The Crawdad Chronicles: Final days of Summer

I have to confess that this is probably one of my least favorite times of year. I know that is the wrong attitude, but it's the truth. Everyone has gone back to school, a lot of the kiddie activities stop for the month of August, its still too hot (as in it is over 100 degrees here this week) to be outside much, and I have pretty much exhausted all of my ideas for fun things to do. But... I'm trying to soak up the good in these last few days before we start our fall schedule. Here are a few of the things we have done over these last few days of summer.

We have spent several mornings at The Zone. They have all sorts of jump houses. It took James a little while to warm up to it, but he really enjoys it now. Lately every time we get in the car he asks me if we are going to the "jump house" as he calls it.

One sunny afternoon Ryan and James had a car wash. It benefited us all because we got two clean cars and James was thrilled to use the water hose.

We always make it a point to go to the Farmer's Market several times each summer. We love all the free samples and yummy food that is sold there. Ryan discovered the BEST breakfast burritos so we had to go get breakfast one last time before summer was over, and I have an obsession with the cinnamon pecans, especially when they are still hot. Yum!

We let James choose a treat. Any guesses as to what he picked?

The day before hurricane/tropical storm Issac came I was kind of at a loss to do. The morning started off with James getting up SUPER early and taking a morning nap (which he never does). He was in a beast of a mood so after going to the gym I decided I just couldn't handle the thought of being stuck inside the rest of the day, especially since the weather was going to be yucky soon. My main issue was that it was the end of the month and I had spent all of James's "fun" money. Luckily I remembered that his great-grandma, Granny Baker, had sent him some birthday money. So we decided to have a fun mother-son boardwalk adventure for the afternoon!

We started off at Bass Pro to check out the fish and just happened to get there at feeding time- always a lot of excitement for a 2 year old. Then we headed to get pizza for lunch.

Afterwards I introduced James to the wonderful world of double-doozie cookies at a little bakery shop. 2 cookies with icing in the middle- one of my favorites! Of course he doesn't really like cookies so he ate the m&ms off the top and gave the rest to me.

Chowing down

Then we walked to the carousel and James picked out the horse to ride. He loved it but boy those things make me feel sick, especially after eating so much!

We did a little shopping. I never knew the Carter's store had Legos. I even found him a new pair of shoes for $7 at Stride Rite. I love a good deal! The most amazing thing is when we got home he took another nap! This from the kid that normally struggles to take one nap. It ended up being a really great day.

I guess I should mention that the day that Issac did finally come I managed to lock my keys inside the car WITH James in it. Needless to say it was not my proudest mom moment. Thankfully I was able to get up with Ryan who came to rescue us. Of course that meant standing out in the rain and wind for 20 minutes watching James have a melt down. At least I didn't have to call the fire department!

One of James's recent obsessions at the end of the summer has been wanting to wear our clothes. I caught him walking around in my flip-flops, he insisted on trying on my gym shorts, and when Ryan got home he really wanted to dress just like daddy.