My poor blog is starved for time and attention.
Well, so are my fish, so at least the blog is in good company.
But it's time to feed the blog.
I just have no idea where the time went this summer. The kids will be back in school in a little more than two weeks, and I feel like we've just settled in to summer break.
The first part of summer was spent visiting my mom in Germany. I generally post pictures mostly for my mom, and she was with us during the whole trip and has copies of the best pictures, so she's covered.
But I'll post a couple here.
Here's my Oma's house. It doesn't belong to her anymore now that she's in a nursing home, but we went by to visit the house anyway. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. The house looked happy to me, which sounds silly, and is, but there you have it.
I humored Bruce with the next one. If you're eating lunch, blame him.
Spencer was easier to convince.
Have no fear. No snails were actually harmed in the taking of the above pictures. Ack! I'd never eat one of those nasty things.
Me and my mom.
Mom flew home with the kids and me, since Bruce left a week earlier to get back to work. Then my brothers and I played the Mom Shuffle for a few weeks so we each had time with her at our homes.
During her time with us, we chilled. Ate Chinese food during lunch time while Bruce was at work so he wouldn't have to partake. Took a couple of evening strolls at both a nearby state park and a walking trail. Baked a few batches of cookies. Did some gardening. Introduced mom to both "The Office" and "Losing It With Jillian," neither of which impressed her appropriately. Mom even subjected herself to various games with the kids, including Clue, Monopoly, Yahtzee and Boom Blox.
And once she returned to Germany, I found myself in a funk. Typical fare following time with my mother, because it's never long enough.
But life invades my haze. Summer goes on.
Other summer activities for us were:
- hauling the kids to VBS and swimming lessons in the same week
- engaging in an ongoing indoor battle with ants, which I continually think I've won only to discover that "Oh yeah, I have three kids, and my floors will never remain entirely food free for even one solid 24-hour period, thus ensuring an ant buffet pretty much constantly." I talk to the ants when they visit. It's not pleasantries. They are the devil's spawn.
- keeping up with our first family garden ever and realizing that the horse manure fertilize we dumped on the garden before planting seeds might have been too much of a good thing. We've been sharing zucchini, cucumbers, squash and tomatoes with pretty much anybody I can accost without being arrested.
- getting a new heat pump installed, fortunately not because ours died, but because they are newly developed units that need testing. We're willing guinea pigs. Of all the men I could have married (that sounds like I had more than one offer!), God could not have chosen more perfectly for me than in hooking me up with an engineer whose job is in the heating and cooling business. In this summer's 90 degree heat, I am loving my AC. Oh, and my husband. Who keeps me in the chill zone.
- camping. Actually only once so far. But we have another trip coming up. And so far, we've remained tick and injury free. That's all it takes for me to consider camping a success.
- visiting doctors. Orthodontist consultations for our twins. Dermatologist. And after seeing our family doctor, a clinic doctor (twice), a podiatrist, and an orthopedic surgeon to figure out what's up with my foot, I was finally told to stop running. Which makes me mad. But I'm trying to look at the bright side... it's really hot outside. And I can't strap the heat pump to my back. Plus, I'm going to see a physical therapist... who is a runner and was into track when she was younger. I miss running. I really do. So I signed Bruce and Clay up for the same running training program I did. I'll live vicariously through them for awhile and maybe be back to running in the fall. When it's a more livable temperature outside.
- re-staining our deck, which admittedly was done mostly by Bruce. But I did help for a couple of hours one evening. It looks pretty great, too!
- re-accessorizing our master bedroom. After looking half-heartedly for two years, I finally found a quilt Bruce and I both liked, so out with the old and in with a new. But that meant new curtains, too. Some time soon, we'll probably replace the door going out to the little balcony that we never use because it's wasp infested. I am loving the idea of a door with built-in blinds between the panes of glass. Because I detest cleaning blinds. But first, I need to decide on some curtains for the den, which we started re-doing during the past winter. And we've got to replace the French doors in that room with doors with built-in blinds. Because it has been brought to my attention that one cannot properly view the television with the current door/curtain situation. Because the sun shines into the room too brightly and blots out the view of the TV screen. See, it's all about priorities. Watching the TV with a crisp view is rated much higher in importance than looking out a bedroom door to see where the newest wasp's nest has been constructed.
And that's been our summer. Madness first when Bruce took us on a whirlwind tour of Germany, then mundane when household chores kicked in. But all good.
