It’s summertime! And this summer we have a packed schedule more so than any I can recall in the last decade or more and for sure since having kids. And summertime means ice cream, right? Even a fun trip for Brutus to Graeters.
June started with a Cub Scout camping weekend for the whole family. Two nights in a tent with fun adventures during the day including fitness tests, hiking and learning about poisonous plants, s’mores and more! They both got to practice with BB guns at the shooting range too and they did well! And Griffin started his first fire! Camp ended with each den moving up, so Griffin has moved from Bear to Webelo!
A fun new thing for Griffin this summer is OYAA cross country. His soccer buddies Rowan and Caleb were running as well, which is why we did it actually. The kids practice at Alum Creek Dam and Highbanks Metro Park. They have a few meets throughout the summer too. I signed Griffin up for Liberty High School (ours) but he practiced with Olentangy High School coaches (so he/Rowan/Caleb could run together). At the first meet some people thought he was with the wrong group (as he was wearing the Liberty pinney) so after the first meet we picked up an Olentangy pinney for the remaining races. Each race is 1 mile and his first race time was 8:12:26! He came in 41 out of 103 kids entering grades 3-6 (Griffin will be entering 4th). He did amazing!
Summer is also means graduation parties and here the boys wore their Derby outfits to attend Elizabeth Ackerman’s grad party in Dublin.
The boys and I made a trip to the outlet malls in Sunbury to do some school shopping. We hit up the Under Armor store and later at home enjoyed sundaes prepared by the boys. It’s literally their favorite thing to do.
Kevin and I went to the Chris Tomlin & Hillsong concert with Chris and Sarah at Nationwide. It was a great concert which had been postponed from February.
Summer is also pool time, right? We are so fortunate to have awesome neighbors Jane and Bryan Martin who open up their pool to our neighborhood crew each summer. We generally meetup with the Bolans and Duncans on Sunday afternoons. Jane is always such a gracious host and puts out all kinds of food and serves drinks on occasion too. We typically order pizza for everyone too. We enjoyed pool time at soccer buddy Brady’s house after the Braves Soccer camp one night and also are hitting up the Powell Pool for the first time this summer too.
Reid has been attending soccer classes at Locker Soccer in Powell (he even made their Instagram page, lol) and we also signed him up for Olentangy United Juniors program and he received a cute invite.
More soccer….this time the Crew Game where Griffin’s team had been invited to celebrate and be recognized amongst a myriad of youth soccer teams. They were able to go down “near” the field (but don’t touch the turf!) to get their photo taken with the Campeones Cup. Nearly Griffin’s entire team was there and the kiddos had a lot of fun together. We were also joined by Mom and Dad (their first time to Lower.com) and the Bethune crew.
After teammate Xander’s surgery our team family collected tons of fun activities and foodstuffs to lift Xanders spirits while he was home and had to have a low-activity recovery period. His Mom Heather sent us this awesome photo of him.
We got connected with a high school soccer player at Berlin High school, Aidan Ackermann, via Brady’s dad Danny Mount who coaches basketball at the high school. Aidan plays varsity soccer basketball and he worked with Griffin once a week for most weeks this summer on soccer skills. It was great fun for Griffin and Aidan was so polite and prepared bringing balls, cones, and all sorts of things for soccer drills. Griffin enjoyed it and we also were able to go see Aidan play at a home game at Berlin later in the summer.
Here is the gang at Caleb’s house to celebrate his birthday one evening after the Braves soccer camp which many of the boys attended together.
Next birthday celebration was for Dad. It’s always a day filled with giggles and sillies and Grandma and Grandpas house.
Dad was on a road trip in late May and early June. He’s getting used to using his upgraded iPhone though he did a couple of facetime butt-dials which resulted in lots of giggles for me and Mom. How he called both of us via facetime video is still undetermined, lol.
This year the weather was finally nice for the annual Powell Festival. We took in typical fair food and beverages, the kids played for hours in the kids area/bounce houses, and we listened to live music.
June is also wedding season, right? Though we’re beyond that season for our friends it seems we’ve moved into that season for our friends kids. That’s crazy, right, as we have a 5-year old. But nonetheless we enjoyed the wedding and reception for Emma Koehler. I also enjoyed a fun girls night out for my friend Claire’s birthday.
This kiddo sure does have a big personality. He loves all things small and loves to put things in things and carry them around. We can’t go anywhere without him asking to bring a toy and usually that is a small bag or container of other really small things. Reid is also playing t-ball this summer on Saturday’s.
As we do every year on June 15, the day Nathan was born and passed, we visit the cemetery in Dublin as a family.
Trade Shows and Conferences are back and Kevin exhibited at one here (Interactive Customer Experience Summit) in town for Base22 with Joe. He was a panelist as well.
Build It or Buy It? What You Should Consider First
When going down the path to implementing interactive technology, organizations must ask themselves: does it make more sense for us to buy it or build it ourselves? Off-the-shelf software, for example, is generally a one-size-fits-all proposition, with some customization possible. Building your own app, for example, means it can have all the customized features you want, but building it out may be a long and expensive proposition. Some find that the answer may be a hybrid of the two approaches.
Panelists:
- J Ackley | Vice President, Spark Technologies Development | Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Inc.
- Kevin Armstrong | Chief Innovation Officer | Base22
- Richard Bell | Senior Director of Enterprise Applications & Retail Systems | Krispy Kreme
Moderator:
- Cherryh Cansler | Vice President of Events | Networld Media Group
Sponsored by Base22
