Proud to be "that house"

Now that my sisters and I have kids who can go to other people's houses and play without parent supervision, we've starting talking about being the house in the neighborhood where all the kids hang out. Jenny has been thinking about it for awhile, asking our Aunt Jennie, who had three boys and definitely had "that house." Aunt Jennie said the most important thing was having good snacks.

I've bored everyone going on and on about how much I love our neighborhood and how lucky we are to have so many good friends with kids here. We are also lucky that all the kids really like hanging out at all the houses. But now that summer is here, I'm stepping up the game to meet the hangout challenge. (What that really means is having Tony do a bunch of extra, arguably unnecessary home projects).

But he surpassed my expectations with his home-made ball catcher. We like living on the high side of the hill, but if you don't shag a ball quickly enough, it is GONE into the slope of poison ivy across the street.

Last year, I put up a rickety attempt at a ball catcher, but I wanted a better one, since Tony lowered the basketball goal and now that the kids have also started playing wall ball and tennis in the driveway.

I also bought a 2 gallon water jug for outside, and put a shoe bin in the foyer and a first aid kit in the half-bath next to the garage. Tony put a power strip for the kindle chargers in our Lego room. I bought a big box of popsicles for the freezer. We cleaned out and restocked the granola bar/cracker cabinet. We're working on the garage, which has a small swinging rope and two punching bags. And a questionably functional air hockey table. What I really want is a hand dryer for the half bath, but budget and square footage won't really allow for that...maybe next year.

Summer sort of started last Friday, but this week is the real beginning! Hooray!