So Close!

Spring is coming!  It’s so close, I can feel it in my bones!

This is my last week of school before spring break next week, and the kids and I are READY. I can always tell when spring is coming because I start to get a little restless. I get bored with normal things. I don’t want to go home and cook dinner. I don’t want to give baths and read bedtime books. I want to play outside in the front yard. Ride bikes or go swimming.

It actually drives Chris crazy when I get spring fever like this. He complains because none of the laundry gets done on the weekends and dinner is ready later than normal. But I can’t help it. Why be inside when you could be outside instead?

Thankfully, my kids share my love of the sunshine and so when I picked them up early from school today, they didn’t bat an eye when I said, “Let’s go to the splash park!”

I can already tell that this year is going to be our best year ever with the kids. Why? Because I didn’t have to pack ANYTHING for our trip to the park today. They ran upstairs and changed into their bathing suits by themselves. They grabbed their own towels and water bottles, I changed out of my work clothes, and – VOILA! – within 15 minutes, we were back in the car again, heading to the splash park.

When I came home, I discovered that Chris had gotten our pool back up and running for the spring. During the winter, we treat it differently, so it always takes a week or so to get it “swimmable” again when spring comes. But it’s ready now, which means I get to have my first swim of the year this weekend. I can’t wait! We also had a few lawn guys come out today and trim our palm trees, pull out some old shrubbery I have hated since we first bought the house, and clear out two of our flower beds in the backyard. Now, all we have to do is plant fresh flowers in the beds and clean up the yard toys and we are ready for summer.

We usually take one weekend right when spring begins to get the backyard cleaned up and de-wintered. We go through our old pool toys and decide what to keep and what to replace. We pull out our play equipment, like the playhouse, bikes, the splash table, and the sandbox, and we clean them all with soap and water so they are ready for another year of use. We cut back trees and shrubbery and just generally get the yard ready for everyday use again. It’s one of my favorite days of the year because it means the pool is open for business again!

I also know it’s spring because I signed the kids up for swimming lessons again. We do swimming lessons every spring, right before we start swimming a lot at home. I make the kids do enough rounds of lessons that they can each swim, but then if they want to keep taking lessons through the summer, we do that, too. Bean always loves swimming lessons. In fact, he might try out for the summer swim team this year. Gracie Girl is another story. She was mad today because someone shot her with a water gun and got her hair wet! Such a diva!

Yes, spring fever is here. We are ready for hot weather, cool water, watermelon, suntan lotion, movie nights by the pool, mornings at Downtown Disney, afternoons at splash pads, popsicles, bike riding, driveway sitting, after-dinner walks, sundresses, and flip flops. We love our Florida sunshine!