Carolina,  Domestic Bliss,  Everyday Adventures,  Jack,  Liam

Jack and Liam’s Summertime Extravaganza – a Pictorial Representation of Why I Wish I was Four Again

July 1, 2012 /

Although much of my summer has a certain Groundhog Day feature to it – bar study remains relentless and mostly boring – my SONS are not suffering for that fact.  If you wanted to write a manual for “how to create the ideal summer experience for your preschool-aged children,” then look no further than Jack and Liam’s Summertime Extravaganza 2012.  Take two little boys, mix in two sets of involved grandparents and an aunt or two, and you’ve got the makings of a fabulous summer season.  Here are some pix of what we’ve been up to (I escape the clutches of barbri as often as I can, so I’m in some of these, too!  The bonus of having children during bar review – they force you to take some fun time away, always a good idea.)

Some Light Farming

Every time we went in the garage to get in the car, the boys would try to get on this riding lawnmower
So grandpa Doc took Jack for a ride one day. He even let him drive at one point!

Getting All Retro by Going to See Pixar’s Brave at the Drive In

(subtitled – yes, there are still drive ins!  This one is just outside Nashville.)

Jack called this experience: going to the big movie on the screen outside to see the story about the princess with the red hair who carries a bow and arrow. Kind of a mouthful, but you have no questions about the activity once he's stammered his way through that long sentence.
Going to a drive in was even more fun than I remembered. Especially because we left early-to-bed Liam at home!

Checking out the (Prehistoric) Wildlife at the Zoo.  

Dinosaurs - This Way!
We spent many an hour in advance of this trip explaining that dinosaurs have been dead for a very long time, and so there was nothing to fear, and it was all pretend, and blah blah blah we might as well have been speaking German.
I hold my OWN ticket
Tickets in hand, the boys waited in line to see the dinos. Well, Jack waited in line, and Liam continually tried to jump the line and head on in, because he's a rebel like that.

We walked down the leafy trail toward the first dinosaur – a friendly herbivore that blinked its eyes and turned its head.  Jack saw it and – well his reaction is below.  I would have paid fifty dollars all over again, just to watch that absolutely priceless reaction.  He’s been learning a lot about dinosaurs, and to see a “real” one in the “flesh” blew his mind – all our prior exhortations about their fakeness went unheeded, and I was glad.

Blowing His Mind

Until we meandered down the path towards dino #2 – a meat eater with some mad crazy teeth and a water-spitting feature that flipped Jack from “wildly excited” to “terrified out of his mind.”  So, we carried his quivering frame the rest of the way.  Liam, of course, strutted down the path without blinking an eye.

I am a bar-studying freak, and all I could think about was that Jack was in apprehension of an offensive touching and therefore the animatronic dinosaur was committing an assault on my child.
There were no pix of Jack in front of the dinosaurs - just outtakes of the back of Jack's head as he kept a vigilant eye on the threat behind him.
This was taken in front of the very-far-away-and-also-friendly-brachiosaurus, aka broccolisaurus.
Can you blame the kid for being nervous? This T. rex had even me quivering in my boots, and I know better!
They had a little archaeologist exhibit thing at the end. The boys' shoes were filled with sand in very short order.
The dino skeleton made an impression, and Jack still talks about it.
The zoo also contained some living, if much less exciting, animals. Here, Nana is holding up Liam so he can see the elephants get a bath.
This baby giraffe was two weeks old, and was over six feet tall at birth.
Oh no! Looks like a monkey escaped its exhibit!

Besides rocking Jack’s world at the zoo and watching drive in movies, the boys have gone to playgrounds (indoor and out), gone on hikes, gone swimming in lakes and pools, picked tomatoes from my father’s garden, ridden on a boat, and done myriad other activities that have made this summer the best on record.  Although we’re looking forward to getting permanently into our new place (spared the tropical storm, by the by), I’ll be sad to see this amazing summer end.  Bar review, not so much – but that aside, summer 2012 has been just perfect.

One Comment

  • Attorney At Large

    July 1, 2012 at 6:34 pm

    We had the same dinosaur exhibit here for a couple of summers. All I could say was thank heaven for free-member-preview days, because both years, Pea freaked the hell out. She wouldn’t even walk past that area of the zoo for months afterward! (And this is a dino-oriented kid!) (But M and I loved it!)

    Your boys are dolls. I can’t believe how big they are!