We’ve now been in Philadelphia for four weeks, and our car decided that was enough. We woke up one morning to a tire that had incredibly low pressure, and upon inspection, it had a screw in it. Oops. MJ’s friend Matti was in town, so they were able to take it over to a local tire shop to get it patched. I’m also happy to report that the ant problem that welcomed us into town has been resolved, and the townhouse is back to being relatively bug-free.
Probably the only on-going challenge with this visit has been staying on top of chores and organization of stuff. Since this is a vacation home, we don’t have a lot spaces for storage, with the assumption that we wouldn’t be keeping much stuff here. Kids changed all that in ways we didn’t expect, and we actually have to stash quite a bit of stuff between visits, and it all ends up being rather chaotic. The other day Adam and I went over to Target and picked up a little square book case to store our growing collection of books, and have a place to keep our library books. They helped me assemble it!
The library books were checked out on Adam’s shiny new library card. We didn’t get him one last year when I got mine because he wasn’t mature enough, but this year he was really excited about getting a card, so MJ and Matti took the boys and our au pair out to the library one day while I was working to get him a card of his own. He came home with a huge pile of books, and a big smile on his face. It’s nice to see the boys have so far inherited my love of books. Now we just need to read them all before it’s time to return them this week.
We also decided this summer was the right time to start swimming lessons. We’d been meaning to do it in California, but a lot of classes I’d heard of are either expensive or have waiting lists, and we just hadn’t made it a priority. When MJ’s step-sister Irina told us about having enrolled her 3 year old in British Swim School classes at a local gym, I looked into it. It turned out to be not too expensive for the two of them and a good instructor to student ratio, the timing was right, and it gave us something to do over the summer once a week. They’ve had two classes so far and have acclimated to the water better than I expected, no one has cried yet! It also turns out there’s a franchise location near our home in California, so while they can’t directly transfer progress, the can put together a little report at the conclusion of our visit so the transition can be easier.
On June 22nd we had more summer time fun by going to a Phillies game. The boys had never been to Citizen’s Bank park, and we have growing confidence that they can tolerate an event in a loud stadium. It worked out well, aside from going on one of the hottest days of the year. The temperature peaked around 97 degrees during the game, and the only thing that saved us was that we secured seats in the shade. We went with Matti and her husband and brother, along with Irina and little Sammy, which gave us some great company for the game. The boys definitely enjoyed having other people there, but most of all I think they liked the ice cream, even though it melted at record pace in the hot weather. The boys were also quite melty by the end of the game, so it was a good thing it was a quick game, and the Phillies won!
That same weekend we also took the opportunity to start the process of getting a couple heirloom chairs re-upholstered. We went to a local place and spent a little time going through fabric books, which we brought home for the weekend to check them out in different lighting. The chairs probably won’t be done on this trip, since the fabric needs to come in and then the work to actually get them completed, but it was nice to get them in the queue for next time, so they’ll be ready when we return.
The next week began with Adam coming down with an unexpected cough and fever for several days, keeping us quite close to home during the work week. I took Aaron out to the library one morning, and picked up a science experiment book to keep Adam entertained while home-ridden. It worked! When he was feeling well enough to be peeled off the couch, he always had another experiment to do. The library is also doing a “Summer Quest” program, which lets kids earn badges for tasks completed, like building things and doing experiments! Adam has one badge under his belt so far, which I hope we can pick up this week.
We’ve also been making progress on our Lego building, with the train completed and a new fire station set we picked up from Kohl’s with a gift card the boys received for Hanukkah last year.
Thankfully no one else got sick, and by Friday his fever had broken and we were free to visit people over the weekend again. Still, we stayed close to home for the weekend, visiting family and doing some errands. It’s tempting to have a big adventure every weekend because it’s summertime and we’re near family, but we also decided to fly to Florida this Friday, so it was really helpful to have a quiet weekend where I could catch up with cleaning and chores before our little tropical adventure.
We’ll be visiting family while in Florida, including MJ’s cousin and one of the youngest members of our family, and seeing my grandfather and several aunts, uncles and cousins of mine. The logistics of the trip will be a bit complicated, but aside from day to day “see $person on $day” we decided not to pack our schedules. We will have a lot of flexibility each day, so we can afford to enjoy some pools and take our time, and I’m hoping that will keep the stress levels manageable as we switch hotels and do a bit more driving than we’re used to.