I’m loving my summer schedule! It involves working less and having more fun! This week Kevin went on a week-day trip with a couple of friends to Chicago, so I figured I would take a couple of days off to spend with Finn. We had lots of fun and adventures including a trip to Mansfield (a post Father’s Day trip) and yet another day at Zoombeezi. I love that we can go to Zoombeezi for the whole day or a few hours since it is so close Finn has fun and it wears him out!
Finn and I surprised Mom and Dad with our trip to Mansfield. Dad was busy planting hostas, so Finn helped him finish up by doing some watering. Then Mom, Finn, and me headed to the Carousel Park and rode around a few times. We also shopped at a few new (to me) shops in downtown Mansfield and hit up the local coffee shop for an afternoon treat, yum! Later that night Dad and Finn played some baseball. I’ve included a video that just gives me the giggles. Finn is at a state where he sometimes listens and sometimes is pretty defiant – but he listened really well when my dad gave him the signal for a “changeup”. You’ll hear me giggle in the video. 
We had a fun pillow fight too. 
Dad had put out a lot of the plant markers we gave him for his birthday too – I took these photos to send to Kevin while he was on his trip :).
The Wednesday that Kevin was returning there was a really big storm predicted – starting basically in northern Illinois and moving toward Ohio (essentially following Kevin home!). I was really worried as there were tornadoes associated with the storms and they were projecting huge winds during the night after he arrived home. Thankfully, no tornadoes near them during their drive and they all arrived home safe and sound. And of course, we made Daddy some of his favorite chocolate chip cookies to welcome him home. 
On Friday we went to the annual Powell Festival and met up with a couple of our neighbors. We had fun listening to live bands, enjoying the food trucks, and Finn loved the kids zone play area. 
On Saturday we headed to Lowe’s for the “Iron Man” kids workshop. Then up to Mansfield for Mom and Dad’s annual Hosta Sale. It was a nice and warm day, so Finn basically put his suit on and played in a small bucket of water. It doesn’t take much! Finn was assisting with sales too, when one customer was looking for a yellow one, he took it over to her to show it to her. Starting him early! After the sale was over we helped them pack it all up and put the plants away. Then we headed out to dinner and stayed in the air conditioning!
And even though we are already well into summer, this year we’ve been talking about putting together a bucket list of summer time activities. So one morning I wrote it all out – we’ve got fun plans ahead!
Happy Father’s Day 2016! Finn painted a super cute canvas that included a heart formed from Finn’s fingerprints (thanks to Debbie for her creative spirit!). And he made a card too. It’s so sweet to see how proud he is when he makes something, and how excited he is to show it to us. I’m very thankful that Debbie is so great with arts and crafts as that is definitely not my gift! 
We’re enjoying a fun summer around here with trips to Zoombeezi Bay (on my days off or in the evenings since I’m now done with work at 4). trips to the zoo, playing in the backyard, gardening and growing our fruits and veggies, and outdoor summer concerts at Leatherlips park in Dublin (where we yet again ran into Kim and her family :))
This is Cooper’s baseball diamond slip-n-slide that the kiddos played on one day together. It was the sweetest thing at the end of their play time together Cooper ran over to give Finn a hug saying “Griffin – you won, you won!”. He’s such a sweet boy. 
And Finn loves be Daddy’s helper – with anything, but this day it was to change the brakes on the van. 
This week we took in the sights of downtown Cbus for the Arts Festival. Griffin took a really late nap on Saturday – he woke up at 6:15 pm! So we took advantage of that to head down and walk around the city. It was a picturesque, warm night with nice views of the city. We found an artist who created a lot of paintings for kids. We found a couple of perfect dinosaur prints for Finn so we thought it would be fun to have his photo taken with the artist! We are going to put them in Finn’s bathroom 🙂
It’s been another warm week around here. While I was at work over the weekend, Kevin put up a sprinkler for Finn to run through (another Aldi find 🙂 ). He enjoyed some old-fashioned, play-outside-in-your-undies kind of fun.
And Finn also went on some fun trips to the zoo, Columbus Commons for Kids, baked some cupcakes, and played at Library Park this week too. 
