School's out for Summer!

Believe it or not this week mark's the end of the school year here in the States!! I hear a collective gasp from my Brit friends who are teachers and know that there are still two more months of the school year to endure back in the UK!

While I had always known that there were a myriad of summer camps and things in the States, it wasn't until we moved here and I appreciated just how long the Summer break is that I realised they are a really good option when you have three months to fill with activities and just part of American culture!

Although she only started her pre-school a couple of months ago (First Day at School), Abigail loves it so much and is struggling to get her head around the fact that she won't be able to go back until September! Yesterday was her last morning and her class of ten children and three teachers (Mrs Lenzo, Mrs Jones and Mrs Matthews) had a party to celebrate the end of term. Abigail is pictured below with her teachers and one of her favourite friends from school Annamae, who we plan to hang out with over the summer.

While school has been a relatively new thing, I have enjoyed those 2 hours (well once you've dropped off and picked up, hour and a half!) with just one little munchkin. A new and very welcomed experience for me! Whether we've run some errands, done the shopping, got a few things done round the house or just hung out together and been goofy ...  I was surprised at how much easier and straight forward it has been to do with just Naomi in tow, rather than both of them! First time round with one child I thought everything was more difficult to do. Now that I have two I can't believe how easy just managing the one seems. Experience and practice is a wonderful thing. Ironically you just can't get it without going through the motions of working it out with your first born!

To mark our last morning together, instead of doing 'have to' things, myself and Naomi enjoyed some time in the sun doing 'want to' things instead! We parked up in the morning sunshine and took a walk in the park, through the trees, across the wooden bridge over the river and around the lake at Lake Park; enjoying the clear blue skies, sunshine and the relative quietness of the morning. Naomi found it so peaceful that she fell asleep and never did get time on the swings ... but that can wait for another day when we can enjoy them with her big sister too!