The girls go back to school in 14 days!
This summer has been so unstructured. Normally there are schedules, and planned activities or outings. However, this summer there were some days where I woke up and did not even know where I was going to send the girls during the day. Thanks to both of my sisters, the girls spent much of their time at their cousins’ house, doing pretty much whatever they wanted. They painted rocks, went fruit picking, rode bikes, played video games, watched TV and went to bed late. Unfortunately, Joel and I were not able to take much time off work this summer but I think the girls were fine with the low structure, low stress set-up.
However, those blissful, unscheduled days of summer are pretty much over. My beautiful, intelligent and very intense daughter Kaitlin, has decided we need a strict back to school preparation schedule, so we are ready and there is no chance we will be late for school…. Ever! Being she is the product of her mother neurosis, I feel I owe it to her to support her in these endeavors.
A couple of weeks ago she created a morning schedule, and we have been trying to follow it since last week.
We did not get to follow it everyday, but are hoping to get ourselves back into the routine this week. Even Natalie is looking forward to “practicing” for school. Kaitlin’s schedule calls for her to get up at 6AM and go out to exercise for half an hour. By the way, she also wrote a schedule for me, and mine starts at 5:30AM. Yikes!!
Very reluctantly I was able to drag myself out of bed at 6AM three mornings during last week to go out walking. It was so hard to make myself do it, but once I did it, I noticed a big difference in my energy level for the rest of the day.
One of those mornings there was a full moon, and it looked so beautiful, I ran back home and grabbed my camera. My poor little camera did not do the scenery justice, and it was hard to get my hands steady enough to avoid the pictures being blurry but here are some of the better ones I took.
It really feels great to be out walking when it is still somewhat dark outside and everything is so quiet. Of course, come the snow, it will be a different story, but for now, I am enjoying these early morning moments.
I have started a couple of posts just recording some of the little things we have been doing this summer, but have not had time to finish them. In the meantime, here is a quick recap in pictures:
Celebrated my niece Jacqui’s 13th birthday at the end of June.
Visited Worlds of Fun in Kansas City with the girls. Kaitlin stayed 3 weeks with her grandparents.
Attended a Murder Mystery Dinner hosted by Joel’s parents in Nebraska.
Celebrated my sister’s Ivette birthday. The party was a little “corny”.
Took Natalie to the Beach and the Zoo during her days as our “Only Child”.
Natalie learned to ride a bike without training wheels. Unrelated to the biking, she also lost another tooth.
We went back-to-school shopping.
Hope you had a great summer and made lots of sweet little memories with your loved ones.
