Weekly Wrap- Up: The Week We Finished our 100 Days of Art Challenge

We spent another quiet week at home.  My boys rarely want to head out anywhere anymore and while I find it a bit frustrating and miss all our field trips I am trying to embrace our time at home and enjoy what his turning out to be quite the slow summer.  We FINALLY finished our 100 Days of art Challenge and while I am so relieved to be able to stop planning arts and crafts projects I am a bit sad to see it end.  We've had so much with so many of the projects we tried.  We've enjoying simple pursuits this week like swimming, kayaking, searching the skies for rainbows, and biking.  We've also used our time this week to start preparing for a huge 4th of July cookout with the whole family.

Friday the boys and I spent most of our morning in the car running errands.  We went to the library and signed up for their summer reading program.  We we to the bank to deposit some money.  We headed to the store to buy a new kayak and some canoe paddles.  Once home we had a late lunch and then Ian and I played Monopoly.  Evan, Ian and I walked up to get the mail to get some fresh air and exercise.  Alec spent most of his day reading and coloring in our color counts books; though he did take a break to watch the new Beauty and the Beast movie with me before heading up to bed.  Ian has been cleaning out his turtle tank once a week and the little guy is looking quite happy.  He doesn't even tuck himself into his shell whenever we walk into the room now.

The boys headed to work pretty early Saturday morning working with their dad to do another scrap run or two while Ian went to work with his grandfather.  The younger boys spent part of the afternoon painting some more picnic tables while Ian and his dad got the jet ski in the lake after doing the annual repairs on it and getting it up and running one more year.  We watched Max 2 during dinner and both Ian and Evan really enjoyed it.

Early Sunday morning Ian and his dad heading out fishing.  When they arrived back home we all agreed to head out for a fun family kayak adventure.  We packed up the canoe and kayaks and headed to a smaller lake/pond for the afternoon; stopping to pick up a picnic lunch of grinders on the way.  The boys enjoyed swimming in the lake and jumping off some rocks they found.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and there was a nice breeze to keep us from getting too hot.

Monday we finished up our 100 Days of Art Challenge with a fun water balloon painting activity.  The boys really enjoyed it and getting us outside so early in the morning led to us staying outside.  We rode bikes and scooters, helped my mother in law with some groceries, and played in the lake.  The boys went swimming while I kayaked alongside them and they tried to use the rope swing for the first time this year.  Unfortunately, the rope swing was shortened at some point and they were all unable to really swing form it.  Ian build a dam in the sand and brought his baby turtle out for some sunshine and fresh air.  The boys all went for jet ski rides and Alec and Evan finished painting two more picnic tables.

The younger two boys finished up their last karate class of the season on Tuesday.  After karate we ate lunch, read some books together and enjoyed a quiet day around the house.  Alec did head to our library for a fun tween activity and made his own terrarium.  The boys had hair cuts in the evening and we went to BJ's to stock up on food for the big 4th of July weekend; during a thundering, pouring rain, hail storm!  We did see quite a few rainbows though as the sky kept clearing in some areas.

Wednesday Alec had an orthodontic check up.  Once we arrived home it was lunchtime and we all ate together while reading aloud from our Cahills versus Vespers book.  Then we spent our whole afternoon outside!  Alec brought his coloring book and markers outside.  The boys all went swimming in the lake for a bit.  They went on jet ski rides and took off kayaking with their grandmother, myself, and some other family members.

We had a very busy day on Thursday!  We have a huge family cookout every 4th of July and Thursday we went grocery shopping and worked on prepping all the food that we bring.  Alec made a vanilla cake and we started making the decorations for the cake too.  We went to pick strawberries and ran to Target where Ian bought himself a few new Lego sets.

We'll move these chocolate fireworks and words onto the cake once it's frosted.