Ditto

My oh my... is it really TWO weeks after the 4th of July?? I've only been working on this post for the past week...so yea it's been a little hectic. 

This summer is flying by and I'm pretty sure I can mostly blame my school work on that...and probably a little boy for the rest! Most of my evenings and Sunday afternoons/evenings are spent at the computer doing homework, quizzes or exams. Sometimes I have to sit outside with the laptop in hand while Bryce plays. I've even reactivated my Verizon wireless card so that I can work on school work at the lake...IF I have any spare time.  I know I'm about to drive Nic crazy. At least when I'm finished (in just a couple of weeks) I will be 6 hours closer to getting my Bachelor's degree with only 18 hours remaining! Depending on the availability of the courses I need in the Spring and Summer of next year, I could be finished by next Summer...BUT no later than next Fall!! I'm so close I can taste it! I'm strongly considering pursuing my Master's, but we'll see since the thought of having no school work to do sounds pretty wonderful at this point!

So let's rewind a little...

On my last post I said I was going to share some pictures from Memorial day...so here goes.

We had a lot of rain right around Easter, then right before Memorial Day. Of course it couldn't be a nice soft rain, it had to be excessive which caused Ft. Gibson to be up around 18 ft on Memorial Day Weekend. If we wanted to get to the boat dock, we had to take a paddle boat there.

Since the lake was so high it pretty much eliminated the boating activities, especially when you have a child who does not like to spend more time than he has to in his life jacket. We prefer to go to an area that we call an island, where it is extremely shallow and has a gravel bottom, since the lake was so high our little island was like Atlantis buried at the bottom of the ocean. 

Since the lake was out of the question I bought Bryce a little swimming pool to use at our camp. Bryce definitely made the best of it!

Bryce and a friend sharing their chair and chicken fries.

Of course we cannot forget that most of the camp ground was a disaster due to the tornado that went right through the middle of it.

Cousin Kell came up one day and continued working on his photography skills. 

Taking a nap wherever is comfortable. 

An almost family photo. 

 

Since then we've spent many weekends at the lake as we usually do in the summer. Bryce has adjusted to where he sleeps all night there just as if he was at home. He's really attached to his silky bear so we have one at the house and one at the lake. We also have a blanket made of the same material that he loves, but I haven't been able to find another one like it. Since this boy loves the outdoors, he's pretty content spending the weekends at the lake. He's even gotten somewhat of a tan, which makes his blond hair look even lighter. He's often called a towhead.

Despite all the rain in May, we've have very little rain since. The grass is as brown as if it were dormant. After the lake being so high on Memorial Day Weekend, it was nearly 2 feet below normal for the Fourth of July weekend. At least our island was definitely above water.

Bryce enjoyed the fireworks too!

Not only are we facing drought conditions to where many counties and towns are implementing mandatory water rationing, it has been extremely hot. So far this year we've had 15 days above 100 degrees, compared to the 14 we had last year and we're not even into the "Dog Day of Summer" yet!

Bryce continues to be brave, with the exception of deep water. Most of the summer he has preferred sitting in the water, but the past couple of weekends he has let me carry him into deeper water where I spin around with him. He even will take a few splashes to the face and give some back. We probably should have kept him in swim lessons over the winter, but we were just too busy. Now the next goal is to get him in the deeper water with a life jacket or a puddle jumper on so my nerves can relax a little.

His vocabulary is quickly expanding and he's starting to say names. The funniest is that he knows Daddy's name, so sometimes he says "Da", then sometimes he says "Nic". Currently his favorite words are "This" and "That". They seem to be used interchangeably when he's wanting something or wanting you to see something.

Here's just a few random photos. 

Helping out in the garden. 

Sampling the cookie dough.

His obsession with glasses. 

Finding new uses for his toys. 

Painting Mommy's toe nails..

and his!

He's so much fun!!!!!!