Still Feelin’ Summer + Rainbow the Butterfly

It seems like all the fall things are popping up in stores and online and I’m just over here like summer, please stay as long as possible! Don’t get me wrong, I love fall — it’s my favorite season — but I’m also really leaning into hot summer days filled with all the water activities. With temperatures in the 90s around here lately, that’s pretty much the only thing that sounds appealing right now and thankfully our weekend included a lot of water fun!

Saturday

Saturday morning we began our day with a family walk around the neighborhood.

We saw the same vizsla I saw on my first solo walk after Sadie passed away and Ryan and I talked about missing Sadie for the 5,000th time. We are all doing okay over here but there are moments that make my heart squeeze when I find myself missing her so much. When we passed the vizsla, Chase turned around on his bike and said, “Was that a vizsla? It reminded me of Sadie!” The boys still talk about her a lot as well (I heard Ryder “calling her in dog heaven” on a toy phone last week) and it’s hard not to feel a void without her here sometimes even if the pain isn’t as acute as it was two months ago.

A few of you have asked if we have plans to get another dog. The answer is yes but the time doesn’t feel right for us yet. We loved Sadie so, so much and while I miss the presence of a dog, the thing I miss most is her and just don’t think we’re quite there yet. (I am on the notification list for vizsla rescue alerts in a bunch of the southeastern United States though just in case one should come available — they rarely do — but we’re on the list just in case.)

Our walk was a good one and we covered right around three miles before Rhett needed to head home for his morning nap.

(Rhett’s outfit — a fav Amazon find that I also ordered in a sweatsuit version for fall! / My top / Biker Shorts / Hat) 

Ryan stayed home with Rhett while he napped and I headed out to a local park with Chase and Ryder to celebrate the second birthday of their friend Dane! (He’s the youngest brother of Chase’s BFF Claire.)

The boys had a great time running all over the place with their buddies and I loved chatting with my girlfriends for a couple of hours.

Rhett took an awesome morning nap and was still asleep when we arrived home but awoke about 10 minutes later. We all ate lunch and then changed into our bathing suits to head off to the pool for an afternoon of swimming and splashing!

(Bikini top — it’s the same one I wore last weekend but reversed on the other side / Bikini Bottoms / Chase’s swim trunks / The boys’ rash guards) 

Unfortunately we didn’t all leave the pool unscathed. Rhett was playing with toys on the second step of the pool and stood up only to immediately fall forward and hit his chin on the first step. He chipped his front tooth making us three for three on kids who have chipped a front tooth in our family. He’s okay but I am planning to take him to the dentist because it’s rather sharp where the tooth chipped. I remember the dentist shaved Chase’s chipped front tooth into a smoother edge so I’m thinking this might need to happen for Rhett, too.

Once we made it home, Rhett took a short afternoon nap and we grilled burgers and brats for an early dinner. We wrapped up our Saturday by watching Luca on Disney+ for family movie night. I thought it was super cute!

Sunday

Sunday morning began with another family walk and a bike ride for the big kids. We made the short walk to the marina near our house before heading home for Rhett’s morning nap. While he slept, I worked while Ryan took Chase and Ryder to Lowe’s followed by Barnes & Noble to pick out a birthday present for Rhett as well as the fourth book from the Finn Caspian series. The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian was the first podcast Chase fell in love with and he’s really enjoyed the chapter books as well.

Once everyone was home and Rhett was awake, we ate lunch and then headed out on the boat.

We meandered up to a little beach and not long after we arrived, some seriously small world stuff happened and I met Lindsey, the author of the children’s book My Perfect Dog. After Sadie passed away, she was so kind and sent me her beautiful book and I shared a snapshot of it on Instagram Stories with a link to her book just in case anyone wanted to support a first-time author. It was so great to meet her and her family in person and we ended up hanging out with Lindsey and her crew the entire time we spent at the beach.

Eventually Rhett told us in his own special way (aka lots of whining) that it was time to wrap things up so we said goodbye and headed home so he could nap. My father-in-law arrived soon after Rhett went down and we ate an early dinner dinner before heading into the backyard to let the boys’ last remaining butterfly out to crawl around on some of our butterfly bushes for a bit.

“Rainbow” is a painted lady butterfly and the only butterfly the boys kept from the four that emerged from their chrysalises in Chase’s butterfly habitat a little over a week ago. We let all of the other butterflies go but when we went to let Rainbow go, she fluttered to the ground and couldn’t fly. We noticed she has one wing that looks broken and since painted lady butterflies only live for two weeks, we are thinking the best thing we can do for her right now is keep her well fed with fresh flowers from our butterfly bush, fruit and sugar water and take her outside to crawl around a few times a day. If any of you are butterfly experts and have more information about what we should do, I’m all ears! I hate to think of Rainbow not meeting a mate and laying eggs but feel like she’ll just die if we release her into the wild and she doesn’t have the ability to fly. I’m not going to lie, our whole family is rather attached to little Rainbow at the moment!

We rounded out our weekend with ice cream and stories before bed time.

And now I’m off to get this week rockin’. I hope you all have a good one and enjoy your Monday!