Summer 2018

I'm officially back to work full time and even though summer "the season" isn't over it still feels like "real summer" has come to an end. I had the ultimate luxury of being home with Bowie from mid June to early August. Something like 7 weeks. He went to his Summer Wow program on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I had plenty of time to myself as well. On my own time I was able to spend time outside with friends, take myself to the movies, stroll through vintage sales and the farmers marker, go to some shows and read so many books. The funny thing is that it took me well over half of this time to fully relax and be present in summer. Getting work out of my body sure takes awhile and it has been a shock to come back to commuting and sitting inside at a computer.

Bowie grew leaps and bounds this summer. He got super jazzed about swimming under water and is getting more brave and coordinated on his scooter and bicycle. I was lucky that he wanted to keep taking naps every afternoon (because that meant I got a nap every afternoon) but between naps he was game for any adventure. I wanted to make sure to expose him to lots of cool things in our community and also check out some new places that I haven't had a chance to explore. Overall we did almost everything on our bucket list except for Franconia, a pizza farm, the World's Largest Candy Store and seeing a live show. There's still plenty of summer for us to get to those things, however.

While I will share some of our adventures here, it is also true that Bowie was just content to stay home with me and play with his hot wheels inside and watch PBS and netflix. I think his little body was happy for a break from the grind as well. He didn't want to do too much with other people and if I gave him a choice to stay home or go out and do something he chose stay at home 100% of the time. This was great because it forced me to slow down more, too. And yeah, the following is a snippit of my "slowed down" summer with Bowie :)

We continue to love going to the MN Zoo and checking out the bird show in particular but this year we figured out how to feed the kangaroos breakfast and it was a total summer highlight. My mom joined us on the day of our "kangaroo feed". Despite being about 100 degrees we still had a memorable day and saw everything and ate the messiest, drippiest ice cream of all time

Bowie and I have a tradition of going to the MIA, which has a great coffee shop and playroom filled with cool toys and books. This year Bowie was old enough to take in some of the art and share with me his opinions on the various art. He mostly liked seeing the naked statues, thought the impressionists were just fine and hates modern art (barring the Picasso statue that was made with a toy car- that one was acceptable). 

We continued our tour de museum at the Children's Museum with dad.

And finally got to the new Bell Museum, which was both of our favorite activities of the summer. We saw a planetarium show and got to see the Wooley Mammoth.

It's a summer tradition for us to visit the Wild Rumpus Bookstore and choose a book.

I don't know why it took us so long to discover Wood Lake Nature Preserve, which is about 5 minutes from our house. We know one of the naturalists there and it quickly became our favorite summer activity. Besides walking the trails that extend onto docks over the wetlands we got to help feed and hold the animals inside the center, which include Bowie's favorite the blandings turtle, a variety of snakes and the leopard gecko. Bowie may have a future as a naturalist.

We got to visit our buddy Cynthia who gifted Bowie with his first big boy bike, a vintage Schwinn Pixie. He's still learning but I predict he'll be a pro by next summer. 

We spared no expense on summer treats. Besides some breakfasts and lunches out at places like Hot Plate, Tiny Diner, and Colossal Cafe we also made it out for donuts at Glam Doll, Lucky Oven and Bakers Wife and had our fill of ice cream at Grand Ole Creamery and (our personal favorite) Waffle Bar. 

One of the best parts of summer is that Bowie's birthday is in July, which means his birthday is basically all summer long. We had multiple birthday parties with various family members and on his "actual" birthday we were spoiled by out neighbor Hakan at his coffee shop, Common Grounds and then played at Nokomis park at Bowie's request. 

We stayed with my mom's side of the family in Aitkin for a special weekend and Bowie "won the fishing competition" with his new Lightning McQueen fishing pole. You can tell in this photo that he was starting to get annoyed with all the pictures I've been taking of him.

We spent A LOT of time swimming. We went to both the Hiawatha and Wabun splashpads as well as Lake Nokomis and Elm Creek beaches. We also spent a lot of time in the water during our cabin weekend with my Dad and Sarah. It was too cold to swim in the lake while we were in Aitkin but he got to jump in the hot tub with Josh and I, which made him feel like a total "big boy". 

This is just the smallest snapshot of all the fun we had. If I had to pick one thing from this summer I'm most grateful for, it was my mornings with Bowie. He would wake up super early and I would still be blurry eyed and we would pull blankets and pillows onto the couch and snuggle and watch movies until about 8 am when I would force myself to make coffee and start the day. I know he won't want to snuggle with me forever and I feel so blessed for all the special time I got with my boy. I'm especially grateful for this summer because our family is about to start some new adventures. Josh was laid off and it was the push we needed to do what he's been thinking about for awhile, which is go back to school and have a big career do-over. While I'm excited, I'm also nervous because I don't know what changes are in store and it's a good reminder that you can't take moments like these for granted because you never know what's going to happen next.