Summer Fun

I've been trying REALLY hard this summer to do as many fun summer things as possible with the kids.  I love summer and have always loved summer and am trying to take advantage of the fact that they are now old enough to do fun summer things. :)  Yesterday, we went to the zoo.  It was 5,000 degrees, but we tried to cool off by going inside as much as we could.  Brielle rode the Bug Carousel (on the bug, not riding along with mommy in the carrier) for the first time.  She was on a ladybug.  It was very cute and she seemed to be having a fun time.

Today, I knew it was going to be another scorcher (it's been 100 degrees and above the last few days), so we got out early.  As soon as the boys woke up, we got dressed and walked to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast.  They chose blueberry muffins (after I told them no donuts) and proceded to have them crumble in a million pieces... but hey...we were outside, so who cares?  Brush off those crumbs and keep moving. :)  We went over to the playground 2 blocks away from our house.  I usually don't like that one as much because it's bigger and harder to keep track of the two boys AND there are two exits.  But I've found that if we go early in the morning, like 8am, no one else is there and it's very easy to keep track of the boys.  This morning, I dressed Liam in his bathing suit (Eli REFUSED) in hopes that he'd go in the sprinklers.  After climbing all over the place and going on the swings 40 times (Eli MUST get up on the swing by himself now and they both MUST be pushed high), Liam finally made a break for it.  He ran through the sprinkler and had the time of his life.  After about 2 minutes of watching Liam have so much fun, Eli relented and went in... and LOVED it.  This is the first time both of them have gone in the sprinklers and spent so much time there.  They had fun running around, chasing each other, splashing in the puddles, etc., and I loved watching them.  We topped off our morning by buying fruit at the fruit stand (one of the things I will greatly miss about our neighborhood.... for instance, this morning I bought a pineapple, a bunch of bananas, huge carton of strawberries, blueberries, a red pepper, green onions and a bag of regular onions all for $8.75) and heading home to the AC.

Tonight, after dinner, I made some fruit skewers (always a BIG HIT with the kiddos) and we headed on the train a few stops north to Van Cortlandt park to hear the NY Philharmonic's outdoor concert.  It's a great park in the Bronx and we always forget to go there on non-symphony nights.  Must..remember.  We met my friend Dianne there and had a really wonderful night.  Because of the heat advisory (it didn't feel very hot to me, but whatever), they cut the concert in half... which was good for our crew because that meant we got to stay to see the fireworks!  Brielle liked the music and liked being outside.... til she realized it was past her bedtime and got cranky.  Liam loved running around, introducing himself to people and showing everyone his light stick.  Eli liked chasing Liam around and throwing the baseball with Daddy.  Both boys liked getting rocket pops with Daddy while mommy caught up with Dianne.  Yay!  Fun evening.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, I'm going to take the kids to the zoo in Queens.  We've never been!  It's supposed to be another hot one, though, so we might not last long.  Good thing we have a membership to all of the zoos in NYC!