A Few Snapshots of Summer | Back to School Time

Aug 26

Written By Tessa

one of a few home changes I made this summer - adding potted plants to dining room + a couple new pillows. little things

The school year is officially underway and today marks the first full week under our belts. Hello, 2nd and 8th grade!! As usual, I'm starting out the year with excellent organization - up on time, extra good lunches, meal planning in top form and papers returned, signed, as soon as I get them. This quickly starts to go down hill despite my very best intentions. Just when I think I've got this, I realize I forgot an early dismissal or I hit snooze too many times and Andrew is eating breakfast as he runs to the bus. I think it helps that after school activities don't ramp up for a couple weeks so there is less rushing around in the evening. I don't really know what happens, but it's inevitable that things start to slip through the cracks. We'll survive. We will have well planned days and hurried days and so-so days, it's just all part of this thing called life. :) With the school year starting early this year, I'm still a little bit in summer mode, making it a good time to recap how we spent the last few months with a few pics and a few thoughts...

Night of the Arts at the Junior High right before summer started - The 7th Grade Trumpet Players (all 8th graders now)

We had a good summer. Despite the record hot temperatures, we all agreed it was one of our favorites. There were new experiences like live action film camp for A and college basketball camp for C. There were morning bike rides to swim practice and after dinner bike rides for ice cream. We spent many hours at the pool and too much money at the snack bar eating snow cones and taffy. We enjoyed spontaneous, weekday, matinee, movie dates on rainy afternoons. We snacked on lots fresh berries and peaches and stayed up too late most evenings. There were weekly dinners of sliced tomatoes and grilled chicken and road trips to visit family. We had ocean and lake beach time and the basketball could be heard bouncing in the drive way at all hours of the day. There were always stacks of beach towels waiting to be washed and piles of flip flops scattered throughout the house. There were patriotic parades and celebrations and rained out firework shows. All my hydrangeas bushes bloomed all summer - a first for sure! I tried a few new recipes - Ina's Key Lime Pie was probably my favorite. We celebrated Jimmy turning 43 and Andrew turning 14 with chocolate cake and family dinners. We all read lots of great books and spent lazy days at home without any schedule or list of to-dos. My favorite was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Charlie. I felt like we just had the right mix of a little adventure and a little relaxing. Here are a few photos: