School's out for the summer! (N.B. Cook kids on PNJ.com)

Summer has begun and the kids are out of school. This'll be the last summer in which Jude and Ruby are the only two kids in the family, so they better make the most of having the spotlight to themselves while it lasts. That new baby is going to get a lot of attention when she arrives this fall.

My daughter is one of the girls in the background of this short video of N.B. Cook Elementary students waiting to leave on the last day of school.

Ruby's three seconds of fame in a current PNJ.com news video.

Jude was waiting in the car pick-up line also, but I didn't spot him in the video. That's my daughter's kindergarten teacher you see in the first couple seconds of the video.

Ruby and Jude are understandably excited about the beginning of summer vacation. Among our first-summer-weekend celebrations, I let them watch more than the usual share of Netflix videos (mostly "Batman: The Brave and the Bold"), plus I took them to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream and CiCi's Pizza for the pizza buffet and video games and that toy-grabbing claw thing (which actually does let you win a prize fairly often).

Just before summer vacation, the kids and I found some bubble soap while I was cleaning out the garage, and I snapped some photos of them chasing bubbles in the front yard. I discovered it's not easy to take photos and blow bubbles at the same time.

Jude guiding bubbles with a wave of his hand in our front yard in early summer, 2013.