Big Summer Blowout

Barely any time at the beach, barely any time at the pool, yet the summer of 2014 still ended as rapidly as any summer I’ve ever experienced.  It’s tricky to find that balance between letting kids be adaptable so you can have adventures (skip naps and eat junk) and letting them get the amount of rest and normalcy that is necessary for things to actually fun (no nuclear meltdowns.)  One day I informed everyone that we were going to a store and Rush said, “If we leave this house I WILL FREAK OUT IN THE STORE.”  Um, okay, you win.  We’ll say home all day. 

We did cram in as much excitement possible into the last summer weekend.

Rush and Tate have been begging to visit Trent’s new office since February, so we used the final weekday of the summer to join him for lunch.

Saturday night was our impromptu end of summer family party, complete with grilling and sweating on the back porch until we ate inside.

Trent exists within a cooking world based, as far as I can figure out, on the Top Chef finale:  No rules other than make a delicious meal.  It’s fun to eat what he brings home when he occasionally runs to the grocery store, but it’s best not to look at the receipt since he admittedly does not look at prices.  Me:  How much was this huge box of cherry tomatoes?  Trent:  Uh, I think $3.  Yeah, I go to the grocery store all the time and there is no way all those tomatoes were $3.  Me:  How much butter/olive oil did you put in this?  Trent:  Not much.  It’s like Pop’s cream gravy- just enjoy it and be sure not to watch him pull out his grease jar to make it.

I know I’m not the only straight woman who sometimes wishes I could have been a lesbian.  Because I assume that Saturday nights as a lesbian would basically be spent painting my nails with my best friend while drinking Dr. Pepper and watching Can’t Hardly Wait.  My husband, on the other hand, REFUSED to watch Can’t Hardly Wait, opting instead to spend his evening on Google SketchUp.  He did end up staying up with me until 1 AM to watch a movie I’ve seen a thousand times but totally love, Something’s Got To Give.   I love that movie in spite of not understanding the casting of Jack Nicholson as a man that younger women are attracted to.  An older man, sure.  But Jack Nicholson?  I mean, he’s no Kyle Chandler.  Wait, Kyle Chandler isn’t that old…he’s no Richard Dryfus.

Summer really ends around seven on the night before school starts.  Once seven hits, it’s baths, the double checking of backpacks and getting ready for bed.  We spent the final hours of the summer swimming  at a friend’s house with old friends and new friends, the very most perfect way to end the summer.