Almost Over

Holy cow!  Where has the summer gone?

I went with Christina and Tallia today to the Learning Plan meeting at Mid Columbia Partnership, then came home and started filling out the learning plan forms on the MCP website.  I also sat down with my planner and wrote down all of Alyssa's ballet classes, Ethan's gymnastics classes, mostly so I know which days are vacation days when I don't have to take them to those classes.  We've heard from Alyssa's soccer coach, so we know she's on a team, but we're still waiting to hear about Ethan.  The last we heard, they didn't have enough coaches, and if they didn't get enough, not all the kids would be able to play.  I sent an email saying, "I know next to nothing about soccer, but I'm willing to learn IF no one else volunteers."  After pushing send I immediately thought, "Why did I do that?!?"  I haven't heard back from them, so I'm hoping they don't want me, but I also haven't heard from Ethan's coach.  I don't know.  So this fall we're going to have MCP on Mondays, ballet, gymnastics, soccer, and piano lessons.  It's going to be jam packed!

I've meant to blog a lot more than I've ended up actually blogging, so there's a lot of summer that I have to catch up on.

Brian's Grandpa Jacks and his Grandma Orton both passed away this summer.  Grandpa Jacks in July, and Grandma Orton just a couple of weeks ago.  They are both greatly missed, but it's nice to know that they are now free from pain and with their spouses again.  When Brian and I went to visit Grandma Orton at the end, I kept wondering if her husband, Jim, was sitting beside her, just waiting until they could be together again.

We went to the Oregon Coast for Brian's family reunion, which deserves a whole post of its own, but we all know that at this point, that's not going to happen.  One of my favorite things about the reunion was running on the beach.  I had signed up to run my first 10k the week after the reunion, so I knew I couldn't take the week off from running, but at first I wasn't brave enough to run down on the beach.  I had planned on just running along the streets like I do at home, but once I saw how hilly the roads were, I opted for the flatness of the beach, and it was beautiful!

The week before, right after Grandpa Jacks' funeral, we were visiting with Brian's reletives, and Ethan rode a horse for the first time.  The whole time he was on top of that huge horse, he kept saying, "I"m riding a horse! I'm riding a horse!"  The first morning of the reunion, when I woke up and went down to the beach, I kept thinking to myself, "I'm running on the beach!  I'm running on the beach!"  I was just so peaceful and invigorating at the same time.  I loved it!

We've spent a good portion of our summer at my parents' house, playing in the back yard and swimming.  The girl cousins have played Egyptians, Last Air Bender, Olympics, fairies, goddesses, Indians...you name it.  The boys have mostly ran around the yard, laughing and yelling.

Alyssa had an Ancient Egyptian birthday party where we played Pin the Beard on Tutenkamen, musical chairs to the song, "My Mummy and Me," ate River Nile Silt Cake (dirt cake), and went swimming.  She invited a few friends from school and the cousins her age.

I was going to put up a bunch of pictures, but it looks like I need to do some unloading of my camera.  I guess I'll just end the post by saying: Next week is our last week of summer, and right now I'm stuck between being sad that summer is over and being excited for the fall.
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