Other Summer Stuff

It's been a strange summer for me.  I really like routines and having things planned out (Craig and I often joke that I am Gerald in Mo Willem's Let's Go for a Drive, wanting to make a plan and STICK TO IT and he is Piggy, because he makes everything fun no matter how wrong the plan goes).  With various children disappearing to camps for a week here or there, I felt like everything was in a state of constant flux, which I don't especially love (even though I tried very hard to be fun and go with the flow).  The strangest was when Craig, Bentley, Kendra, and Ryder all left for YM and YWs camp.  It was just me, Colton and Camille back at home!  I don't even know how to handle such a small group any more, it seemed so... boring.  There's no laundry to speak of, hardly any dishes, not much to talk about...  They were still in summer school, so I did get a few hours of work in, but that week was really surreal.  I was quite relieved when everyone came home to me, even if I had to do about eight loads of laundry to get all caught up again!

So, yes, we have had NO routine at all this summer.  But that doesn't mean we haven't had fun!

Colton and Camille had lots of movie nights with Sydney and Beth!

Craig tore apart this mess on our lower deck and rebuilt what was rotten (and got rid of what wasn't necessary)

We got a little hiking in-- here we did a part of Ragged Mountain (it was too hot to do the full 5 or 7 miles)

Kendra became an Official Teenager by finally getting braces

Colton discovered that if he slicked his hair back, he looks like (a very smiley) Draco Malfoy...

Got to do a wedding at Farmington Country Club!  I loved the blue porcelain details of this one!

Bentley and Aaron got their certificates for completing another year of seminary!

And Colton and Camille are still enjoying our train tracks!  This seemed like a particularly good track that they set up...

We finally got back to Blue Hole on a legit hot day and enjoyed the swimming hole!  Craig was able to leave work early and join us, so that made it super awesome.

It's deeper than it looks!

The water was nice and cold and it felt SO GREAT.  This hike made me really happy.

Camille is still loving her gymnastics class and seeing her enthusiasm for it just makes me happy:

(Mostly I just love how she leaps off the balance beam at the end-- what a goofball!)

Kendra stuck to her decision to do color guard this year, and spent two weeks busy sweating it out at band camp from 1-10pm (and having to stay up this late to pick her up just about killed me).

Colton and his friend Gideon realized they both have the same stuffed animal monkeys, and later held a monkey wedding for them (notice the top hat that Colton made for his monkey! 😂) complete with rings and everything:

And I've been continuing to do FiA (even when I had to stay up late collecting my daughter from band camp):

I'm looking forward to when the weather cools down and I won't a) be dripping sweat and b) have to put on bug spray the minute I step outside...

I also went inner tubing on the James River last Saturday to celebrate my friend Josephine's 40th birthday!  The first two hours were SUPER FUN, but by the time we got to hour 5, I admit that I was terribly sunburned, headachy, and ready to go home!  But I was so happy to see Josephine again-- she's about an hour away in Powhattan now, so it's much harder to get together!

(I'm so glad I wore my sun hat or else the sunburns would have killed me!)

While I was gone all day floating, Craig was hard at work getting the deck finished and painted.  Fortunately he had some very enthusiastic helpers!

We had a couple rounds of back-to-school shopping, where my kids discovered they love hats (and look pretty cute in them, too, if I may say so myself)!

Now we'll have to start her playing tennis, I suppose...

We've had a lot of fun, but I am worn out from this summer!  Maybe now that school has started I can finally get some rest! 😆