More than just soccer...

...in our summer! I adore summertime and summer vacation so much and am so sad to see it coming to an end. Not surprisingly, our kids have inherited my love of summer as well and are in denial about the fact that school starts next week. Though our soccer tournament weekends, soccer practices and soccer playing in the yard take up a lot of our free time in the summer, there are other things going on at the Ficek household all summer long. I tried to capture some of the happenings around our house this summer in these pictures I took over the past three days...

Willem still spends a fair amount of time in our backyard sand box working on his dairy

Cade started this raft a few weeks ago but ran out of extra lumber...to be continued next summer maybe?

 There has been a ton of bike riding all over the dairy this summer

 Which resulted in a few nasty spills. Willem got this road rash on his side from zig-zagging through this tires obstacle course he made

Gabrielle and Cade have spend some time in our bunkhouse/fitness room working on their pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, box jumps and more. Gabrielle really wants to get an unassisted pull-up!

Chad has taken the kids out to rifle or archery shoot many evenings this summer

 

It wouldn't be summertime at the dairy without some blackberry picking!

 The kids also picked raspberries and blueberries from our neighbor's farm and we made yummy smoothies

 We were lucky to get some smaller hay bales recently and the kids quickly made hay forts with them

 

The big kids have taken Nev out for walks most days this summer. She will really miss her siblings when they go to school!

 

Nearly every warm day this summer, the kids have gone swimming with cousins in the creek! I used to love doing this too as a kid with my siblings!

 

Ready to swim through the culvert!

 I love this view of the dairy from the lagoon with the silos, Coburg Hills, barns and my dad's house off in the distance

 

Another favorite activity....playing in the cottonseed!

 There are so many pretty places around the dairy

Amber took this picture of Chad and me earlier in the summer. One of my very favorite things to do in the summer is take evening walks with Chad in the fields. We didn't get to do it as much as I'd like this summer but I cherished each time that we did and hope for a few more walks with my hubby before fall.