MOC9-11, Tell Me a Story
rach3975, Jan 11, 2021
- Description:
- Storyteller 2018 June Collection, Just Jaimee
Label: MPM-Composition
Styles: Stylin' #303, #242, and #307 by Mommyish
Pencil: Create Crate Monthly, Yearbook by Becca Bonneville, Bella Gypsy Designs, Kristin Aagard
Template: Photo Focus 2019 by LJS Designs at Sweet Shoppe Designs
868 words
Looking back at August of 2019 makes me so nostalgic. Knowing what came next--how we spent the summer of 2020 at home alone and how we may need to do the same for the summer of 2021—makes me appreciate the normalcy of this last month of summer 2019 all the more.
August is our favorite summer month. The first half of June we still have school, and the second half of June everyone is a little worn out from the school year and just wants to stay home and decompress. July is camp and summer school month. Ben participates in four weeks of ESY to maintain his writing skills, and Lauren & Jason usually each have a couple of weeks of summer programs. It’s fun, but we’re all busy and don’t have a lot of time together except for when the kids and I go to Connecticut (without Dan) over July 4th. August is the best! It’s all about family time and interesting outings together. We vacation, relax, explore our local area, and see friends.
We spent this August like most others. The first week Lauren had her last camp of the season, a week of cooking and crafts camp. She didn’t enjoy it as much as the one she did earlier in the summer, but she loved buying herself a geode at the camp store to crack open! Ben was finally done with ESY and had a week of fun camp, Camp A. He’s been going for about 5 years, and he loves it. The week’s theme was superheroes, which inspired some really fun projects and activities. He even brought home a craft I can display, which he hasn’t done since elementary school art classes ended! I used some of the time when they were both in camp to buy myself a new everyday necklace. I stopped wearing jewelry when we had little kids who pulled on it, but I think they’re old enough to leave it alone now! (The kids at school are another story, but I bought a sturdy chain and will hope for the best!)
Finally at the end of that first week we left for our summer vacation. We spent the entire second week of August in the mountains of Pennsylvania. As we’ve been doing for years, Grandma and Grandpa rented a huge house in the Poconos for all 14 of us. This year’s house was amazing—it even had a game room in the basement! The kids (and some of the adults) loved that and spent a lot of time there. While we were on vacation we went to a minor league baseball game, swam at the lake and played in the sand, visited the zoo, picked blueberries, and had lots of good times just hanging out at home with everyone. Uncle A took new family photos: the entire group (our last photo as a family of 14 before M’s birth!), the cousins, and each of the families. (The vacation is scrapped on its own pages—there were way too many fantastic photos to try to include them on a monthly recap page!)
By the time we came home from Pennsylvania, we only had a week of summer vacation left. We had to devote a few mornings to doctor and dentist appointments, but most of the week was more fun than that. The slower schedule left the kids more time to connect with friends—Jason went to I’s and Lauren caught up with her friends at patrol training. She’s a captain this year, the first 5th grade captain they’ve had! At the training they practiced escaping from a smoke-filled bus (using water vapor as a stand in) and an overturned bus (the training facility has one lying on its side). We visited the elementary, middle, and high schools to find out who the kids’ teachers were, and that led to more time reconnecting with friends and past teachers. We hiked, went to the movies, read books, and went for ice cream, an annual back to school tradition.
The last week of the month felt more like September. The kids started school and everyone had a good first week. Jason doesn’t have as many friends as he’d like in his classes, but he’ll still see them in his language class and at their afterschool activities. I prepped for Back to School in my preschool class. I met with all of my families and started getting to know my new students. Over Labor Day weekend Dan took the kids to a Nats game. A few months later the Nats finally won the World Series, so they like knowing that they were at a game during this winning season. The Nats also won the game they went to, which was a great way to end the summer.
Our run-of-the-mill August is exactly what summers should be. Time with family, vacation, no homework (for kids or teachers!), and a chance to reconnect with friends we haven’t seen in a while. I can’t wait until we can experience another August like this! What a lesson we’ve learned in 2020 about not taking our “normal, boring” lives for granted because everything can change in an instant!
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- Category:
- Member Galleries
- Uploaded By:
- rach3975
- Date:
- Jan 11, 2021
- View Count:
- 185
- Comment Count:
- 1
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