In Summer

Summer is here and we are pumped!  Year round school looms in the not so distant future, so this is the closest thing we might get to a full blown summer and you better believe we are taking advantage.

We made it official by attending our very first graduation.  Some might say preschool graduation is overkill. Maybe it is.  But it exists for suckers like me and I will buy into it every time.

With pesky school out of the way we are ready to get down to the business of summer fun, and we take our fun very seriously.  Also, I love lists.

We are already making a pretty good dent in our list, too.  You missed out on some seriously amazing homemade snickerdoodle ice cream, if I do say so myself, and I hope to be up to my ears in zucchini in a month or so.  Also, who could forget our much anticipated "roadie" to Las Vegas.

We started off strong.  The kids were troopers in the car and we made an overnight pit stop in St. George. We were first timers, so we weren't quite sure where to start, but figured a visit to the temple and a splash pad couldn't be wrong.

Holden immediately bogarted the stairs in both locations, apparently. 

His adorable grin was gone the next day, however, when a stomach virus attacked him at both Target and the longest possible stretch of desert road before you hit civilization again.  Both ideal places to throw up.   Except for that they are not, in case you didn't catch the sarcasm. Luckily our Las Vegas hotel was pretty swank, because we holed up there the majority of our first day so Holden could recuperate and Harper could take a million baths in the tub and binge watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.  

We were able to happen upon an old friend who was also visiting Vegas.  We live two towns apart and never manage to get together, so this was a fun treat!  Guess we just like to do things the hard way.  

Holden felt better the next morning, so we figured the best thing to do would be to hit up the breakfast buffet, obv.  Luckily it didn't backfire.  Holden's stomach was fine and Reo and I got to relive the magic doughnuts we've been dreaming about since our last trip to Vegas.

We hit up the pool early and praised the 105 degree weather.

Harper got a good nap in at the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Other people were more excited.  Reo was stoked they had the pinball machine of his youth.  And Holden lives for arcades, so you can imagine his excitement level.

Despite losing a day, we were able to hit up a few of the highlights of The Strip.  And let's be honest, a few of the highlights is usually more than enough to tide you over.
We saw the fountain show...

And tasted some interesting Coke creations...

And then we blinked and it was time to go back home.  Ready to cross more things off our summer fun list. 

But really, having fun in the summer has never been our problem.  Winter is when I am a mean, unfun mom. Our real goal for summer is having slightly less fun, and spend slightly more time working on streamlining our morning routine from a leisurely 2 hours or so (complaining about doing your 4 chores is time consuming, Holden can tell you all about it)  to something slightly more manageable.  Or else morning kindergarten could be a struggle.  Which is ironic since my kids wake up before the sun every morning.