The boys and I spent this past week in Oxford visiting my parents. Tom had the state tennis tournament to play in at home. This tournament never seems to go according to schedule and it ends up being hard to juggle the kids and their routine and Tom being in and out over the weekend. This year was no exception. It started raining a day or two before the tournament and all the match times got moved around due to the weather. Weeks before we had decided this would be a good time to plan to see my parents, and it worked out well.
It turned out the Ole Miss baseball camp was being held the same week we were there. Several of our friends were also planning to be there for the week and planning to go to the camp. Thomas said he’d like to try it, and he really enjoyed it. Over the weekend, Thomas and Arthur were constantly asking my dad to throw balls with them and pitch to them. This is a regular thing at our house. But I had to keep reminding them Pop isn’t as used to it as daddy is. We joked that he was probably ready for the camp to start so he could sit down some.
The camp was a first for us. He’s just to the age to begin sports camps and camps in general. It seems that there’s a camp for just about any activity you can think of these days. Just like anything else, though, we’re taking it one step at a time. The summer is honestly too short, and they also need to be kids enjoying the summer without constantly being on the move.
With Thomas doing the camp during the morning, it gave me a chance to spend some time with just Arthur doing a few things while my parents watched JL. Every morning after we dropped Thomas, Arthur he said he wanted to go to the playground.
Wednesday he and I went to story time at the bookstore. This is always one of our favorite parts of visiting my parents. The boys always ask why we don’t have a bookstore like the one at Tootsie and Pops. There’s nothing like an awesome independent bookstore. This day we caught a special treat with an author signing. She read her new book and then the kids enjoyed some songs with Jill and her guitar. We stayed and played and left with too many treats, as usual!
That afternoon I took Thomas and Arthur to eat lunch after camp. This is really a treat to get to do with just the two of them. They chose Proud Larry’s and had a big time playing with pizza dough while we waited for our food. They enjoyed it so much, they asked to go there again for lunch on our way out of town on Friday.
Our afternoons were pretty low key hanging out with my parents at their house while JL napped. They have some pretty awesome neighbors, and they boys are really fortunate to have several little boys that live on their street that they look forward to playing with when we visit.
The guys hanging out on the porch…
I also got to enjoy spending time with one of my best friends at her house one afternoon. It’s so fun to get to hang out and see all the kids playing together.
It only rained one day the whole week. After the rain cleared, we went to get yogurt and made another trip to play at the bookstore.
Although we had a really good week, by Friday we were missing Tom and ready to be home. My parents try to be so accommodating and helpful when we’re there. But it’s also hard at times to be away from home for several days and out of the normal groove. JL had a hard time getting to sleep every night we were there and that’s always tough. All in all, it was a pretty great week!
