A Very Summery Weekend

Today is a very special day in our house today! Chase is officially NINE years old and, to be as redundant as every other mother out there, I cannot believe it. Being Chase’s mom for nine years has truly been the biggest joy and we cannot wait to spend all day celebrating our oldest boy! I’ll be signing off to celebrate shortly but first wanted to share a little weekend recap with you guys since it was an especially good one!

A Very Summery Weekend

This weekend felt like summer in a nutshell from start to finish. It included swimming, time with friends, late bedtimes and sticky-hot weather. We loved it!

Our weekend felt like it began on Friday with a friend field trip to Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens to spend some time in the Butterfly Bungalow.

We went with my friends Carrie and Jess and their kids who our boys have all known since their baby days which made it all the more fun! The botanical gardens were not at all busy on a random Friday morning which gave our kids free rein of the place and the ability to run around outside to their heart’s content.  And, of course the butterfly bungalow was a hit, as all of our kids loved walking around with sticks of sugar water, hoping to tempt the fluttering butterflies to land on them for a little visit!

We spent the rest of our Friday night at home, grilling out and digging into homemade ice cream.

Saturday

Our Saturday began on an active note with a family bike ride.

Chase has been asking about registering for a mini kid’s triathlon and we finally found one for him to do in early September. He’s psyched and Ryder was also thrilled when we told him that even 6-year-olds are allowed to register for the shorter distance race. Their “training” (completely self-imposed and just for fun) began on Saturday with a 3-mile bike ride!

Our family was super into watching the Tour de France this year and Ryan and I got a kick out of listening to Chase and Ryder discuss their “climbs” and “sprints” as they pretended to be the top two cyclists in the race, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.

Once we arrived back home, everyone wanted to jump in the lake for a swim before lunch. We then ate lunch and showered before heading out for the rest of the afternoon and early evening.

Up first? The (almost) birthday boy’s request: A pit stop at The Pit for some go kart racing!

Chase is now old enough to ride the youth karts and loves flying around the huge track. Rhett and Ryder are always down for a stop at The Pit as well because of the arcade so it was a win-win. The boys had a blast!

Since we were fairly close to Red’s Scratch Made, a local bakery we’ve been dying to try, we had to pop in after our go-karting adventure and left with six giant cookies.

For any local readers out there, I can absolutely confirm this place lives up to the hype! The brown butter chocolate chip cookie and oatmeal cream pie stole the show for me.

And since there’s nothing like heading to a party to eat cupcakes after you’ve just downed a bunch of cookies, we then made our way to our friends’ house for a Grill ‘n’ Chill birthday party.

My friend Danielle’s son Caleb turns 9 exactly two days before Chase and we’ve absolutely loved watching the boys grow up together. We celebrated Caleb with our friends with cupcakes, pool time and a waterslide bounce house that was the most insanely fast water slide bounce house I’ve ever seen. The kids had a blast on that bad boy for a solid three hours and Chase and Ryder said they were even a little sore the next morning. Ha!

By the time we made it home, two hours past everyone’s typical bedtime, we were ready to watch one or two events from the Olympics and then called it a night!

Sunday

Sunday was a lowkey day that began with diamond sticker painting (our big kids’ latest obsession) which entertained Chase and Ryder for a solid hour while Rhett did Biggie Beads and Ryan and I tackled some household to-dos. We then made our way to church for the morning service before eating lunch back at home and biking to our neighborhood pool where we spent the rest of the afternoon.

Summer pool days are the best and we loved soaking up the sun and swimming together as a family before biking home, watching more of the Olympics and then doing the whole dinner + nighttime routine.

And now it’s time to turn my attention to the birthday boy and continue celebrating our nine-year-old! We’re planning to head to Kannapolis for some slot car racing today (his #1 request) and I’m excited to check it out and hopefully fill Chase’s day with lots of fun and love. Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today!