along with their families, came to spend a long weekend in Washington with us. They live in Minnesota and their kiddos hadn’t been to the mountains before. It was so fun showing them around and seeing all of the littles play together.

Alex’s good friend, Chris and his girlfriend, Veerle, came to visit us from the Netherlands. Alex and Chris were roommates during their internships in college and have maintained a wonderful friendship, despite the miles.

While the kids and I were in Minnesota, Alex’s good friend from high school, Kelly, and her family, including her two babes, came to visit from Bozeman. They were joined by another family, as well.

In addition to the craziness, another theme for the summer was really disappointing weather for our trips! We only had good weather on one trip {Minnesota} the entire summer, which of course complicates things when you’re hoping to be outside and active the whole time.

This was absolutely a summer to remember. We were bonkers busy, but we made oodles of memories. One of my biggest takeaways is to never schedule that much stuff again! 🙂 And now, onto fall, a season where we rest and I thank the parenting gods that Ben decided he did *not* want to sign up for soccer this fall.