Maybe one of these days we’ll get a slow news weekend…
In the meantime, this was a good summer weekend in my household (and my 12-year-old daughter may have had her best weekend ever). On Friday night, she and I went downtown to the Wells Fargo Center to see Olivia Rodrigo perform!
Over the past few weeks I have been on a crash course of learning Olivia Rodrigo’s music, since concerts are a lot more fun when you know all the songs. I’m happy to report that by Friday I was able to sing along with almost everything, and we had a grand time. I’d gotten seats with a very clear view of the stage (having learned from the Taylor Swift floor seats experience — which while definitely an experience was not great for actually seeing). Since we had real seats I was also able to sit down when needed. This is good for middle-aged people attending these sorts of shows.
Some highlights: Seeing Olivia ride a “moon” over the crowd, watching her baby/little kid videos during Teenage Dream, and the fact that she had an all-female band. 
On Saturday I went for a run and we went for a quick walk in a local nature preserve where they have an art installation up — we were counting how many of the pictures we could find. My daughter went to a sleepover to celebrate a friend’s birthday (see: best weekend ever) so we were down to two kids overnight. We went in the pool/hot tub and got everyone down at a relatively reasonable time.
Sunday after we picked up the 12-year-old at the birthday party (she said they were up until 2 a.m….) we drove to the York State Fair.
On the downside, it was ridiculously hot, so the kids didn’t last as long as my husband and I would have liked (what can I say, we are into these things, and it turns out Lainey Wilson was performing that night so in an ideal world we would have stuck around). But in the time we were there, we managed to see a lot. For instance, we saw the Flying Cortes family perform! They did a number of trapeze related stunts, which then ended with “Commander Alexander” being shot out of a cannon. This is quite the stunt to watch if you ever get a chance. My husband filmed it in slow-mo so we’ve been able to watch it again and again. We also saw a giant butter sculpture (inside, in a refrigerated space), and a giant model train display. The 4-year-old went on a number of kiddie rides while my husband took the 9-year-old over to see the animals. We walked past an axe-throwing contest at one point. Good times.
This week will feature a lot of prep to get the 9-year-old off to sleep-away camp. I guess everything has to be labeled. I’ve never sent a kid to a traditional camp like this before (my older boys went to academic ones) so I welcome any advice!
Peel and stick clothing labels. Our just have our last name on them because our boys are the only ones with that name at their camp and then we don’t need individual labels for each kid plus hand-me-downs are already labeled. We use sharpies for sock and underwear and I enlist the kids to help with this. Also pack twice as many socks as requested on the list but don’t expect to get them all back.
@Gillian – yep, I ordered a bunch from Oliver’s labels and plan to use the sharpie on things like socks/underwear. I ordered some socks off ebay (unopened package) because the company that makes the only socks my somewhat sensitive kid will wear…discontinued the line. Sigh. If they won’t be coming back guess I need to order even more off ebay!
I second the peel and stick labels and also ordering them with last name only. If going longer than 1 week a trunk is very handy. However rather than purchase a camp trunk we bought a similar sized Rubbermaid type container my son’s first year. The thought being we wouldn’t be stuck with the trunk if he never went again. He just finished his 3rd summer (4 week session) of camp, still using the same Rubbermaid and he says he prefers it to the camper trunks. Also, don’t forget a laundry bag or something similar to try and contain the dirty laundry. I hope he has a great time!
@Hilary- I wasn’t really planning on any sort of trunk – I didn’t know that was a thing. He’s only gone for 2 weeks. Was planning to put all his stuff in two duffel bags, more or less!
I would ask other parents or the camp what is usual. One camp my daughter went to recommended a plastic 3 drawer cabinet. The other camp recommended a trunk. They are both very handy as opposed to living out of duffel bags. Most camps don’t have much space to hang/fold/put away things – especially for 2 weeks!
@Jennifer- they just said it had to fit under the beds so… we’ll see. I feel like there are a lot of things we’ll figure out this year and hopefully he likes it enough to go next year, so I’ll get some efficiencies out of all these discoveries.