What!?!?! How Can Summer Be Almost Over?

~erica

All our travels and adventures are done and sports start on Monday. I can't believe summer is almost over but I kept telling people that our summer wouldn't really be until we could be home for 3 weeks and not preparing for the next thing (Disneyland, Family Camp, High Adventure...) The kids all start school after Labor Day, including the 3 homeschoolers, but I don't go back until the end of September so I still have a few weeks to get a project or two done, or not. I need to upload pictures to the blog and to get printed. If I am really ambitious I want to make a StoryBook of our California trip.

Some randomness at the end of summer:

• It's hot here! We don't function in the heat the rest of the country considers normal- at 85 degrees we start getting heat advisories and warnings. It's supposed to reach 100 today but tomorrow will only be in the 80s. All we can do is lay in front of the fan or try and figure out where to go swimming.
• Ryan finished his preceptor hours and went back to nights last night! He's going to be working a funky schedule until January but then his "regular" schedule will include a Friday night off and 5 days off in a row each pay period (2 weeks)
• Rush got his Eagle Project approved and signed today so we can start the work. He's fencing the backyard of the parsonage at the Adna Church before the new pastor's family arrives. He's only got 10 days to complete the project but its too hot to start today, maybe tomorrow...
• I can't wait for cooler weather, my hip is killing me and I need to wear my Dr. Martens but they look funny with shorts or capris. In the hot weather I live in Old Navy flip flops which are cool and easy to kick off and actually quite comfortable but my hip does not like them. One of these days I'm going to get some Dr. Marten sandals
• I got a Samsung Galaxy IIS smart phone for graduation/ before our trip to California. I mostly use it to read my Bible and to Instagram. It is nice being able to Google search anywhere at anytime- for example on I-90 in the middle of Eastern Washington to settle an argument of who sang that song. Jonah had to show me how to answer it, it really is smarter-than-me.
• I'm 70% of the way through the Bible in 90 Days. I started June 15 and kept current throughout our adventures. Actually its hardest to remember to read on the days we are at home. I've got the Bible on my new smarter-than-me phone and I can read in line, in the car, any time I'm waiting, etc. Today I started Daniel and after all the Books of Poetry and Prophecy I'm glad to be back in some narrative. Psalms and Proverbs are really hard to read straight through. But by the time I've read my Bible I don't have time for other reading or knitting (well, its hard to knit when its hot and sticky and even a bit of wool string across my hand is more wool than I want to be wearing)
• I finished a pair of socks for my mom, the day after her birthday but definitely before she needed them so by my reckoning they were about 2 months early
• I'm still on Week 1 of Couch to 5K. I found an app for my phone that times the running/ walking and that helps but I just haven't had time to be out of the house. I haven't given up, I'm still officially (at least in my mind) doing it and it does feel good each time I get out and run.
• I have lost my water bottle and its killing me. I almost ordered this Contigo bottle off of Amazon this morning but I really like the one I lost and I'm not ready to concede defeat and replace a free water bottle. Tovah has one but I can't find hers either. I was really good all winter and carried it to school every day and drank water instead of an extra cup of coffee or a soda- I've found I have a lot fewer sinus headaches and my skin is less prone to break-outs if I am good about drinking my water

My missing water bottle, it has comfortable dents in it, a straw so I don't wear my water, and it was free (in exchange for 5 empty plastic bottles). It was last seen at Scouts 2 nights before we left for High Adventure.

Catching Up

~erica

I feel bad that the only blogging I've done lately is Saturday Confessions with Melissa at A Familiar Path, I've been taking pictures and we've been doing stuff but it hasn't made it on here. I've got our homeschool plan just about put together, Tovah and I have molded hard boiled eggs, I promised Ryan a Safeco Field post, but I just haven't gotten to them yet...

Arin had an orthodontist appointment just up the street from the spray fountain. It was one of the few really hot days we've had but only he and Tovah were interested in going and playing. I took them out for ice cream afterwards at Dairy Dans (their junior cones are about 8" high)

We went to hear a Mariachi band at the library on Tuesday, it sprinkled a bit but not enough to be a problem. They were really good and I guess several of them are big names in the music scene (my dad knows of the fiddle player and said if he'd known who was going to be there he would have come with us). Rush's friend has been staying with us this week, his family moved to New Mexico last fall.

Monday we went on the Steam Train. It's always a fun trip. I set up a late field trip for the local homeschoolers, I would have needed 60 to meet the minimum riders for the train but we were on with 2 other groups and didn't need a minimum. We had 122! I spent most of the hour plus trip catching up with people I haven't seen in several years and also putting faces to email addresses from the loop.

This is Arin's lightsaber in the dark. I ran upstairs and read a quick tutorial on taking fireworks pictures while Ryan and the kids set them up on the 4th. My dad found his tripod for me, I took a lot of shots pointed in the wrong direction as I couldn't see through my view finder exactly where I was pointed.

The neighbor's mortars above the field behind us.

Ryan bought a ton of sparklers but only Tovah wanted to do them. We have the leftovers for New Year's.

Randomness

~Erica

***Today I'm trying to catch up with all the things that have gone undone since school started. I've lost a brand new shirt that I only wore once and I'm pretty sure one of the boys has it since they pull their clothes out and fold them and they won't learn to fold the picture out so they can see what t-shirt it is. I'm sure my new bejeweled black t-shirt is folded in one of their drawers

***The other day a friend emailed to ask which email address she should use for me- she had 4 in her address book and was that a reflection on how much was going on in my life? I didn't have the heart to tell her that I actually have 7 email addresses that I check regularly (though to be honest 3 are "future" addresses):

-2 are our "family" email addresses at our old carrier and our new carrier that will be our only carrier as soon as Ryan and my dad figure out what to do with my dad's website hosting

-2 are my personal email addresses with our old and new carriers. I had to get my own email address to have my own facebook account. They are really only used for things I don't want cluttering up our main email account.

-2 are Lewis County Homeschool email addresses with our old and new carriers.

-1 is my new student email account at the college and to get to it I have to log into a whole new window and it's a real pain but I don't have the time or energy to try and figure out how to forward it to one of our other accounts.

-I think I may also have a google email that I got at some point for some reason I can't remember- it's just a vague feeling that I did it.

***I've made 3 trips to the post office to mail packages in the last 24 hours- I got Nathan's monthly care package off so I can now focus on his Christmas Care Package, I mailed Marylinda's birthday socks to her (only a week+ late and I didn't take any pictures), and I mailed a magazine to a friend who I thought would enjoy it (Elaine, you should get it Monday). All three were in different piles and I just had to get to them.

***This morning I had 37 emails flagged in outlook that I needed to deal with, I'm down to 19.

***I'm really keeping busy so I don't have to think about writing my research paper on "The Pros and Cons of a Personal Income Tax" that is due Dec. 3. I really don't want to do it. I did some research last night and emailed a bunch of articles to my school account to print out on their paper on Monday so I can pretend like I've worked on it this weekend. Also I have a book in at the library that I need to pick up. I need to type up an outline and turn it in to the teacher by last Thursday (it's an online class that I set all the deadlines except the Dec. 3 deadline- this is dangerous territory for an expert procrastinator).

***Last night I got to spend 2 hours at Barnes & Noble while the bigger boys were at a Warren Miller film (it was my reward for spending 2 hours at the Scout store early that day trying to straighten out the popcorn sale fiasco- not really, I was already scheduled to drive the boys to Olympia last night). I found the new Artemis Fowl book The Atlantis Complex but Ryan wouldn't let me spend $18 on it so I bought a $4 book (Lauren Willig's Temptation of the Night Jasmine) and a $5 Peppermint Mocha and did research on the school library from B & N.

***This Wednesday I have 6 items plus school on my calendar and I'm trying to figure out how to add a funeral to the day. Mrs. Verley died this last week. She was my first Freshman Advanced English teacher plus I had her for 2 trimesters of AP English my Junior yr.

***Wednesday night Ryan is doing dinner at church so Jennifer and I can go to the college and hear Ann Rule speak. Our county has hit an all-time low, we now have a criminal case worthy of an Ann Rule book. I read all her early stuff when we lived on Guam and I worked at the Stars & Stripes bookstore. I had to stop reading them when Ryan went to Japan for 6 months- I heard too many bumps in the night that freaked me out.

***I can't remember the last picture of my kids I took, I know we took our camera last weekend to my aunt's service but it never came out of the case. I took a picture on my cell phone of some cool driftwood balls in a store display window last night while we waited for the boys to come out of the movie. Ryan's working most of Christmas break and I'm going to spend entire 3 weeks scrapbooking and see if I can get caught up to 2010 before 2011 starts ) minus the 3 days I spend cooking for the dinner theater at church.

***One of my friends' daughters will be 11 on 11/11/11. How cool is that?

***Tonight I have a Creative Memories Photo Solutions Party. My first one in about 3 months. I should go and review what I'm actually supposed to do and get my bag packed. My lapboards are all over the house being used for schoolwork (they are perfect for the mouse when I have my laptop on my lap).

I'll leave you with a picture that will be the theme for the rest of my week: