Last week of summer, first week of school! Except I just realized today Labor Day means no school for anyone tomorrow, so we can fit in one more beach/fun day before we start a regular schedule.

Sunday:

Apparently this is the only photo I took on Sunday. I can’t even remember Sunday. Did Sunday even happen?

Monday:

Nothing like a nuclear power plant to add to my scenic beach photos

I love this beach

The most adorable ice cream and candy store in the world

Tuesday:

She changed her mind about the birds. NO BIRDS, MOMMY.

Sea lion show. My kids can name all the sea lions.

Grilled cheese of the day: Basil pesto, artichokes, tomatoes, mozzarella on Italian bread.

Wednesday:

In this episode, Spiderman joins S.H.I.E.L.D. I had to Google to find out if that was accurate (it is).

Evan’s favorite part of his new school: cool sinks.

Orientation is EXHAUSTING.

Thursday:

Ready to go!

The cat loves Caroline

This is her “WE’RE GETTING CHEESEBURGERS!” face

Friday:

Playing “Tick-tock croc eats Captain Hook!” while we wait for the bus

She is loving our outside play time while we wait for the bus. It makes me feel bad we never use our (very tiny) front yard.

What do you wear when it’s 80 degrees?

Saturday:

Craft store…

…pretzel burger…

…and Sherlock. PERFECT SATURDAY.

I’m so excited Evan likes school, the bus situation seems to be working out, and that when Caroline starts school on Tuesday I will be able to get back to a regular schedule for me too. I loved going to the gym last year, but totally failed during the summer. I need to get exercise back on my list of priorities, if only because I have to be in better shape to work as a photographer. Taking newborn photos is like doing 200 squats. I’m going to have buns of steel if people keep hiring me.

The other night my husband came home and said “I heard that Cups song on the radio on the way home. We should watch Pitch Perfect. Right now.” Of course I agreed, because I’m a sucker for cheesy singing and dancing in almost any form. And then he just CASUALLY mentions “I can do that, you know.”

Me: “What? You can do what?”

E: “The cups thing. It’s not hard.”

Me: “It looks hard to me. How could you possibly know how to do that?”

E: “Church camp.”

(If you went to church camp, you know that’s a totally reasonable explanation for all sorts of things. Why are you so good at poker? Where did you get all those macrame friendship bracelets? Why are you so good at ping pong? Where did you learn to shoot a .22 rifle? Why is “Books of the Bible” your favorite category on Jeopardy? Why do you know how to rappel off  a mountain? Why can you make macaroni salad for 200? Why does the smell of mulch make you break into weirdly Jesus-focused marching cadence chants? CHURCH. CAMP.)

Me: “To me, it just looks like a bunch of people snapping and throwing around a cup.”

E: “There’s no snapping. Why would there be snapping? It’s like line dancing with your hands.”

Me: “Oh well THAT makes it sound cooler.”

E: “You’re supposed pass the cup in a circle. Here, I’ll show you.”

And then I learned how to do the Cups song, exactly one million years late. Everyone is over the cups song. Maybe I need to apply for a job at church camp.

1, A Crime Story: Once there was a woman traveling with two small children. Her greatest fear was rest stop bathroom lines, since small children often do not alert you to their potty emergencies until the chance of getting pee on one’s self is at threat level red. The woman never asked to cut in line or skip ahead, but when it came her turn to use a stall with her two small children she made sure all three of them used the facilities to prevent stopping again 5 minutes down the road when someone who insisted they did NOT need to potty suddenly realized they DID need to potty. One day, at a busy rest stop in Maryland, a lady dared to glare at the woman and mutter “Ugh, FINALLY” when the woman emerged from a tiny, tiny stall dragging two kids. And then the woman murdered that lady with her mind. The end.

2, An Important Lesson: This one time, at my mom’s house, I was too lazy to get my toothbrush out of the car so I figured I could just rinse my mouth with the fancy mouthwash she keeps in a glass decanter next to the sink. This turned out to be a terrible, terrible choice, since I’m pretty sure whatever was in that decanter was NOT mouthwash. I don’t even want to think about what it was, but I can still taste it 24 hours later.

3, An Art Film: Girl gets up at 5 am to photograph beautiful sunrise. Girl realizes 5 am is REALLY FRICKING EARLY and hits snooze until at least 5:45. Girl finally gets out of bed, into a kayak and heads out to take some pictures. Girl notices totally perfect family of swans that appear to have been ordered from central casting specifically to make her pictures even more amazing. Girl takes photos of swans with her zoom lens until she realizes she can’t focus on them anymore because there are 5 giant swans charging at her through the water. Girl panics, tosses camera into the kayak and paddles as fast as she can away from the vicious swans. Girl realizes this is a sign 5 am is stupid and sleeps in the rest of her vacation.

4, A Comedy:
Idiot: Hey, let’s take my iPhone out to the float and take some pictures of you jumping off! It has a waterproof case, it will be fine!
Kid: OK!
Idiot: *Jumps in the water* OK, now can you hand me my phone?
Kid: OK! Here Mommy, catch! *throws phone into water*
Idiot: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! *scrambles frantically to catch phone as it sinks into 9 feet of water*

Postlude: The idiot caught it before it sank and immediately took it back to shore, where everyone laughs at her. IDIOT.

5. A Sappy Movie: I pretty much have the best parents ever. A lake house for us and the kids, amazing child-watching skills, super generous, and generally just really fun to be around. My 16 year old self certainly didn’t think I won the parent-lottery, but my 31 year old self knows I did.

Technically it’s still summer, but someone forgot to tell Connecticut. And Virginia.

Sunday:

Life’s tough choices: cinnamon cider donuts or glazed cider donuts?

Giving directions in the maze

Brushing the princess’s hair

Monday:

Belle watching Belle

Being a princess is exhausting

Blue Icees are the best reward

Tuesday:

Pre-pre-school hugs

Purple dress with tiny pink foxes at Target. Go get one for your baby.

Building a dinosaur skeleton zoo, to keep dinosaurs skeletons for escaping

Wednesday:

Hello Hartford!

Doin’ sciencey stuff

Not swinging. Sitting. Because I was working. But she refused to get out (or put on pants).

Thursday:

I’ve been going to the clinic on base for 8 years and this was the first time I ever noticed the water tower. Observant!

Cooperative art

We pay $200 a year for an aquarium membership and they think the lobsters at the grocery store are just as good.

Friday:

Go on vacation? Nah, we’ll hang at this rest area and look at diggers.

Can’t you see I’m RELAXING? Knock it off with the pictures.

RELAAAAAAAAAAX

Saturday:

Man-time fishing on the lake

Jumper!

Golden child

I keep thinking there’s just one week left in August and I have way too much to do, but there are TWO weeks left in August…and I still have way too much to do. Well, no, not too much. I can never, ever get too much photography work and I’m super excited I have some shoots lined up already.

So excited I MIGHT have just ordered myself my dream camera. Now I have 6 months to pay for it. Please forgive me if there are a few extra sponsored posts next month – dreams are pretty expensive and I’m determined to finance mine on my own, without using the family (husband-earned) money.

See what I did there? In the title? A-MAZE-ing. Sorry about that, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

With several pick-your-own places within a couple miles of our house and a field of sunflowers the next town over we’ve never made the drive out to Lyman Orchards before last weekend. We planned to just go for the sunflowers but ended up having breakfast (giant apple cinnamon cream cheese bearclaw NOM NOM) and blueberry picking too. The kids loved the maze and would have stayed “lost” in it all day if we let them. And then Caroline ate her body weight in blueberries right off the bush. I would have felt bad about how many we didn’t pay for, except when we carried our GIANT pail of blueberries up to get weighed our total was $5. Best deal ever. We’re definitely going back for apples and pears – the views alone are worth the drive.

I actually had to DECREASE the color saturation on these pictures, because the flowers were so yellow and the sky was so blue it hurt my eyes. Real life, how can you be so gorgeous?!

Lyman Orchards offered free maze tickets to several Connecticut bloggers and I was lucky enough to score them for our family, but no compensation was received and we paid for our food and blueberries.  The sunflower maze runs until August 25th and I highly recommend it!