Before it Begins...

On Saturday we had an "end of summer bash".

We kicked off the day by helping to clean the church.  We discovered several months ago that our kids enjoyed doing this service so we have taken advantage of that often ever since :).

Each summer the local pool allows people with disabilities and their families to swim each Saturday morning for 2 1/2 hours for free.  We had never taken advantage of that opportunity and since this was the last Saturday it was available I decided we were going to go.

I told the kids that that would be our big activity of the day.  They were excited, but little did they know I had something else under wraps.

Ben absolutely loves water!

 

He was so thrilled and continually squealed with delight.  He was content for the first little while to stay in the shallow pool with me but eventually he started pointing over to the big pool where the rest of the family had migrated.  We hopped in and Andy took a turn with him.  That didn't last long however, as he soon started pointing to the big slide.

 Andy said he thought he could go down with him just fine...so they climbed the many stairs and eventually came shooting out into the pool.  Ben loved it and immediately started signing "more".

I said I would take him and Josh decided to join us (Abby and Matt had already gone down a few times but Josh had been more hesitant and wouldn't go down until this point).

We took our turn.  At the bottom Ben signed "more" again and Josh enjoyed it enough that he wanted to go a second time also.  It was not to be though since right after we went down they closed it off for the session.  Ben was not happy :(

Abby went down the super steep slide and said she would never do it again!

Once we dried off, were in the car and Ben had stopped crying, I told the kids that the real surprise would be going to the "Jump Zone" that afternoon.  Josh had been begging to go all summer.  They were super excited and Andy put the icing on the cake when he decided to stop and get burgers for lunch on the way home from swimming.  We filled their bellies, had them do their chores and then Andy took the three oldest to the J.Z.  We had determined that it wouldn't be a very good place for Ben so he went down for a nap.

Everyone had a blast, Andy included.

He was frustrated that he wasn't able to get better pictures...

On the way home they stopped at A&W for some ice cream yumminess.  I made sure they brought one home for me too :)

The kids all slept really well that night!

Monday night, we went to a Bar-B-Q for Andy's faculty.

Ben kept himself busy almost the whole time by playing with a bucket of water and a load of golf balls.

 

 

There were golf balls on the tramp too :)

About halfway through the evening he decided to dunk his head in.  He laughed and laughed and did it again and again.  He was absolutely soaked but also very happy.

What a grin!

 At the end of the gathering we had Ben put the golf balls in the bucket to help clean up.  He started chucking them from a few feet away and he gathered quite a crowd as he nailed one after another.

We were quite amazed!

Well, it was a fun and relaxing summer...much more relaxing than last year :)

And now we're ready for school...bring it on!