The Last Few Weeks…

Although our homeschool year has officially come to an end, somehow the lazy days of summer don’t seem to be quite as quiet as I had anticipated (a.k.a. hoped) they would be! Between swim team, traveling, swim meets, more traveling, a homeschool convention, and more travel coming, life has been a whole lot of busy.

Can I just say that last year, although it was hard, was the first summer that I learned the meaning of true rest – and I rather miss that at the moment?

But, on the other hand, life is full. And crazy. But it’s a good crazy. We are reading and keeping up skills in that area, and the audiobooks have been flying by as we travel and listen. We are two books from the end of the Series of Unfortunate Events and still as hooked as we were from the first book!

Here’s a quick peek at what we’ve been up to – in a picture nutshell.

At the end of May, our entire family traveled to Ohio to attend Teach Them Diligently. Carisa and I were both speaking, so our families had a chance to hang out together and have some fun at the waterpark and later on get a peek at Lake Erie. On a side note, just so you don’t think that car trips are all sunshine and roses, that car trip about threw my husband and I over the edge with two of our kiddos.

The next weekend we traveled to a wedding, which while it may seem insignificant, was fairly emotional since the groom was the ring bearer in our wedding some 17 years ago. I refuse to admit that we could possibly be that old. To me, that boy is still the one hanging from the front pew of the church while we said our vows. But then I snapped a picture of our kids and realized that my kids are getting way too big. And that’s an entirely different kind of scary.

Not long after we returned I was scrambling to finish my curriculum shopping lists and pack up for HEAV, one of my most favorite places to visit every June. Between the used curriculum sale, vendor hall, and speaker line-up, I was moving the entire weekend. Almost everything is now purchased and I may have even taken advantage of slower shipping on Amazon to get free digital book credits. We won’t talk about the piles of books in the school room that need to be sorted through and organized, ok?

This was the result of the weekend. Needless to say, I didn’t send the picture to my husband because I didn’t want to scare him. It wasn’t all my stuff, but the combination of four ladies finding some great deals for the upcoming year. Pretty sure that we are good to go for this year (grins).

As soon as we returned from convention, we were packing up Laurianna and gearing up for a week of craziness locally. For the last five years our church has spearheaded a camp for teens that focuses on volunteering in the community and building relationships between area churches. This year there were over 275 people attending that helped repair and build, ran VBS camps, cleaned area schools, and SO much more. Every day the kids were out working and each night they returned for worship and teaching.

I’ll be honest and tell you that being the one washing dishes for all the kids isn’t the most glamorous job (or one that I was always cheerful about – because gum on a plate = ewwww!), BUT it was an amazing week – and our community is so blessed by these kids and seeing the changes in each of them is nothing short of amazing too!

One thing that I’ve been trying to do much more of – exercise. It honestly makes me giggle even saying that, but on mornings when the kids are at swim practice, I’m walking laps (and even running) nearby. For some reason I volunteered to do a 5K/Strength training class with our co-op kids this coming year and my theory is I should probably be able to get moving long enough to participate and not fall over. And having birthed multiple children, the running aspect of the class is a little bit scary – we’ll just leave it at that (grins). Right now my goal is to get in close to 2 miles, run a little further each day (I’m up to 1/2 mile now!!), and shave a little time off my pace each time. That alone is encouraging to me!

And this week I am SO excited to be taking a super quick trip to Texas to visit Flash the Donkey. My online friend, Rachel Anne Ridge, will now become and IRL friend – and I’ll be able to hug her neck and Flash’s too! She has written an amazingly wonderful book, simply titled Flash, that you will laugh (and maybe even cry) through parts of. It will be a quick trip, but one that a close friend will be taking with me, and we are both looking forward to the girl-time together! (p.s. it would be a great summer read, I promise!).

Other than all of that – life is normal. How are YOU doing?