Myke & Me Plus ThreeFour: Summer Break IS Here: Day One-Survival!

Moonlight Beach

Here we are. It's Summer Break! We get out so much later than most schools that we are just starting our break and it's Fourth of July just one week later. Wahhh?? How did that happen? Today was BUSY and I'm BEAT...but I don't think (hope) it will be the norm. Chloë and Ella started right off into camps already. I had really wanted to wait a week or two before doing camps but they are both signed up with a friend and this is the week their friend could do one. So here we are. Chloë is doing Beach Volleyball at Moonlight Beach and Ella is in "Super Silly Art Camp" for 4 year olds in Carlsbad. Both are only 3 hours long so they are both done by lunchtime.

Chloë and Avery after day one of beach volleyball camp

I won't bore you with the details, but other than camp drop-offs and pick-ups (which included spending over 20 MINUTES driving around with the boys in the car looking for a parking spot by the beach for Chloë's 11:30am pickup. Doesn't help that it's amazing and perfect beach weather right now. Everyone and their mom was at Moonlight Beach today) we also had a haircut appointment, a piano lesson and a vet appointment. We were on the move from 7:45am until nearly 6pm with NO break or downtime. Luckily, I'm married to the best hubby ever and he had dinner cooked and waiting when we rolled in the door around 5:45 after a VERY long vet appointment with Kyla (just to get her new heartworm medication...$300 later!!).

Eli and Owen with their new haircuts

We are going to TRY to avoid overload of screen time (iPads, tv, etc) this Summer...and to keep the kids on top of their reading and writing on the break...so I'm (nervously) implementing the below Summer Rules for our house:

(stolen off Pinterest)

We sat down and had a family meeting of sorts over the weekend to give them the head's up. This way they'll know what's expected of them and they can be in charge of themselves to earn tv or iPad time...and I won't have to CONSTANTLY say "no" and have them begging. Have you finished your chart? No? Okay, then you need to do this this and this... or Yes? Okay, feel free to watch a show. Most of my concern is with the reading and the writing of Owen and Eli. They need assistance for both..and someone there to monitor it all, unfortunately. They aren't quite independent and they don't WANT to read OR write, to be honest! Chloë is at a much more independent age and she's keeping a daily journal (in Spanish). I told them I would be keeping their summer work and showing it to their new teacher. So they're either motivated by fear or the hope to impress these new maestras (teachers) that they'll meet in August. So each of the 4 will have their own laminated chart that they can check off the boxes on. We will probably be pretty slack with Ella's, but she'll want a chart with the others so it can't hurt, right?

I'll report back later to update on how this went....

Last week was fun/nuts/busy. Chloë's teacher wanted to celebrate/thank the room parents from her 2nd grade class (which is comprised of myself and 3 mom-friends. None of us wanted to take it on by ourselves...and we were an awesome team, I must say.. we even had our own text thread solely for this "job" which we joke should be published into a book...(#badmoms #hilariousthread #manyFbombs #notfrommeofcourse,dad)). Okay, back to my point. So, Maestra Ham had a dinner for the 4 of us AT MY HOUSE (as someone had to host since she lives quite a distance from the school she teaches at) where she came over and made amazing food from scratch (shrimp tacos, enchiladas, fresh salsa, guacamole, black beans, Spanish rice, and plenty of vino). We had an amazing time eating, chatting and laughing until 10pm. I'll miss this crew!