A Summer Sunday from Start to Finish

Hey friends!! I cannot tell you how good it feels to be sitting down at my computer chatting with you guys this morning. Blogging breaks are good and necessary and they also always do so much to remind me just how much I value this space and connecting with all of you outside of social media shares. Sooo HIII! How are you!? How was your weekend?

Our weekend was wonderfully free! We made it a point to put not one single thing on our agenda and protect our one “free” weekend. We kept it family-centered and it was lovely in its simplicity. Our Saturday was spent unpacking, deep cleaning, organizing and swimming and floating around in the lake for hours. I kept my phone tucked away on Saturday but managed to snap a handful of pictures on Sunday so I could take you guys along for the ride.

Sunday

Sunday morning began with a solo walk with Pepper before the boys were up for the day. I love any chance I can get to begin my day with a distraction-free walk and we covered two miles together and arrived home just as the big kids were waking up. I whipped up a big batch of protein pancakes for breakfast and we all dug in!

I then spent some time doing a little food prep for the week ahead while Ryan and Rhett worked in the yard and Chase and Ryder played lacrosse in the backyard with the lacrosse sticks our neighbor handed down to them on Saturday.

The big kids truly spent spent hours throwing the lacrosse ball back and forth over the course of the weekend and it made me wonder if lacrosse might be a sport they’d be interested in trying this fall?

Eventually it was time for church, so we got cleaned up and made our way to the 9:30 a.m. service.

(Dress: Land’s End / Bag: Madewell / Shoes: Target) 

Our favorite post-church activity on Sundays is to load up the big kids’ bikes and Rhett’s dirt bike and hit some trails for some outside time together. Ryan and I walked behind the boys for an hour or so (they know to stop and wait for us to periodically catch up) and we were all hot and sweaty by the time we were done.

It didn’t take much convincing from the boys to talk me and Ryan into pre-lunch soft serve from Carolina Cones, one of our favorite local ice cream shops.

Fortunately we all still had appetites for lunch when we got home and Ryan grilled the chicken thighs I marinated earlier that morning in our forever favorite chicken marinade while I prepped a corn and avocado salad.

After lunch, we hung out at the house for a couple hours of downtime (outside play for the boys, yard work for Ryan, laundry and blog work for me) before everyone was feelin’ a trip to the pool. Ryan and I biked alongside the boys’ dirt bikes as we rode to the pool for two hours of playtime before showering at the pool, changing the boys into their jammies (one of my ultimate summer hacks) and riding home for movie night.

We dug into pizza for dinner and then watched All the Sharks, a reality show our family is enjoying on Netflix. Teams of two scuba dive all around the world and compete to take the most pictures of various kinds of sharks. The rarer or trickier to spot, the more points a shark is worth! The boys get so into it and, as adults, it’s fairly entertaining so I’d consider it a family movie night win!

And now I’m off to get this Monday rockin’ as we kick things off with an 8 a.m. orthodontist appointment for Chase. Enjoy your week, my friends!