Summer’s finally here, and our little boy Aaron turned four years old on Monday! More on that in a moment.

On Friday, Vivian and I decided to kick off the summer with a little mid-year sushi binge. I had a Groupon for the sushi train, where we had our sushi anniversary six months ago, so we headed back for another round at dinner time.

Then on Saturday, Aaron had a tee-ball game and Hannah attended a birthday party with her friend Nicholette. Then our friend Kate had a birthday party for herself, which involved dinner at Sakura Sushi and then Telestrations at her apartment afterward. Hannah and I attended the latter part, which gave Hannah a few hours of quality time with Other Hannah as her sisters joined us in drawing several goofy drawings together upstairs.

Then on Sunday, we celebrated Aaron’s birthday down at the splash pad at H.W. Banner Park. The water features were all running, so it was a fun way to keep cool (even if the temperature didn’t reach ninety-nine degrees as they’d predicted). We had some snacks for the kids as guests arrived. My folks along with Uncle Jonny and Nathan both stopped by along with an assortment of Aaron’s little friends.

Then Grammy broke out a giant jungle cake for dessert. Aaron had to pretend to blow out the candles, as the wind kept us from keeping them lit for real. Then Aaron got to open a bunch of presents, most of which had a superhero theme to them, in addition to Uncle Nathan’s pool noodles (which Aaron got a kick out of).

Then on Aaron’s actual birthday, we celebrated with a tornado There were funnel clouds in the area, so they sirens went off right next to our house. We spent some time in the basement watching Happy Birthday cartoons on Netflix as Pop-Pop baked a couple pizzas upstairs. Once it was reasonably clear, we ate upstairs and then had some cupcakes with candles for Aaron to blow out before opening some more presents. (And he would still have a few more to open and grandma and grandpa’s house a week later.)

It’s supposed to get hot-hot-hot again over Father’s Day weekend, so Vivian brought the kids to spend one relatively cool day at the park to have lunch, swing, and practice jumping into daddy’s arms from the stage at Stinson Park.