Summer vacation doesn’t seem like it’ll be happening this year, as we suddenly find ourselves busy every moment of the activity between work, school, and summer activities together (and also some time at the park hunting for mushrooms). Grammy is taking off for a month-long trip to see family in California, so we had her over for one last haircut and then a goodbye dinner with the kids before she left.

In the meantime, both Hannah and Aaron are going to be in summer school full-time for around a month. This is a whole new public school experience for both of them, but we thought it would be a good experience to try something new, at least for a few weeks, to see how it goes. They both seem particularly happy about riding the bus to school, and mommy and daddy have been watching them take off every day this week.

Then on Tuesday, we spent an evening at Lauritzen Gardens with the Mills. The Bellevue Public Library was hosting a free event showing us a variety of “wicked” plants and letting us plant our own venus flytraps, which was particularly fun. At the same time, an oldies cover band called the Greasers was playing to several hundred gray-haired Boomers who seemed to cover every free space of green in the patio area out back.

Once we were done with our plants, we walked right past and spent an hour or two exploring the gardens, looking at the trains, gnomes, and usual sights such as the children’s garden, the Japanese shrine (and dance hut), and a rose garden in full bloom. It was a quieter night than we’ve ever spent, and it felt very much like we had the gardens to ourselves.

This next week, we’ll have a trifecta of events to bring summer busy-ness to a fever pitch — namely Arch Omaha Unite with Jim Gaffigan on Saturday, Aaron’s birthday, and a week of VBS filling every other spare moment. Maybe when that’s over I’ll have another blog update for you (but not before)!