{This Moment} Three Bathing Beauties And One Dragonfly

{This Moment} A Friday ritual. A single photo -no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Wishing you all a lovely last few days of summer break before the new school year begins! xo 

First Of The Season!

Hitting the beach (in town) before the school kids finish up for the year! xo

{This Moment} At The Lake

{This Moment} A Friday ritual. A single photo -no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you are inspired to do the same leave a link to your moment in the comments section below. Wishing you all a wonderful first weekend of August! xo 

At The Lake

The super hot temperatures this week just call for some time spent at the lake! xo

This Afternoon

 

A gorgeous day like today totally called for a trip to the lake! xo

At The Lake

Today was our first trip to the lake this summer! It's hard to believe that we waited this long to go, but we thought it might be wise to wait until after the initial summer rush was over (i.e. after the 4th of July). Our dear friends Jennifer and Abigail met us there, and since Abigail will sadly not be able to attend Grace's birthday celebration this weekend she brought a little something for her to the lake today. It was such a lovely surprise! xo

Scenes From The Lake

It's been another absolutely gorgeous week at the lake! 

The weather has been truly magnificent, and the girls have logged countless hours swimming and building sandcastles. 

It's also been another fabulous week of swimming lessons for these part mermaid children of ours. 

They swim before their lesson, swim during their lesson and stop by to say hi to me and head right back in to the water after their lesson. This is what summer is all about, my friends. 

We also loved having so many friends join us at the lake throughout this week. It was such a treat to have different friends to visit with each day! Thank you to everyone who came and spent some time with us. It was lovely to get to share our lake days with you! xo

Wordless Wednesday: A Beach Treasure

A Glorious Day At The Lake

Is there any place better to be on a hot and humid July day? We think not! xo

Yesterday And Today

Yesterday:

A gorgeous day like this demanded the day be spent at the lake (and it surely was)! 

And today:

This photo arrived in the mail today from my Grandpa Frolich. In it is my father (in the upper left hand corner), his siblings and their Aunt Sophie. My grandfather took this picture sixty years ago in the front room of their house using a camera that was 50 years old at the time. He still has the camera and from the sounds of it used it just the other day! Thank goodness for the darkroom he has in his basement! 

And finally, we wish our dear Canadian friends and readers a very happy Canada Day today! We hope your celebration was absolutely wonderful! xo

At The Lake

A beautiful day at the beautiful lake. Welcome summer! We're so glad you've arrived! xo

(Not) Back to School

This morning at the lake. 

Just another beautiful school day for us!

The arrival of this week brought with it the start of a new school year for the school kids in town. We haven't shifted into our new rhythm just yet as we are taking this week to "just be" after our very busy week in Florida last week (we hope you've enjoyed all of our stories and pictures so far. There's still much more to come). Instead, we are using this week to bask in the glory of our world -and our usual haunts- no longer being crowded. We're preparing and planning for all the fun we'll have in the days, weeks and months that lie ahead. We're replenishing things like glitter and googily eyes and stickers, and sharing our hopes and dreams for all that we'll learn together. But mostly we're just rolling as we usually do, seeing where each day takes us and the teachable moments that we'll encounter along the way.

This morning, while the girls were still sleeping and the house was it's most peaceful, I came across this blogpost that a friend of mine had shared on Facebook. It resonated deeply with me, and so many of Rachel's words could have been my own. And gosh, isn't every day fairy day (or gnome day) in everyone's homes?!

For a wee bit of humor during this not-back-to-school week I share with you this post. I've been giggling about it ever since (and I also love how much my mom loved this one too)!

And finally, it's always exciting when we come across homeschoolers in the things we love most. Case in point the character of Hazel in Dolphin Tale ("I'm homeschooled that's why I'm such a chatterbox!") and Martin and Sylvia from Sparkle Stories. We were thrilled that one of the current free back to school stories (scroll down to "Butterfly Gifts") is about Martin and Sylvia making gifts for their teachers- their mama and papa! Listening to the description of what homeschooling looks like in their family is like listening to what homeschooling looks like in ours, and for this reason the girls were even more enchanted with these sweet stories and characters than they already were. It really is such a treat for them to hear that others live like we do, especially at this time of year when it's all about back to school.

I've got some ideas bouncing around in my head about how we can celebrate the beginning of our new school year next week (here's to hoping that the items I ordered arrive on time). Regardless of whether they arrive on time or not we'll continue as we always have- living, learning, laughing and loving together each and every day. xo

Be sure to scroll down to see our post from this morning about another part of our Disney adventure last week. 

Another Glorious Day

Another week of swimming lessons, another gorgeous week at the lake! The weather this summer has been truly fabulous! xo

Swimming Lessons And Parakeets

 And so began another year of swimming lessons! Just like that the first day of the much looked forward to lessons arrived and they were off meeting their teacher and the other kids in their class. 

 Lunch after lessons sporting the new hooded towels from Gramma!

 And then what should we spot on the beach but a Parakeet! The poor thing was so confused (and so was everyone else). 

It perched on this shoe for a bit before going under a picnic table. It flew over to the fence just before one of the lifeguards could scoop it up. We left shortly after that so we have no idea how this story ended. We do so hope that they were able to get the bird and find its owner. xo