Goodbye Summer :-(

Well, today was the official end of summer in the Johnson house...it was the last Splash Day Thursday. To give a little history on what that means you have to know a little about us Johnsons and our home. First of all, Greg and I LOVE summer! Everything about it makes us happy...it's as if we still associate it with school being out. I guess we kinda do, even though we haven't been "out for summer" for over 10 years now and are actually closer to being back on the school calendar than we can believe (NEXT year!). Anyways, we have always loved swimming, lounging poolside, getting tan (I know, I know...I wear sunscreen now and so do the kids!). So when we were looking for our first home, we were shocked when we found the house we now live in...it had a backyard AND a pool! Definitely, a novelty in this neck of the woods! After we saw the house (and the lot) we got to talking and dreaming about making it our home and Greg said "that backyard is MADE for kids and it won't be any good if it's not shared." From that comment, Splash Day Thursday was born!

Every Thursday, we open the backyard to moms and kids to come and swim, play, eat lunch and have fun! It's been a great tradition and a wonderful way to see friends, stay cool and enjoy the summer! It's been so neat to see the kids grow and their swimming abilities sky rocket! It's always a neat group of people from many different "worlds" in my life...Will's friends, Grady's friends, friends I used to work with, PT school friends, church friends...the list goes on. Everyone is laid back and the common denominator is the children and it's just so wonderful to see the kids having so much fun! It's so funny to think back to what it was like when we first started Splash Day Thursday, 4 summers ago, when Will was 16 months old. A big group that seemed crazy at times was 5 moms with 5 kids. I think this summer we maxed out with about 12 or 13 moms and 34 people total. It's wild but fun and I figure everyone enjoys it or they wouldn't keep coming! It's defintely become a staple of our summer and the boys were sad to hear that today was the last Splash Day of the summer.

Definitely more fun to come in Summer 2008!

Boys throwing rocks into the creek:

The "jet ski" has been a great addition to Splash Day for the last 2 summers...Granna and Bubba (Greg's parents) found it at Dillard's at Christmas, it's an inflatable, battery operated jet ski that the kids can drive. They LOVE it!
The Dries girls helping B (my mom) give RJ a bottle:

Will showing the girls his dinosaurs:

Grady, not to be out done by Will's dinosaurs, decides he's done with his swimsuit and is ready to "swim with his penis" as he lovingly calls skinny dipping!