FIRST weekend of summer!

This week has been full of firsts at the Mays’. Friday was Nolan’s last day of school, so we now officially have a 2nd grader! I can not believe how quickly the first two years of school have passed. Friday night Nolan spent the night with a school friend. He has spent the night with some of our family friends a few times but this was the first time someone from school had invited him to spend the night. Carter has been in Nolan’s class for the past two years so they are really close. Carter missed the boys’ party so they wanted to invite Nolan over. (His mom is a midwife and had a patient go into labor! ) Nolan was so excited to ride home from school with a friend and then spend the night. I worried he might get homesick at bedtime but he did great and had a wonderful time. Carter has a twin brother and a step brother and they are all seven. Their house is like a slumber party every night! On Saturday, we celebrated the first day of summer by going to open house at Camp Thurman. This will be the first year for us to send the boys to camp. We talked about it last year but Hudson was still too young and it wouldn’t of been fair to send Nolan and leave Hud at home. Camp Thurman is a Christian day camp that has been around forever. It teaches kids about teamwork, building friendships and lots of Bible study fun. It has a ton of activities for the kids to do - swimming, ropes courses, zip lines, archery and even a little shooting range with bb guns! (I’m not even sure how to spell it – is it BB or B-B or maybe Be Be?) This boy stuff is still a whole new world to me. Anyways, we went out to the camp and the counselors took us on a tour and told us all about camp. They let you try out all of the activities so the boys did archery, guns and some of the small zip/swing things. I’m not sure before the open house they really knew much about what “camp” would be like. They left CT with BIG plans of what else they want to do and a lot of excitement about going this summer. That afternoon we set up the pool in the backyard for the first time this season. Nolan has been asking for us to set it up for the past month and it never worked out until now. We kept it up all weekend so everyone had fun in the water and the boys got off to a very wet start for their summer! Monday I took the boys to VBS at Tate Springs which ended up being a big flop. That’s another first for us – I can’t remember ever taking them to an activity where they both cried and didn’t want to go back and do it again. Not sure if the activities were just boring or maybe because they didn’t have any kids in their classes that they knew but they were both OUT on day 2. I almost made them keep going because I LOVED VBS at Tate Springs when I was a kid and went every summer. But I figured maybe it was just too soon and they needed a little more down time to get really bored with summer before the thought of “school” would sound fun to them again. There are a lot of VBS programs at the churches in our area so maybe we will try again in a few weeks! I wish that Rush Creek had one but it’s just not something that they do. They have summer camps for the older kids but nothing like vacation bible school. Nolan has wanted a Mohawk for a while now. I always tell him no and tell him “maybe” he can have one in the summer. Well leave it to Nolan to think of this on Saturday (the first day of summer!) and asked for daddy to do it. Scott agreed and brought the clippers to the back porch. Nolan was done with Mohawk within a few minutes of seeing it. Guess he decided it wasn’t as cool as he thought so Scott just buzzed the last strip. Hudson watched all of this and then of course wanted to do it too. Scott buzzed it and the first time I walked onto the back porch and saw the missing curls I teared up! My baby’s curls were gone…Hud’s first buzz cut! I hate it and I can’t wait for it to grow back. Hudson told me not to worry that it would grow back in four years. Hehe! I’m hoping a little sooner than that! The final BIG news of the week is another first… Nolan is riding his bike all on his own!! Last summer we took the training wheels off both of his bikes and really tried to teach him. He just wasn’t ready to take the risk so he pretty much stuck to his scooter. This week, PaPa took him out to give it another try and he picked it up in no time! Last night Scott and I went out there after work and he was so excited to show us! His helmet at MiMi’s broke and the other one was at home. I was a little nervous about him riding without it but he was okay. We were so proud of him!! Our street is not really safe for bikes because we live on a busy curve and have no sidewalks and really steep driveways. I am so thankful he was able to practice and really learn at MiMi’s! His other bike is at Grandma’s house where she also has a really flat long driveway with plenty of room for riding. Once he is really good and wants to ride around the block with us walking we will bring one of them home. I bet that Hudson will be close behind because he never wants to miss out on the fun!