The boys started their first day of school today and LOOK…my last post was about their LAST day LAST year. Moving takes up a LOT of time! We closed on our new house on June 2nd, but moved in a week later (after some painting was done) on June 9th. We were actually the proud owners of 2 homes until the next week on June 19th (and in between, we went back several times to get “stuff” that we left behind, clean, and say a tearful goodbye).
So…we are no longer "AT THE 554". Nope. We’re apparently somewhere 39 miles west of Chicago…or so I was told. Our new house address is 39W850. Apparently, the first part indicates that we are 39 miles west of Chicago. After you read my very last post here, you can pop on over to the new blog I created from39west.blogspot.com because, really…we can’t be geographically inaccurate, can we? I say no.
Instead of making this post go all wordy catching up…I’ll pick some summer picture highlights, add captions and call it a day!
More Pics from the last day at Southbury: Brady and his buddy Jackson (who just started kindergarten TODAY), Aiden & his buddy David

Who’s a fourth grader?!
Brady composed a summer “to do” list which included: sleep, play, read in the dark, lax it, be cool, make BFFs, drop (eggs), use a sword and chill.
We packed…lots and lots of cords
We played and watched Lacrosse and cheered our boys on to an undefeated season for the Geneva team (Aiden #4, Logan #9)
We loved our coaches!
We were treated to a fabulous “going away” party by our neighborhood friends who bought us this cool piece of artwork and all signed the back
 
We had a sleep over at our new house the night before a lacrosse tournament hosted in our new town (we hadn’t yet moved in)  
We played and watched the final tournament games…     
and we won the coveted cup!

We moved in! While following the moving truck to 39West, we played Phillip Phillips “Home” and sang along.
We were greeted with goodies from the builder,
and stared down the blank walls of the place we would now call home.
 
our new couch arrived.
We made breakfast on the new stove for the first time and, lacking a kitchen table, we picnicked on the floor. The boys declared that, whenever you get a new home, you should ALWAYS eat French toast and bacon on the floor to celebrate.
We explored our new neighborhood, including the “nature path” that starts at the end of our block, leads down some stairs, over a bridge, and into a big, wide-open field. Later the same day, the boys went out on their own while I unpacked. Upon their return, Logan said to me, “I think we’re really going to love living here!”

We went camping. Aiden caught like 20 tiny little frogs and gave them a home in a plastic tote for 2 nights (and brought a few back which we released into the neighborhood pond)

 
We attended Swedish Days in downtown Geneva where Brady spent his “fair money” on the jumping harness thing (awesome)
We cheered on the USA in the World Cup and made pancakes to celebrate game day 
We laughed when vandals messed with the subdivision sign at least twice during the summer.           
We celebrated Aiden’s 8th birthday (a bit early)
Nana, Papa, and local family came! Nana and Papa celebrated the 4th of July with us in the big open field watching whatever fire works we could see
We played for hours on the dirt lot next door
and created some pretty stylish “dirt playing” outfits

We got another couch. It’s Brian’s. It’s good for naps…but mostly, the boys bother him in “the den” playing MineCraft on the Xbox.
We attended the Kane County Flea Market with Nana and Papa. I bought some cute chairs.
Aiden bought an old printer drawer for his crystal collection

which includes this ($35 dollar!!) beauty he bought with his birthday money at a store in our downtown that specializes in (drum roll)…crystals!!!
On Aiden’s actual birthday, he banned summer homework and requested bacon for every meal.  
We had backyard water fights
We made lots of new friends and even had some sleepovers
Our new friends played funny games like “zombie apocalypse crew”
and they made friends with Kona…who was the victim of an unfortunate summer haircut due to matting in her fur 
We attended the Geneva Arts Festival and got a little messy ourselves   
We played lacrosse in the front yard at dusk…
…even daddy.
When Brian went on a boy’s weekend, my men and I went on a nature hike and Logan practiced his photography.  

We did boy-style arts & crafts and dyed a lacrosse mesh with melted crayons.

Logan did his first-ever stringing job
We went to soccer camp for our new teams!
GG, GGpa, Auntie Denna, Nathan and Ryan visited us the weekend before school started. We went to a local park and butterfly exhibit
and then we got wet in the play area…
…and played some musical instruments, looking ever the part, in daddy’s borrowed fedora hat
and that was basically our summer. A whole lot of “don’t schedule too much, leave time for random friends knocking on the door so we can play,” kind of philosophy. We also went to the library, went to the Arboretum, met new friends for gelato downtown, joined a neighborhood book club (that would be me), went to the pool and stayed up late playing ghost in the graveyard.
goodbye atthe554. It was a great house…it was a great time…we’ll always have the internet blog ;) :)