weekending it

As much as I'm internally (okay, a tad externally too) grumbling about not getting to have a vacation of pretty much any sort this summer, what with moving and you know, the not really knowing when or where aspect of it... I'm thinking we're kind of making up for it on these weekends when Ryan's home with a whole lot of fun.

I'm staying on top of house stuff better these days and so pretty much our entire weekend (minus time for Ryan to mow the lawn each week) can be devoted to the fun stuff.
It helps that we've had some gorgeous weather weekends lately too!!

Last weekend on Saturday we headed out to Grant's Farm and spent pretty much the whole day there soaking up the sun and the nature and the animals (and the free beer). We got home and grilled up some steaks for dinner and then got the fire bowl going in our driveway and a few of the neighbors gathered 'round for s'mores. It was still pretty stinkin hot for it being 7:30 at night so we all kept our distance from the actual fire and eventually the kids even turned on the sprinkler and got nice and soaked, clothes and all! They had a blast running around in the water till we were all sugared out and finally let the fire die out and drug them all into their respective houses to dry off and bed down at almost 9pm!
Sunday we got our tad bit of yard work out of the way while the kids set up a lemonade stand and then we all had a picnic lunch and afterwards broke out the slip'n slide. It wasn't long before all the neighborhood kids were back over and pretty soon we had a little popsicle party as well.
After we had our fill of sun and water we cleaned the kids up, ran a couple of quick errands and headed to Costco for some pizza before getting the kids home to an early bedtime so Ryan and I could partake in our six hours of the LOST finale event. Yes, it wasn't just an episode, but officially referred to as an "event"!

This weekend Ryan is already home for a four day weekend (woo hoo!) and while I was still playing with the idea of getting out of town somewhere (besides it being a holiday weekend, our anniversary is Monday as well), we'll most likely end up at Six Flags (trying to take advantage of the season passes we bought before we knew we were leaving!) for at least a day. The kids have been anxious for the water park part to open, which it does this weekend, and maybe we'll even stick around for their Glow in the Park Parade.
Oh, and our own neighborhood pool opens on Saturday!!

The following weekend we have tickets to a Cardinals game with the Swinigans, and I'm totally drawing a blank at the moment, but I think we have something else going on that weekend too.

We also have extra admission tickets in hand for The Magic House as well as some special stuff at the Science Center. Not to mention the always free and amazing St Louis Zoo that we love to take advantage of and I really want to take the kids around in to paddle boat around Forest Park soon before we bid farewell to STL.

So we're stuffing in the good stuff, making every weekend a "staycation" of sorts, soaking in the great stuff this city has to offer and taking advantage of family time that's so spread thin these days with a daddy living long distance during the week.