Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Happy Labor Day Weekend! It's officially the end of Summer, the kids are back in school and the pool is now closed. We had such a great Summer this year, it's really fun having a kid who is now old enough to do so many things! The pool, the beach, the zoo, the city... dinners alfresco at local restaurants and playing around our neighborhood - it's been very idyllic.

I'm sad that it's over - I will miss the long warm evenings with lots of light, the smell of chlorine and the sense of nostalgic freedom that summer brings. Everything already feels different - the garden is waning, the trees are already changing (mostly due to a major drought we're having), the light is different and it gets dark early... it might still be hot out but Oliver has already picked out his Halloween costume and is asking for Christmas movies.

So here's the official tally on our Summer To Do List:

Fun things:

1. Go to the beach 3+ more times before September
2. Continue to use our local zoo membership and go once a month
3. Once the pool opens in July, go to the pool at least 2x times per week 
4. "Host" a neighborhood wide water balloon fight for the kids with sprinklers and water balloons
5. Take Oliver out for an ice cream cone (we did this more than once!)
6. Have dinner alfresco on the patio under the globe lights

Making things:

1. Homemade ice cream and popsicles
2. Fresh salsa, gazpacho and marinara with tomatoes from the garden
3. Refrigerator pickles with cucumbers from the garden
4. While the flower cutting bed in the garden is blooming, keep fresh flowers in the house 


Projects:

Must do:
Repair and seal the driveway. 
Repair the porch with a contractor. 
Finish reorganizing the garage.

Nice to have done:
Put crown molding up in our master bedroom
Refinish the master bedroom nightstands
Clean up and organize the basement again
Finish the lights in the basement
Finish the outlets in the basement
And once the electrical is done, clean up the tools in the basement


Fun things - we did almost everything on our list, though we never quite got around to the epic water balloon fight with the kids, it was harder than I thought to coordinate vacation schedules and make sure everyone was around. On the other hand, we pretty much lived at the pool which was just as awesome.

Making Things - I made almost everything I had hoped to make, most things more than once. I discovered the best chocolate ice cream recipe in the world and will share it soon. The house has been full of fresh flowers and I'll continue that until they plants die. The only thing I didn't make was marinara, we just never had the giant surplus of tomatoes required.

Projects - Obviously we've been bad about projects lately, I wish there were more hours in the day. The porch is fixed and repainted, the driveway is repaired and sealed. We still have to do the garage reorganization before it gets too cold out, but it will actually be easier when it's not 93 degrees. The basement progress is slowly creeping forward and we do have nice new nightstands in our bedroom, so those are good things!


Next for us is organizing the garage, finishing the basement electrical, and starting to clean up the garden and yard for winter.  And of course when we're not doing that we'll be doing the fun Fall stuff  like apple picking, pumpkin picking and Halloween!