Summertime

Last Friday was Aunt Sarah's last day in Rhode Island.  The kiddos really enjoyed her visit ...

... and, despite the smiles, Madeline was sad to see her off at the airport.

The weekend got off to a quiet start ...

... but once everyone was dressed ...

... and we'd checked on Summer's papier-mâché skulls (made by her to protect jello brains also made by her) ...

... we were out of the house and off, first to Petra's second birthday party, and then to a play date with Oliver's good friend Benji!

The play date was Oliver's first focused just on him (sans a Madeline-aged sibling), and he had a great time.  He and Benji play really nicely together.

On Sunday, Summer spent much of the day working, so I took the kiddos to the zoo.  Madeline befriended another goat (she called it her "Buddy Goat").

And for some reason, for most of the trip neither kid would remove their sweatshirt despite bright sun and temperatures in the mid-80s.

After the zoo, we went to Newport Creamery for a fine lunch of macaroni and cheese, apple sauce, and ice cream.

Then later Sunday afternoon, we went to visit Jeff, Carissa, and Kyla at their new house.  Oliver and Kyla got along splendidly, and the rest of us had a blast too.

This week, while Summer had been teaching a course at Brown, Madeline has been with me.  She's spent some time at my office, and I've spent some time working in unorthodox locations, like the yard of the nearby elementary school, where Madeline found a birds' nest.

Meanwhile, Oliver has been living it up at his school, which he really loves:

All in all, Madeline has been (surprisingly) fantastically well behaved for me all week, allowing me to get a lot done.  But by the end of the day yesterday, I sensed that she wasn't using up quite enough energy to suit her.  So today after lunch, we took a break to go running together.

We planned to run around the block that houses the elementary school.  So we got our game faces on ...

... and we ran around the school twice, for a total of about 0.6 miles!  At the end, we were tired.

In fact, the plan worked so well that Madeline took a (very rare) nap later in the afternoon.