Cheers to the Weekend, Soaking in Summer Edition

Hi friends! Happy Friday! I wanted to pop in one more time this week to recap what's been going on 'round these parts the last week or two, for memory's sake. But I'll be taking another hiatus next week, as we are headed out for the first of two beach trips with our extended family. This first one will be with my "in laws," and we are SO excited!!! I love being an aunt and love being around my nieces and nephews (and my own kiddos ;) ; so, you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be soaking in time with all of them next week! It may not be as relaxing as Cabo was, but it will still be fun. :) Before we go, though, a few things I'm saying CHEERS to as we welcome in the weekend: 

Swim Team. I will totally confess: I avoided Swim Team at all costs in years past. I never did Swim Team as a kid and knew nothing about it other than that there seemed to be a lot of practices and some late night meets. To be honest, I bribed my kids not to do it last year. This year, they begged and pleaded, and I finally obliged. And y'all? I LOVE SWIM TEAM!!! I was so, so wrong. Do they practice three to four days a week? Yes. Do some meets run late? Yes. But it's all jam-packed into two months of awesomeness, and it is now one of my favorite sports. 

Banks and Raleigh have never really had swim lessons. They didn't know how to do any actual strokes, and I honestly didn't know that Rals would make the team this year. But they both did, and I am so proud of how far they've already come! Raleigh now swims two events every meet - freestyle and backstroke - and she actually won her heat at the meet earlier this week! And got second overall in freestyle last night!! I teared up watching her swim - this little girl, who could only doggy-paddle last month and is now improving each week and getting faster each meet. Go Rals! And Banks, my uber competitor, is loving it and doing really well in all of his individual and relay events. I love cheering him on! Go Banks! And it is such a fun, social sport. The kids get to hang with their buddies, and my hub and I get to hang with ours. Yep, I am now ALL IN for swim team, who is now 3-0 after last night! Go Greenwave!

Girls/Boys weekends. Two weekends ago, my boys went to Clemson for the weekend while we girls stayed back home. I'm not sure who had more fun! Dabo Swinney Football Camp was AMAZING. Banks loved it! 

And Harrison and my hub had the best time traipsing all over the Clemson campus, taking in a Clemson baseball game, and hanging with one of my best friends in the world and her sweet boys, who live in Clemson. They had a BLAST!

Meanwhile, back in the Mill, we girls donut'd and pooled and churched and ice creamed and shopped and walked and just had ourselves a good ol' time!

Etc. Let's see. We've been starting three mornings a week bright and early with therapies for Bels and swim team for Banks/Rals; so, our mornings tend to be a little crazy but then the afternoons are wide open! Harrison also participated in VBS this week, which he loved, especially having one of his best buddies there with him for part of it. 

We had three nights of swim meets this week, after one was postponed halfway through due to storms. We also had our entire downstairs and part of our upstairs painted (more on that in a future post-no time for the details today), all in less than 48 hours! We have hit the pool as much as we can, visited Pelicans for snow balls, and found time to hit up Costco for our impending beach trip. In short, it's been busy but fun 'round these parts!

And with that, I'm off to spend a good portion of the day packing for the beach! I hope everyone has a great week (and Go Greenwave! We'll be rooting you on from afar next week!), and I'll be back soon with a beach recap, more confessions, some products I'm loving lately, a swim team and All-Stars baseball update, and a peek at our new paint job. :) TGIF, friends! Have a GREAT week/end!