Summer is Over

In one sense, summer ends for us in the last week of July, when Micah heads to cross-country camp and Matthew starts having football every night. During the first full week of August, the kids had a total of 17 practices.

But...we still managed to squeeze in a little fun in between cross country in the morning and soccer and football in the evenings. One day Hannah (in her "I want something voice") said, "Mom, I know what we should do tomorrow. Matthew and I should each invite a friend, and we should go mini-golfing and get ice cream!" So we did. We even convinced Micah to come with us.

Another day, I took the kids to Cedar Point (a rollercoaster park). There's not much photo evidence (because I kept my phone safely tucked away for most of the day), but we had a lot of fun together. 

Our town has a celebration on the last Saturday before school starts called "Circle Fest". (So named because the center of our town is a giant traffic circle.) There are food trucks and activities for the kids. When it gets dark, they have a glow-in-the-dark parade with a lot of the town's teams, clubs, and businesses, then a fireworks show. 

Hannah met up with friends, but we got to see her lots of times as she and her friends walked laps around the circle. 
Within seconds of getting out of the car, we heard "Micah!", as he immediately ditched us for friends. We saw him occasionally, and he and a bunch of his friends joined us to watch the parade.

Matthew stayed with us the whole night and was relieved when church friends arrived. Our group was girl-heavy, so all the little brothers happily goofed off together. 

It's a terrible picture because it was dark, but we ended up with about six families from church and an assortment of teenagers.

Many of the teenagers in the picture above are the same ones in this picture below, hanging out together between services at church. 

One of the not-so-fun parts of summer is catching up on doctor's appointments. All the kids went to the dentist. The boys both had sports physicals. And Matthew went to both the optometrist and allergist. Turns out he needs glasses, and he's allergic to a bunch of stuff. 

 We knew Matthew had some seasonal allergies, but when he got hives after mowing the lawn I decided it was time to do further testing. All those red bumps on his back mean that he's allergic to trees, grass, weeds, and some mold. The allergist gave us a few different options of medicines to try, so now we're figuring out what works best for him.

We also already knew that Matthew could use glasses, but, honestly, I kind of forgot about it. Thankfully, his vision isn't too bad. As the optometrist put it, "He doesn't need to wear them when he's just being a kid." He doesn't have to wear them when he's playing or doing sports - just when he feels he needs them for distance (like seeing the board from the back of the classroom or reading the box score when he's watching sports on tv). 

I couldn't resist pulling out this picture of me at about the same age with my first pair of glasses. 

Hannah was the first to head back to school. She's in 8th grade at Tallmadge Middle School.

This is what all the sports kids look like on their way into school - one bag for school and one bag for practice.

Micah started the following day. He's a junior at Tallmadge High School. This semester he is also taking two online classes through Akron University. Thankfully, we live very close to the high school, because he is now driving back and forth several times a day. He's at school for first block, home for second block and lunch, school for third block, home for fourth, then back for cross country practice. His Akron classes start on Monday.

He declined to stop for a picture, so I had to chase him out to his car. 😂

Matthew had a few extra days off. We got to spend one really fun day with McKinley. We played board games, went to two different playgrounds, and baked cookies. 

They seem to attract little kids who want to play with them wherever they go. I told them they must have friendly faces. These are their "friendly faces". 

Over the weekend, we got to babysit Baby K. She started kicking her legs and got a big smile when she saw us. We loved playing with her and hearing her adorable baby giggles!

On Monday, Matthew and I went to say hi to his teacher and drop off his school supplies.

Then we went for a 15 mile bike ride!

Matthew's first day of school was today. He's in fifth grade at Cornerstone. 

I'm just warning you right now, I'm going to be pretty sappy this year about all of our "lasts" at Cornerstone. It's our 12th consecutive year with a kid there! When Micah started in kindergarten, Matthew was a couple of months old in an infant carrier. 

I was doing fine emotionally today until I was listening to all the students (and many parents) singing worship songs at the dedication service. I'm going to miss this school so much!

So now everyone is back in school. We're getting into our rhythms and routines. Let the games begin!

New Hampshire

From NYC we drove the rest of the way to New Hampshire, arriving Friday afternoon. The Chamberlins were able to be there for the weekend, and we had beautiful weather!

Scott was scheduled to fly back to Ohio on Monday morning, but the Microsoft issue pushed his flight to the evening. After arriving at the airport, he experienced further delays. He finally made it to his layover in Washington, D.C., then had his connecting flight canceled and rescheduled for the next night. Door-to-door it took him over 30 hours to get home. In comparison, the kids and I drove home on Thursday in just under 12 hours.

The silver lining was that he had plenty of time in D.C. to get pizza for dinner with his sister.

After Scott left, we had some rainy weather. But when there was a break in the rain, the kids (especially Micah) were ready to brave the cooler temps to get out on the boat. 

Micah has really mastered slalom skiing (skiing on one ski).He pops right out of the water and zips all around, only wiping out occasionally.  Video link 

He also really enjoyed driving the boat, specifically if his sibling(s) were on the tube. (Micah and Scott both did an online course to get their Ohio boating licenses, which has reciprocity with New Hampshire.)Hannah was much more confident with skiing this year. She did one run starting in the shallow water with me. After that, she got up on her own in the middle of the lake and stayed up until she got tired. Video link

Matthew was able to get up relatively easily, but had trouble staying up. He preferred to spend his time throwing the football and goofing around on the paddle boards. 

I had dinner one night with my old friend Meegan

With my mom moving to Ohio later this fall, this was our last summer at the lake. We are so thankful for all the fun memories and experiences we've had in New Hampshire. We're definitely going to miss it. But now we get to look forward to having Gramme close by and make new memories and experiences with her in Ohio! (...and wherever else we decide to travel...maybe Hawaii??)