Farewell Thee, Summer

It is easy to focus on what we didn't do this summer. Every year when we come home for the summer, I have such high hopes of what we will accomplish (both fun and not fun) in our time at home. And now, I am a day away from returning to school (kids don't start for another week). I look at my closet...one of my "to do's" for the summer. It is still not very organized and full of things I need to go through. I open up my cabinet under the sink and remember how very much I need to get under it and clean. I look at the yard and wonder where our playtime went. And I look at Maria and remember now I was going to work on some handwriting lessons with her. And now it is too late. The summer is ending. My "vacation" is done.

But then as I look back through the pictures, I remember many things we DID do this summer (good and bad)...

• playing in the sprinkler (though not as much as I thought we would...it was kind of a weird weather summer)
• swimming at friends' and Grams'/Grampop's house
• twisting and spraining my ankle which threw a HUGE wrench in my plans to exercise and lose weight this summer
• playing with cousins (our Kansas and Mississippi cousins)
• snow cones (the girls got the snow cone machine for their birthday; it has been used a LOT since then...many times by me late at night after they are in bed :)
• AAO camp
• VBS
• music camp ]
• neighborhood walks
• a weeklong trip to Destin
  
• Crab hunting on the beach
• snorkeling
• seeing dolphins from our townhouse...amazing!
• The Gulfarium
• meeting up with our friends, the Melvins, at the lake in Florida...good times!
• the kids' first time tubing and riding a Sea-doo or however that is spelled
• Fishing (for the big boys)
• Child 1's busted lip
• my 29th birthday :)
• farming with my sister (Farmtown on Facebook)
• Kiwanis Kid's Day Football and Cheerleading
• our unexpected week of swimming lessons (a week early)
• LOTS of block building, book reading, game playing
• backyard sports (football, baseball, sometimes a combination of them :)
• a weekend getaway to Mount Magazine (for the grownups)
• a 7+ mile hike, some of it in the rain and some amazing views
• the start of chores...why did I not start this earlier?
• The DS, the lemonade and shell stand that went in to paying for it...the kid's first big "buy" (Thanks to M. for her part in that)
• our rather productive garage sale though there are still remnants in our garage that I need to deal with.
• my 20th non-high school reunion with the Berryville class of '89
• our night away in Eureka Springs (while attending the non-high school reunion)
• an actual movie together (The Proposal)
• bike rides (for the kids)
• lunch with the church interns
• date nights with the hubby (not many but all enjoyable)
• school supply shopping for THREE kids (okay, that isn't quite done yet)
• our Living in HD installation...still enjoying that!
• precious visits with a friend
• emptying and refilling the dishwasher a few hundred times (some days 3 or more times in a day)
• the College World Series (for the big boys)
• Our daughter's 8th birthday dinner at Shoguns
• my weekly sushi...love Shrimp Tempura
• the girls' birthday party...horses galore!
• Another daughter's 5th birthday at Chuck E. Cheese with dessert at Marketplace Express...yum!
• Mark's birthday (he was on the road in Omaha)
• Father's Day
• celebrating my niece's birthday complete with swimming and a piñata
• belated "fireworks" (sparklers and glow bracelets)
• Sesame Street...a whole new world for Joshua (it is called "Elmo's World")
• playdates (I am pretty sure Child 2 is more of a social butterfly than me)
• a trip to the Tulsa Zoo on a HOT, HOT, HOT day
• lunch at Casa Bonita (in Tulsa)
• Shark Week at the Aquarium in Jenks, OK
• dentist and doctor appointments galore...and really, we were pretty healthy this summer)
• Child 3's "eye patch"
• the building of a loft (in progress)
• in-service
• catching up with friends from all phases of my life on Facebook (and occasionally my hubby too :)
• blogging, my therapy

Hmmm, what did you do this summer? :)

Reba