Summer Is Rapidly Ending!

This is our last week before we begin a new school year, and I am not sure that I am ready for summer to be over. In fact, I know that I am not ready for summer to end. This summer has flown by faster than any summer before, and I have accomplished less than I ever have before on my Summer List!

However, we have had a fabulous summer! Last week the children and I spent 4 days visiting my parents. My children absolutely love visiting Mims and Pops. My mother is a serious seamstress and crafter, and her house is like a fabric store. Trim, buttons, patterns, fabric--anything and everything my girls need to design and complete a variety of projects---it's all there. Olivia made several stuffed bunnies and bears, while Julie made a doll and doll clothes. My mother was readily available for sewing advice, instruction, and creative ideas. She has two sewing machines, and she set both of the them up for the girls to use.

Leah enjoyed painting, coloring, cutting, glueing, and sewing, and the boys played for hours with Legos and cars, and they also spent a lot of time throwing balls in the backyard. I relaxed too! I updated my blog (a little bit), and I played many, many hands of Phase 10 with Clay and my mother (Julie played with us some too). Each afternoon when my daddy arrived home from work, he played with Sam and Clay--whatever they wanted to do.

My parents recently added a huge covered porch to the back of their house, and we spent almost all of time out there. We ate all, and I mean all of our meals on the new back porch too. This delighted the crafters, because they didn't have to clear the kitchen table, where their projects and sewing machine were, every time we needed to eat. The new porch is equipped with several ceiling fans plus some other fans too, so even though the temperature hovered in the 90s all week long, the porch was still pleasant.

Another fun activity while visiting my parents was running. It is always nice to run in a different place. I needed to complete a 10 mile run the first day we were there. Fortunately, a thunderstorm passed through town just before I had planned to run so the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. It was still very hot, but definitely bearable. I took the girls with me across town to my former high school. We ran in the neighborhoods all around the school for 6 miles. Then my mother brought Clay to us about an hour later, and picked up the girls. Clay ran my last 4 miles with me. I am really afraid of dogs while I am running, so I was happy to have my children with me to protect me! We also got up at 6:00 two other mornings while we were there to run shorter runs.

We came back home last Thursday, and I took the older girls straight to a serger/sewing class. Jimmy bought me a serger machine 16 years ago, and since I never took an instructional class, I rarely use it. I decided to have it serviced and let the girls learn how to use it! The owner of the local heirloom sewing store gave them a private lesson, and now they now how to use it!

The rest of last week and the weekend was filled with running errands, my weekly grocery shopping, taking the girls to and from a friend's house 45 minutes away, unpacking, doing laundry, playing Skip-Bo with Clay (Clay and I both really like to play games, and I just squeeze it in whenever I can), and getting Clay ready for running camp.

Yesterday we took Clay to our homeschool cross country running camp. The campsite is located about 2.5 hours away. I get to go back to the camp Wednesday to pick up Clay and drop off the girls (the boys and girls have separate camps), and then go again Saturday to pick up the girls. That's a lot of time on the road! Of course we have to pack the whole house, and they will come home with extremely stinky dirty laundry! The bunkhouses are not air-conditioned! It is August in the south. 100 degrees is the high this week, and the heat index is much higher. But, I know that they will have a fabulous time! They have been looking forward to this running camp all summer long!

I will give them one day to recover from running camp (next Sunday), and then we will start school bright and early, Monday, August 9th!

I hope I am ready!