Every night over the past two weeks I’ve thought about blogging about my day. Seems like each day held enough activity for it to be interesting, but since every day was the same, it made it hard for anything in particular to stand out.

In general, heres what’s been going on.

For the past two weeks Jack has had soccer camp from 9-12 at UIC Soccer Camp.

I think he really enjoyed it. He’s one of those kids who will not tell you a single thing about his day. I’m not sure if he doesn’t remember it or if it’s some innate guy thing to just experience it, don’t over analyze, and move on.

I knew soccer camp was a real guys thing when I dropped him off on the first day. His coach, Alex, found him playing with his soccer ball. Instead of introducing himself he stole the ball and started juggling. Jack face lit up. The entire time another boy was following Alex around, complaining that his shin guards hurt. Alex completely ignored him. I liked this guy’s style.

Ben didn’t want to separate from Jack for soccer camp.

He signed up with his buddy from school, Timmy. We did an exchange where Timmy’s parent’s drove Jack to camp and I picked the boys up. Timmy stayed with us until his mom got off work. I had a built in play date for Jack every day! It was awesome.

Water Squirters featured heavily these past two weeks. (On our back porch)

On the days she could, Anjelica came early so I could pick the boys up from soccer camp with Ben. Then we’d go to lunch, hit a park or hang out on the back deck sometimes with another set of boys that Jack, Ben and Timmy went to school with, Kaden and Chase.

In the Sandbox.

Other friends joined us too, like the Camerons and the Weinrebs.

Anjelica was so flexible with her time, thank goodness. She ended up working full time for the past 2 weeks. I didn’t make it easy for her either. After tiring the older boys out all afternoon, some days I would leave her with all four kids and go exercise. She was surprisingly unflustered by it.

All the other boys play games together with the water squirters, Ben prefers to water the flowers. (Weisman Park)

On Monday my mom comes to help for the next two weeks. I’m really looking forward to having her here. Extra help! 24 hours a day! I can’t wait!

Once again we were all boys, 9 of us together. I often wonder what it would be like if we all had girls. Would the goal of the day every day still be finding a space for them to exercise like mad in the hopes of tiring our kids out as much as possible? Or could we all just sit nicely doing arts and crafts?

We tried to do the Millennium Park Family Fun Festival but sadly it was over. Another sign summer is ending soon.

We still managed to find our own fun.

Surprsingly, after throwing their Transformers for a while, Jack's STARTED working again.

Ben also found ways to occupy himself.

Tree Hugger

We ended the morning at the Elusive Pirate Park. After spending the day at the beach yesterday and this morning walking the streets of Chicago, we thoroughly tired Japo out!

The Boys at the Pirate Park