A Fishing Derby, An Art Market and the Levine JCC Kids Triathlon

This weekend felt like a sneak peek into summer! We had sunshine and 80+ degree temperatures and a relatively open schedule which made it a good one.

Friday

All of the boys were off school on Friday and Rhett and I had something a little special on the calendar: Kindergarten screening!

(Sunglasses: Amazon) 

(Pants: Albion — code PBFINGERS10 saves 10% — I’m 5’7” and wearing a size small tall / Top: Amazon / Shoes: Steve Madden / Bag: Madewell) 

The big kids’ school meets with every incoming kindergartener for an hour of play-based assessments and playground time before summer break. We majorly lucked out when Ryder’s teacher was assigned to complete Rhett’s evaluation so he had a familiar face greeting him!

Our Friday evening was a fun one as well because we borrowed our neighbor’s golf cart and took it out to dinner.

Any activity involving a golf cart ride feels a little bit like a vacation!

Saturday

Saturday morning began with a his and hers workouts for me and Ryan. I caught up on a Move Together Challenge workout I missed earlier in the week and it felt good to move my body to start the day.

(Workout mat is my favorite Stakt Pro mat! Code PBFINGERS15 saves 15%! Why I love it: It’s thicker and more gentle on my body and knees, it can fold up and be an elevated surface and it stays in place.) 

Our main plans for the day took us to a local pond for a fishing derby with friends!

The fishing derby is one of our favorite local events put on by the town’s parks and recreation department. It’s always well-attended and a lot of fun! No one in our crew took home a prize this year but Ryder came within an inch of capturing the prize for the biggest fish caught! The kid who won the prize for most fish caught within 90 minutes caught 51 fish. Unreal, right!?

(Ryder’s tee is is last year’s “Mae’s summer t-shirt” annual tradition creation. I love it so much.) 

Before heading home, we drove to the big kids’ school for their spring art market.

(Set is the same Z Supply one I raved about last year! Top (size small) + Bottoms (size medium) / Sunglasses: Sardine (gifted) / Sneakers: Adidas / Bag: Clare V.)  

Chase and Ryder absolutely adore their school art teacher and supporting her is important to our family. (We gave each kid a small budget to shop to support the artists at the market.)  Their art teacher is one of those people with a calming presence you just love to be around and even has a wall of photos in her classroom of her students posing with fish they’ve caught who happen to share her love for fishing. (Can you see why they love her?) She also makes her own pottery and I couldn’t resist adding another one of her bowls I love so much to my collection.

During our time at the art market, we took a brief break to listen to Chase have a little jam session on the keyboard the school’s music teacher brought outside. His piano progress is really coming along (he takes lessons once a week) and he’s currently all-in on the song “Jump” by Van Halen.

Before we left, we also bought some watermelon lemonade and fried Oreos to share.

The rest of our Saturday had us hanging close to home. We took Comet for a walk, relaxed with some reading a puzzle time and watched the Preakness horse race before calling it a night.

(For any pear shapes out there with hips, thighs and a booty, these Target shorts are a gem of a find. I’m wearing a medium and I am often a large in shorts in case that’s helpful. Top is the same Z Supply tank one I’m wearing in the matching set.) 

Sunday

Sunday morning began on the trails!

We explored some nearby trails with the boys and Comet and while they’re trails we’ve done many times before, they felt a little different because we were able to walk way out onto parts of the shore by the lake that are usually well under water.

Like much of the east coast, Charlotte could really use some rain right now but the low lake levels have unearthed some unexpected treasures the boys have enjoyed discovering. We had a couple hours of downtime back at the house for lunch and part of the Leeds game (Ryan has morphed our trio into quite the fans of English Premier League soccer) before it was time for the main event of our day: The Levine JCC Kids Triathlon!

Our boys have all done children’s triathlons before (this was the third one for the big kids and second for Rhetty) and were excited when we found one in our area. We arrived at the Levine Jewish Community Center around 1 p.m. and had no trouble picking up our packets and finding spots for the boys’ bikes and transition gear. Having had a triathlon or two under their belts definitely seemed to pay off because Ryan and I both commented on how chill the kids seemed going into the race. No one seemed nervous and they all simply seemed excited!

Oh and I should probably mention it was NINETY degrees outside when the race began! No wonder all three boys said they wished the swim was longer!

For any local friends, this event was such a good one! It was well organized with lots of volunteers and despite having more than 100 participants, the entire race finished in an hour. It was impressive! It was also a small enough race with shorter distances, making it a great “intro” race for any kids who might want to do a children’s triathlon on a smaller scale.

One moment that made me laugh was when Rhett said a little boy told him to pretend there was a snake hole behind him to make him run faster. Rhett said to me, “Mom, I said, ‘Well, what kind of snake hole is it because most snakes are good for our earth.” Ha!

All three boys thoroughly enjoyed the race and said they’d love to do it again next year!

They sure do look HOT though, don’t they!? Phew!

Once we made it home, the boys spent a solid 2 hour kayaking and splashing around in the shallow lake water because their energy reserves know no bounds.

For family movie night, the boys picked GOAT on Netflix and all really liked it. I’ll admit this one didn’t capture Ryan or my interest and we used movie night time to catch up on household chores before reading stories and getting everyone in bed at a decent time.

And now today is PRESCHOOL GRADUATION for Rhett. Our very last preschool graduation. Can you believe it!? I certainly cannot and I’m trying to hold it all together right now because I’m feeling a little emotionally fragile about our preschool days coming to a close. Thank goodness I know full-well the next phase of early elementary school is wonderful but its still hard to close this chapter of our little kid days. Time to hit publish on this post and go decorate my car for the parking lot parade!

I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead!