We really haven’t done much to prepare for school yet.  That will be this week’s task.

Last week we were on vacation in DC & Virginia.  I’ll post more about each of our locations over the next week or so, but first some general trip thoughts.

• We drove.  This works well with so many people and a relatively short trip.  We also needed a car while there.  But, I do have some thoughts on that subject.
  • First, I’m not sure Google Maps can properly estimate traffic hours into your journey.  It persisted on sending us through NYC on the George Washington Bridge.  Much past experience (paper map driving days) tells me to take the Tappan Zee/Garden State Parkway route.
  • On the plus side, Google Maps did suggest a new to us route east of the Tappan Zee bridge which we will have to make note of because it was much better than our previous trips on the Saw Mill Parkway.
  • I also wish the Google Maps app could let you quickly switch between routes like you can on a computer.  It is very difficult to check alternate routes while underway.
  • Why oh why are rest areas in New Jersey so terrible?  I somewhat understand the issues with the ones closest to NYC.  There’s a big time gap between rest areas on the east and west of NYC so lots of people stop immediately after; that’s a big drain on anyplace.  But, we stopped much further south and still terrible.
  • On the other hand, big thumbs up to Maryland House.  I remember this one from childhood trips and it is still excellent.  I’d like to assume the other rest stops in Maryland are just as nice.

And now for the previous week.

• Three kids were at tech camp.
  
• Our oldest spent the week preparing for a Home Run derby, which ended up being rescheduled and then cancelled for weather.  It has been very rainy here the past two and a half weeks.
• I signed the middle four up for fall swimming lessons.
• The boys had haircuts.
• One child went to two birthday parties.
• We went to one doctor’s appointment.

It’s almost officially summer.

This should have posted on Tuesday so clearly I am not yet back on track from the spring.  Summer, with everyone home, won’t help so be prepared for things to be a little less organized until they’re back to school in September.

I never did get a post up this season about our typical week, but I’m not sure there was such a thing.  The kids were in school until about 3:00 everyday.  Then our oldest had middle school baseball (practice or game) most days until about 5:00.  The real kicker is the evening timeslot.

Between 5:30 and 8:00 pm in a typical week we had all of the following on weekdays:

• Four soccer practices.  Two each for kids A & C.
• Three baseball games.  One for kid D and two for kid A.
• Three baseball practices for kid A.

Plus a few one time random items that fell in that same weekday timeslot:

• Soccer ratings for kids A & C.
• A makeup soccer game for kid A.  These  are usually on Saturdays.
• A chorus concert for kid A.  A twice annual event for every grade at school.
• A school committee meeting for me.  I never go to these, but this was one where they were soliciting feedback on a new proposal of great significance to us.  Of course it fell in May!
• I spoke at the Kindergarten panel for incoming students.  Again, a one-off that happened to fall in May.

It was quite the juggling act to determine which thing kid A was going to.  And, we had to sort drivers because we almost always had two – three on Mondays – different fields to get to.

Then last week when the playoffs hit it bumped to five baseball games in one week!

So, now we take a deep breathe.  Soccer, and most baseball, is done until next fall/spring.  One baseball team will continue, though in a much less time consuming fashion.  Other kids are participating in swimming lessons, tech camp, and track camp over the summer.  I’m sure we’ll go someplace.

But other things did manage to happen in the past month:

• We finished up gymnastics class, bike club, and math mornings.
• Our youngest boy went to Kindergarten screening and graduated from preschool.
• The kids attended four birthday parties – oddly including each boy exactly once!
• We had three dentist appointments.

I did get some things done around the house also.  I’ll write about those in another post.  And, talk about what I hope to get done over the summer.

It was the usually busy week last week:

• 9 baseball games
• 2 baseball practices
• 3 soccer games
• 2 soccer practices
• 1 soccer ratings (for next Fall)
• 1 gymnastics class
• 2 bike clubs
• 2 math mornings
• 1 playdate

That’s just the kids.  And even this was light as the first grader’s Saturday afternoon was rained out.

We also had two adult medical appointments.

But, we roll on having officially passed the midway point of the baseball/soccer season!

This was the first week of the spring where we had no sports rain-outs!  That gave us a fairly typical spring week of:

• 8 baseball games
• 4 baseball practices
• 4 soccer practices
• 2 soccer games
• 1 gymnastics class
• 2 at bike club
• 2 at Before School Sports
• 2 at Math Morning

My oldest was a tour guide for the 5th graders visiting Middle School.

I didn’t have any specific appointments, but I:

• read and recycled a few back issues of a magazine.
• mailed my last return from last week’s clean out.
• continued work on this month’s clean out.
• dropped off a pair of shoes to be repaired.
• tried using the Instant Pot to hard boil eggs.  That worked really well.
• Built one of two bags of the backlogged LEGO set.  As a result we have half a fire truck.