A few of our favorite things

1. Summertime! Bruce and Phoebe have one more week of school left and are counting down the days until vacation. We get a zillion holidays during the school-year, so that combined with the other zillion snow days we had and we have a very late summer vacation.

2. Hampers. Oliver's new favorite trick is to overturn the hamper, throw out all the laundry piece by piece, and then climb in. And just hang out. He doesn't really do much once he's in there. He just sits.

3. Our garden! I am happy to be able to do a little more in the garden this year. Our little plot yields a few tiny ripe strawberries per day, plus a good-sized salad. We have strawberries, herbs, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, a million tomatoes, and a tiny blueberry bush.

4. Running. I recently switched running clubs from the Greater Boston Track Club to the Boston Athletic Association. GBTC practices were across town and increasingly difficult to get to, while the BAA practices are a half-mile from my house. I am getting to practice more reliably and I'm hoping this translates to better fitness at some point. I still feel postpartum lumpiness, but I managed to run a 19:56 in a hilly 5K last weekend (first race since the marathon!). This weekend I'm running a trail 5K that I am really excited about.

5. Minecraft. Every day after school, Bruce speeds through his chores so he can get his 30-minute fix of Minecraft. He builds villages, trades diamonds for cookies (makes sense, right?), battles zombies and dragons, and blows stuff up with TNT. Afterward he tells me all about it. I just nod my head.

6. Everything related to firetrucks. Phoebe is still crushing on firefighters, particularly the ones at the station closest to us. She knows a half-dozen of them by name and regularly tells stories about their firefighting exploits.

7. Scott! We celebrated Father's Day with a manly breakfast, new headlamps, church, and dinner with a radiology friend. Speaking of church and Scott, he got called as the second counselor in the bishopric two months ago. So far it means that he is stressed out a bit more, emails a lot more, disappears on Sundays, and doesn't sit with us in church. Looking on the bright side, he pays more attention in church (since he has to sit up front!), and gets to counsel people and make a difference in their lives.