The Banks Family: Summer is here

This summer is all about exploring our new neighborhood and playing in our backyard. We have almost an acre yard that Glen mows every weekend on his riding lawnmower, and we both do weeding and pruning. Lots of new stuff if popping up and blooming, some unwanted stuff like weeds and crab grass, but a ton of neat bushes, trees, and flowers. It's all quiet beautiful. Glen has been working hard every weekend trying to get our swimming pool operational. It's a learning process, and it had been neglected for years, so it needed a lot of cleaning, but we're almost there and hope to have it open soon. It's certainly been warm enough to go for a swim. After an exceptional May of sunshine every day, June was a little hit-or-miss with some thunderstorms and humidity (both new concepts to me), but July is shaping up well with temperatures in the 80s every day. We've tried a few local Cheshire family-friend spots. First, Mixville Park, which is this 75 acre park with a small lake and a sandy beach. On a sunny 85 degree Saturday, it was practically deserted. It's really a hidden gem. We have several local produce farms and nurseries, and discovered that one just 5 minutes away has you-pick fruit, so we tried out blueberry picking for the first time, which the girls loved. We will be back again soon because the raspberries are almost ready. The girls received bicycles as a gift from their Nana, so Claudia has been practicing a lot on her bike with training wheels and borrowing Teagan's balance bike. She is hoping to work up to riding without training wheels by the end of the summer. And, Glen & Claudia got to attend their first professional golf tournament, the Travelers Championship in Cromwell.

In June, Claudia started at the Bright Horizons (BH) summer day camp program. It's a pretty small program, just 10-20 kids on a given week, but they do a lot of fun outdoor play, crafts & games, as well as field trips. She went rock climbing at Mountain Fun in Wallingford and she's hooked, she loves it. We've noticed an increase in "sass" lately, I think from being around the older kids all day, but other than that, we are very happy with the program and jealous over the neat stuff she gets to do every day. I think adults need summer camp too! Teagan is still at BH too and they've added a few more kids to her toddler room, so it's a bit busier, and she's getting used to all the routines and now feels very at home there. Having the girls at the same location has been great for my commute. It still takes me 75-90 minutes door-to-door to get the girls and get home (which is insane), but it's not nearly as stressful now because I have a bigger time window to get it done in. But I should point out, it's not that frustrating bumper-to-bumper traffic like Seattle. With the except of a couple bottle-necks, most of the time I'm flying along at 65+ mph.

Teagan's vocabulary has really taken off lately. I love how she just puts together sounds even if she doesn't know what she's saying. She's really into singing songs, especially Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, and Baby Bubble Bee. She continues to be a physical kid who likes to roughhouse and hit or push if she doesn't get her way. This is whole new territory for us. She mostly takes it out on Claudia, who likes to push her buttons and turn everything up a notch, but Teagan in turn likes to "poke the bear" and try to get a screech or cry out of Claudia. It's exhausting to be the referee to all their fighting. But when they're not hungry or tired, they actually play very nicely together and are the best of friends. I especially love how Claudia can be so patient and helpful. I often hear from Teagan, "Claudia help" and Claudia is almost always happy to help and proud that she's the big sister. Teagan is at the age when color is very important, so when Teagan yells out, "I want blue bowl", Claudia always returns with "I want yellow bowl" (or whatever other color is available). This makes me smile on a daily basis to see how Claudia is learning humility. In other situations I feel like I'm always saying, "your sister is only 2 years old!" but in this particular case, she totally gets that color is important to a 2 year old, but not nearly as important to a 6 year old.

Mixville Park.