First few weeks of summer

So I'm a little behind on my blogging...what's new?  I just find that when the day is over and Trey is in bed, the last thing I want to do is be on the computer.  I'd rather curl up with my book.

Here are some pics and stories from the first few weeks of summer.

Aunt Julie got Trey the perfect present for a super hero fanatic.  He wears these costumes all of the time; lately, he has even been wearing them in bed during story time.  I want to snap a picture, but I never have my phone with me during story time.  Shocking, I know.

Robin doing a show

Trey calls him "Robin Hood" and no matter how many times I try to correct him, he prefers Robin Hood.  The other day I even showed him a picture of Robin Hood on the computer, so now Robin's nickname is Robin Hood.  Whatever, I guess Mama has to deal with the inaccuracy (which for some reason bugs me).

Robin (Hood) at the park

Grady doesn't seem too sure about this...

I'm wanting to transition Trey to some early chapter books for read aloud time.  I went through my box of books from my childhood and found these.  According to the name on top of the box, they belonged to my first grade teacher, Mrs. Putnam, who must have been the ones to introduce them to me in the first grade.  I don't think Trey is ready for these yet, but they look beautiful sitting on his bookshelf.

Summer time means playdate time, and Trey and I have been having fun hanging out with friends I don't get to see much of during the school year.  Here he is with Garland (5) and Maclyn (3), Kathleen's boys, at the playground.

Our garden is not doing as well as I would expect at this point of the summer, but it's plugging along.  This shot was from 2-3 weeks ago, so it looks better now but still not very productive.

Trey got some birthday money for his birthday, so we took him to Toys R Us to choose a new toy.  Like I said when I captioned this on Instagram, one person's heaven is another person's hell.  It was hard for Trey to choose, but he came home with a new Bat Cave that he loves.

The last weekend of June is our favorite brew fest of the year which is the organic brewfest at Overlook Park in Portland.  Kathleen met us there as well as Julie and her family, and the rain held out which was great.  Trey was in a bit of a funk, so we didn't stay as long as we would have liked to, but we still had a good time.  He had the most fun at the playground, which was unfortunately outside the boundaries of the brew fest.

Hunkered down under the tent

Julie and her boys

Case apparently did not want his picture taken.

This day was a weird weather day because if you looked in one direction you could literally see the rain coming down in the distance, and if you looked in a different direction the sky was a beautiful blue.  This moment was exciting to us because Trey has JUST started going down slides on his own.  Yes, he's four.  I know.

At the end of June we went to Trey's BFF Camille's Frozen birthday party.  The kids painted Frozen ice art, had some Frozen games, and ate Frozen themed food (I figured out way too late that the cheese puffs were supposed to be Olaf's nose).  They also had a Frozen pinata and a beautiful Frozen cake.

The weather has been beautiful, and we've been enjoying a lot of outside time.  Some evenings Julie brings Case and Grady over to play.  Here they are in the whale pool (soon to be replaced by Randy's genius impulse buy) and the slip n'slide.

Case checking out the sprinklers

Yummy popsicles

Trey and Grady

Swimming at Camille's house

Girls' night out wit Kirsten, Amy, and Sam, three girlfriends from college.

I've been reading a lot this summer, but nothing in particular was that awesome except for the last book I just read.  I enjoyed the Husband's Secret by Liana Moriarty, but not as much as others have, and I thought an older book by Jojo Moyes called the Last Letter From Your Lover was okay.  I read everything by Lorrie Moore because a lot of the authors I like praise her work, but I never get that much out of it.  I just read her newest collection of short stories called Bark which I thought were okay but they keep making it on to various "great books" lists so I guess they're better than okay. Apparently, I don't appreciate her writing as much as I should.  I read the Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer which was a novel about working moms, stay at home moms, having kids, blah blah blah and I found myself skimming parts.  Again, so-so.

I did really enjoy Delancey by Molly Wizenberg, and I read that book in a day.  I liked the book enough to not be able to put it down for a day, but I was bummed that it was such a fast read because I had really been looking forward to it.   I definitely want to take a trip to Seattle to go to her restaurant.

The book I just finished a few nights ago was called the Interestings, also by Meg Wolitzer.  I really loved that one and would recommend it to anyone.  Great characters, fun story lines, good dialogue...it was the kind of book I wanted to take in the car with me to read at stoplights.  I'm sad that it's over because I am still thinking about the characters.

I just picked up Midwives by Chris Bohjalian that is a pretty old book (a 1997 book that Oprah made popular), but I've been wanting to read it for years.  I'm hoping it's a fast read because I have several coming up in the holds list at the library that I am looking forward to.  Goldfinch is supposed to be a summer read for me, so that one better hurry up!  Any summer favorites of yours I should put on my list?