Crunch Time

We are squeezing in as much as we can in these last few days until school starts! Grandma Franklin suggested one final cousin sleep over, so that meant two whole days with the Ryans! Monday began with a visit to Play-in-Bay playground, where the kids like to play hide n' seek and spy games. That afternoon we headed to the pool.

That evening Glenn and I dropped off the kids and headed out to the movies. We finally got to see The Dark Knight. I may have enjoyed the movie a lot more if it weren't for the guy who walked into the theater with his approximately 9 year old daughter and 11 year old son. I was pretty bothered by this and kind of slipped into "mom mode" which skewed my whole opinion of the movie. I just kept thinking about how those kids should not be seeing what was on that screen! I appreciate all the hype the movie and Heath Ledger's performance got, and it was a good story and all, but it was very, very dark. Glenn loved it. And after, without any suggestion from me, he took us to Mitchell's for ice cream!

This morning we decided to check out Liberty Park in Independence. It came very highly recommended by the Chatty's, who have been there twice in the last two weeks! It was a beautiful park, and the kids enjoyed it, but our kids are just a bit too big to fully appreciate how great the park is. Some of them were almost as tall as the buildings in Safety Town! They did spend a lot of time on the merry-go-round, however. (I think Tyler was regretting this move by lunchtime--he did not feel well at all. Thank goodness it passed!)

Tyler and Andrew spied the baseball field and were drawn to it like a magnet to steel. Those two just cannot pass a diamond with out a couple of runs around the bases and a quick game of "air baseball."

We then moved on to one of our favorite Franklin/Ryan activities--letterboxing! I could try to explain it to you, but the website sums it up best:

Letterboxing is an intriguing “treasure hunt” style outdoor activity. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and post clues to finding the box online on one of several Web sites. However, clues to finding some of the most highly-sought boxes are passed around by word of mouth. There are about 20,000 letterboxes hidden in North America alone. Individual letterboxes usually contain a log book, an often hand-carved rubber stamp and may contain an ink pad. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp on their personal log book, and leave an imprint of their personal stamp on the letterbox's logbook.

Around here, most of the letterboxes are hidden in the Metroparks, and the one we found today was in the Brecksville Reservation. I had never been to this park before, but just like all the others, it was beautiful. The kids' only complaint was that the letterbox was too easy to find! We ended up finding it pretty quickly and hiked the rest of the 3/4 mile trail. Along the way we climbed stairs and crossed bridges, and Tyler honed his "vertical tree crossing skills." (Did I get that right, Ty?)

And that, as far as summer goes, may be all she wrote. Tomorrow is Parkside orientation, and from then on it's all downhill. T minus one week until the big day! I'm glad we got these last few fun activities in before hitting the books once again.