A Bunch of Random Summery Things For Friday

Can you tell that I'm trying very hard to make my goal of finishing up my blog posts about last summer before we leave for this summer's vacation!?

From the Kate Spade outlet store:

I thought this bag was really pretty for summer but I didn't get it. So I took a picture instead (my trick for kids works for me too!).

Cute little crab purses

Pretty colonial scenery at Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire.

It's a New England thing...

I want to get this book.

Speaking of books, how cute is this little book house that I saw at a flea market?

I kind of wish I'd gotten it.

View from my bed. 

Getting ice cream at the place down the street from our house.

Downtown Hyannis

"Whale-y cute" merchandise:

Getting caught up and organized. This is my process and it took me a few hours. 

Being organized (and staying that way, which is more challenging) makes me happy!

Sam not cooperating for a selfie.

This sign for the bathrooms cracks me up when I see it every summer at the Lemon Tree Village Shops in Brewster.

I like this turtlenecked giraffe.

We've been shopping at the Village Toy Store for years. Sam and I love it!

Enjoying the fruit of someone else's labors at the beach.

This big sea turtle with its back covered in shells is so pretty. People are so good at making things!

At Peter's family's annual pig roast in Rhode Island

My house slippers for the Cape house got pretty worn down by the end of our time there.

John and my mom watching the summer Olympics our last night there. 

These pictures are all from my iPhone. Next week I'll do one more post like this with pictures from my real camera. Have a great weekend!

Inflate This

I have one last post and some pictures to share from one of our favorite places on the Cape, the Cape Cod Inflatable Park. If they ever close this place down it's going to be a pretty big tragedy for our family!

Remember last month when I wrote about how Sam was afraid to go down this huge slide, but he finally did it? Here he is! 

 What, you can't see him? I don't know why! He's at the very top of the slide, getting ready to go down.

 And here he is making his landing. He loved it! 

 One of the times we were there my dad was with us and he decided to do the Challenge Park since he's such a fitness/health/anti-aging nut and he was also inspired by some of the older men who competed on John's favorite show, American Ninja Warrior. I admire him for giving it a try, which is more than I can say for myself and I'm much younger. I might try the Challenge Park at some point--on a day when hardly anyone is there to watch me make a fool of myself!

He did pretty well on the swinging monkey bars but it was harder than he thought it would be. #humblepie 

He didn't make it over the "Jump over me sissy" wall, but he came close once or twice.

😂😂😂

Trying again...in vain. 

 Do you spy Sam again?

 He was just hanging out, taking a rest.

And last but definitely not least, here's our little Challenge Park champion, John.

He makes it over the sissy wall every time easily. Where'd this kid come from!?

The Russian guys who work there called him "Captain America" because of his swim shirt and they knew who he was and how good he was because we went there at least once a week for over a month. 

 

He can even do the swinging monkey bars backward!

 His personal challenge to himself was to make it to the other side of the trapeze. I don't have a picture of it but after many attempts, he did it!

P.S. If/when I try doing the Challenge Park, there's no way in heck I'm doing the trapeze. 

I don't think John's made it all the way across the tightrope without falling, so maybe that will be his challenge for this summer.

Here's Sam drinking my favorite drink to drink here (wow, I just said "drink" a lot), Thelma's frozen lemonade! 

Captain America and crew will be returning shortly, Inflatable Park. Look out!

Stand-Up (and Don't Fall In!) Paddleboarding

Last summer I got to cross an item off my list that I've been wanting to do for years--our family finally went stand-up paddleboarding! It was a lot of fun, and a lot of work--my body was so sore the next day! 

We went on a lake in Brewster with an instructor to help us. Sam was too little to do it so he sat on the instructor's board most of the time or hung onto mine (more on that later), which he was fine with.

The instructor took pictures which is why we have photo documentation of this momentous occasion. 

We started out kneeling and paddling before working our way up to standing. 

Note Peter in the background trying to stay on his board. His body weight made balancing on the board very difficult the whole time we were on the water, so he spent a lot more time in the water than on the board!
Good thing he likes lake swimming. 😄

 (That's not a fanny pack around my waist! It's a flotation-type of device that we had to have on us.)

John had been paddleboarding twice before with his camp group from the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. As with most things of an athletic nature, he was easily the best in our family at it.

There are Peter and I successfully kneeling and paddling in the background! 

Unfortunately for Peter, that's about as successful as he got!

  

But John makes it look so easy! 

And then I stood up! And I didn't fall in! I'm very happy to report that I didn't fall in the water once, even though it was pretty breezy and the water was choppy. We went across the lake and back. I was a little scared the whole time and it was hard work, but it was fun! 

The epitome of coastal chic! 😎

The instructor had to go and help Peter, who was struggling because he couldn't stay on his board. So Sam had to come hang onto my board, which made me go much slower because it created a lot of drag. Then the instructor called out to me to have Sam sit on the board (duh Donna), and then, apart from my protesting arm and ab muscles, I felt like we glided through the water with the greatest of ease! 

Other than Sam getting bonked on the head with one of the paddleboards when John was messing around, the boys did great. They really do well in the water. And on the water.

 A nice family picture...in which only one of us is wet. Not mentioning any names here! 😇

Like I said before, it was fun and it was a great workout. Stand-up paddleboarding appeals to me more than kayaking does (kayaking has always scared me--I'm afraid of the kayak flipping over and being trapped in it, which happened to a guy in my hometown who sadly drowned when that happened to him). I'd like to get a couple of our own stand-up paddleboards and start doing this every summer. I want to get good-quality inflatable ones so that we can easily transport them in the back of the car instead of having to mount them on top of the car, which would be a pain and a definite deterrent to me ever doing this on my own.

Stand-up paddleboarding gets a thumbs up from us--yes, even from Peter! 👍