Summer is Here

[Mamma-Mia]

Hope you are all having a great 4th of July.  Unfortunately, we have a sick household for the holiday.  I guess there is a bug going around and it found its way into our home.  It is not a bad cold and I am sure that we will all be healthy again soon. The boys have not slowed down one bit despite their colds.  You wouldn’t even know that they were sick if it wasn’t for their runny noses.  Ben and I are not quite as energetic as the boys and are doing our best to keep up with the boys.

Giovanni is such a clever little boy.  He likes to do everything himself. He is even getting better with his potty training. His current movie obsessions are Will Smith movies.  Ben got him "Men in Black " and "I Robot." The main attractions are the "big guns," aliens, and robots that are in the movies.  He has also discovered "Finding Nemo" and "Mary Poppins."  We try to rotate the movies around so he doesn’t watch one movie over and over and over again. He is starting to enjoy playing with other kids more. He has more fun when there are other kids -usually older kids - around at the park for him to play with. He doesn’t like playing too much with Seppe yet.  The two of them fight over toys all the time now.

Seppe is such a little talker. He turns any toy into a phone and puts it up to his ear and just babbles away. He is starting to fight back when Gio is being mean to him. Usually, I'll have two kids crying because they've hit one another. That is why they take separate baths now.  Seppe sticks to his schedule pretty well.  He usually gets at least one nap a day.  If I'm lucky, he'll go down for two naps. It is hard to get the early nap in.  His favorite thing to do is throw things - anything.  He is getting better and better at talking.  He loves to say Hello and "ba-bye." We are planning on getting rid of his pacifier soon.  I'm just reluctant to because I know it wont be an easy adjustment for both of us.

June found us enjoying the great summer weather.  It does get hot here. We did have a few days in the low  100's but the mornings are usually very nice for our walk to the park. We celebrated Father's Day early with my dad.   Gene visited us for Father's Day weekend and took us to the Happy Hollow Park and Zoo.  The boys had a great time.  Gio loved petting and feeding all the animals and had a blast riding all the rides.  I was really glad that Seppe was able to ride the carousel and most of the rides.  He really likes being included.

The great weather sent us on our second trip to Santa Cruz.  This time we were more prepared and left early enough to spend a lot of time at the beach.  Seppe loves the ocean. He was all ready to head out into the water and enjoyed wading out in the water with Ben.  Gio however, did not want to go any where near the water.  He was content with playing in the sand with his bucket and shovel.  After some sun bathing, a quick change into some dry clothes, and off to the boardwalk we went.  We bought 60 tickets thinking that we would have plenty left over for another visit, but wound up using all the tickets on rides for the boys.  Gio couldn’t be happier and Seppe was able to ride on every ride that Gio could go on (as long as I was with him). We all had a great time and we look forward to going again soon.

The biggest news for our family is that Ben is officially signed off!! He is completely certified as a controller now.  Ben is very happy and is enjoying his job a lot more now that he is on own. Now he is working on getting things in order to find out where our next move is. As for me, I am finishing up the financial aid paperwork for school and waiting to register for fall classes. So far it looks like it will all work out and I'll be on my way back to school.