In between hospital visits, nausea and a pile of work for Alex we've been having a wonderful start to summer. Spending time at the beach, drippy sweet ice cream cones and glazed paper sun umbrellas. Night market stall treats, bubble teas and fried potatoes impaled on wooden sticks. Sailboat picnics, Finn dressing himself complete with Captain's hat and words truly escaping us. Fish and chips wrapped in yesterday's newspaper and orange soda in curvy glass bottles. Spotting schools of shimmering silver fish the size of pennies. Sweets in paper bags, water parks, sea salt hair and toast brown toes. We also discovered the BEST frozen yogurt I've ever tried, not too sweet and just the right amount of tart. Even better coated with sliced bananas and some Cap'N Crunch.

This past weekend we were lucky enough to attend the yearly Open House of a nearby animal rescue and rehabilitation centre. It was amazing to see the work these volunteers are involved with, not to mention all the beautiful sweet faced baby animals. We fell head over heels for a young spotted doe named Isabella, Finn "adopted" her and now has her photo on his magnet board. It was wonderful to see all these creatures well on their way to being released and given a second chance. One raccoon took an unusual interest in me, to the point where even our tour guide was laughing. He seemed quite insistent on getting me to play with him, sorry tiny masked friend...I'd already been warned about your habit of biting fingers. It was a great opportunity to see baby opossums being bottle fed, minuscule skunks, bobcats, river otters who move like jello on springs, etc. Finn still hasn't stopped talking about it.

With the end of the school year wrapping up and having Finn at home every day, plus the 24 hour a day nauseathon...I hadn't realized how long it had been since i'd written here. Besides the joy of getting daily musical performances from Finn and trying to keep upset stomachs away with ginger tea and crackers, not a lot has been going on. Birthday parties and extra visits with Papa who has hit a bit of a rough health patch and needs the extra cheering up. Lots of early to bed nights and watching Freaks and Geeks, why did they ever cancel that show.

On the last day of school Finn had to go to a very early morning Dentist appointment, perfect checkup and a compliment on what a good patient he was. This was a miracle on many levels. We rushed over to school and Alex and I got to watch Finn and his classmates perform their amazing water song "water goes up, evaporation. turns into clouds, condensation. falls to the ground, precipitation. round and around like a merry go round". Adorable little ones.

My mom used to always give me a special "end of the year" present on the last school day, it was usually a goodie bag of all sorts of summer themed things: a new bathing suit and towel, archie comics to read at the lake, a net to catch frogs, variety packs of lipsmackers etc. I decided to continue the tradition for Finn and filled a new net beach bag with all sorts of beach treats: an alligator kickboard, spiderman frisbee, inflatable butterfly float, toy great white shark and hammerhead shark, many sandcastle making tools inside a boat, shark shaped shovel, spiderman aqua shoes, beginning to read Little Bear books, cookie monster and friends towel, and bubbles. It was well received, I think he screamed "thank you" each and every time he pulled a new thing out of the bag. We've been writing a lengthy list of fun summertime things to do, I'm hoping we get to start them this week.

Things that made this week that much sweeter/nicer/better:

*Peonies, chubby pink frilly lace edged bushels of them

*Fans to cool the house down at night, combined with an open window and thin cotton sheets it's even nicer

*News you've been crossing your fingers and hoping/praying/wanting to hear

*Toadstool nightlights, magical

*Real Houswives of New Jersey: table tossing, bubbies, goodies, scary hairless cats, endless entertainment.

My bathtub Spiderman. Small things can make a little boy's world exciting. Spiderman themed swim goggles,flippers,and webbed water shooting gloves make a little boy's bath VERY EXCITING.

Just realizing that after today, Finn only has three more classes at preschool. Where does the time go?! I still have to finish up his Teacher gift baskets and get things organized for all his summer camps. Last week was pretty much a write off, battling my own waves of nausea and fatigue while looking after a sweaty feverish vomitting little boy. I want to thank the inventor of Pedialyte freezies, you saved me and rehydrated Finn in no time. Finn now wonders why he's not allowed to have a blue freezie for breakfast "like last week". Tried to keep his spirits up with Spiderman stories, new buttons for his crocs and some miniature bubble bath packages shaped like animals. It's not easy being forced to stay at home and inside for nearly a week, especially when you're missing fun things at school and ice skating and swimming lessons. I'm thrilled he's back up and running, literally.

Today we're handing out the "Have a Great Summer" end of the year treat bags, I got sidetracked and my plans to make individual homemade marshmallow "fallen icecream" cones...just didn't happen. I made enough for Alex and Finn to heavily sample, my nausea and sleepiness just put the kibosh on making enough for an entire class. Another time. Instead I cheated and stocked up on Kinder Surprise Eggs and Ring Pops for the bags, not homemade and not very "beach" themed, but sometimes rest and sanity takes precedence. Besides that we have marbles and foam capsules that turn into ocean animals, and the seahorse and crab magnets that hold the bags closed. We filled a giant antique glaass fishbowl with all the "goldfish" soap bags. Alex helped me at the last second print labels, I attached them all to the tags and then noticed: oh goldfish is NOT two words and glycerin does not have an E at the end, unless we are speaking french. I think 4 year olds are pretty forgiving when it comes to spelling, especially since most cannot read...so the spelling errors stay.

Besides that nothing to report (yet). Enjoying the warm weather and longer days, loving the watercolour masterpieces Finn creates at his easel. Finding myself very thankful and humbled by the kindness of my family and their constant unwavering love.

Last week was one of those funny ones that seem to dawdle along and last and last and last. We had a week of heatwave weather (here, if you need to leave your sweater at home=heatwave) and I think with the sun staying up longer and it taking a few hours to cool the house back down with open patio doors and whirring black iron fans, we just would stay up that much later each night. I've been living off mango everything and iced milky coffees. Finn and Alex have been loving my aversion to using the stove and instead grilling everything in the backyard, they've been experimenting with wild burger toppings (tzatziki, hummus, avocado salsa, artichoke tapenade, etc).

We found a beautiful jade green frog inside our water feature, his jet black eyes could beat the most fierce staring contest competitor. Each morning I've been drinking my morning iced coffee and watching him swim laps back and forth in the ceramic water bowl, after he's got his workout he climbs into the reeds and sits waiting for lost mosquitoes and bees to leap on. For a few days he seemed to have a teeny speckled long legged buddy, but she seems to have left. Finn is the most excited about our new yard mate, I made the mistake of getting a little too close and was sternly told "stop bothering him, he wants privacy". Finn laughs like a maniac when the frog pushes the mercury silver floating balls around, working his pectorals I guess. I'm hoping he stays for the summer and doesn't become a bird's afternoon canape.

This week was a great lesson on friendship and it's restorative powers, how to accept the rewards of friendship and how to (hopefully) return the favor and be a good friend. Getting a lovely letter and beautiful custom correspondence cards from Grace the wonderful, being invited over for a delicious dinner with incredibly good food and wine and even better conversation, lots of catch up calls and checking in texts...and my best friend in the world, my much better half, with all the things he does on a daily basis. From giving Finn his evening bath to picking up closing hour timed tropical smoothie cravings, indulging my love of Twilight and The Real Housewives of New Jersey, telling me no less than ten times hourly that i'm beautiful ( even when i'm hot, sweaty and frazzled), and making me laugh till my stomach aches constantly.

Finn's home today, yesterday after skating lessons he started to have a fever and with a few hours of sweaty brow and complaining of being cold...his fever finally broke. The healing powers of children's tylenol, orange juice slush and being allowed to watch Spiderman from the couch in his underwear with pillows and blankets. I checked on him about a dozen times in the night, sneaking in and feeling his forehead with my wrist, stepping on matchbox cars and trying not to curse, bashing myself on a towering tinker toys skyscraper. Just to be on the safe side, I'm keeping him home from school for the day. An extra few hours of classic Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry cartoons, couch snuggles, fruit juice popsicles and readings of Frog and Toad can't hurt.

I was looking at pictures of Tori Spelling's ( don't ask, I can't explain my love for her even if I tried) old house and fell in LOVE with her son Liam's bedroom. Octopus wallpaper( or stencils, I can't tell and I spent way too much time googling "octopus wallpaper" with zero luck)! I am now obsessed with finding out if such a thing exists or was a pricey custom design. How great would octopus walls be for a child's bathroom, i'm going to figure out how to make this happen or make myself crazy trying.

Not even going to try and deny, i'm truly excited for this.