I'd be remiss if I didn't mention (briefly and belatedly) what great summer we had. It started off at the beginning of June with Joshua's ordination, which occasioned visits from both sets of grandparents (parents) and our good friend Josh Hubert. We also baptized Josiah the same weekend!
June was mostly filled with summer stuff - swimming, playing in the yard, riding bikes, playgrounds, and popsicles. Joshua began working full time and I backed off to working half-time, and both of us have enjoyed the different pace. Both Serena and Asher got to participate in Vacation Bible School (as did mom and dad!). And Serena had a fun "mermaid" swim party for her 5th birthday. (On a side note, yes, it's hard to believe we've been blessed by our sweet Serena for FIVE years!) Joshua also spent 10 days in Peru with the church mission team. I was flying solo with the kids on July 4th, but we had a great time at a small-town parade and festival, a wave pool, and wonderful fireworks show.
And for almost all of July (2 1/2 weeks) we were on vacation to Texas and Arkansas. We drove over 2600 miles for back-to-back family reunions! First, my family met up in central Texas (lake LBJ) for a week. Mom and Dad, our 5, Elisa, Stephen, Ava, Corbin, and Sienna, and Paul and Veronica and Dillon, and my grandparents (the "great" grandparents) all gathered for a WONDERFUL time. It was as crazy at times (as you might imagine it would be with 17 people, 7 of whom are 5 years ols and younger), but mostly it was pretty relaxing and good to be together. The only low point of the week was at the very beginning, when Josiah had to ahve emergency hernia surgery at the children's hosptial in Austin, but he received great care and sailed right through! Altogether, the whole episode lasted about 30 hours.
The second week of our vacation was spent in the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas with Joshua's family - his parents, the five of us, Jodi, Ruben, Tomas, Isaac and Alison, Jacob, Jonah and Lydia (and 4 members of Lydia's family for part of the time). Yep - that's another week with 15 people. Again, we had a great time - relaxing, eating, playing games, eating, swimming in the river, and eating. We feel so blessed by our families and the opportunity we had to spend some time with them this summer. The distance and rarity make it so special - and the kids really enjoyed the time with their cousins.
The travel days as a family were good - really. We spent a lot of time in the car, but also stopped to play and picnic and, of course, swim in the hotel pools. The kids were champion travelers. They read books, played games, watched movies, played with toys, colored, and ate snacks all the way across 10 different states. And the minivan with 160,000 miles on it deserves a big thank you for a perfect trip! All of this has just encouraged us to do it again sometime....
We had just 2 weeks in August once we got back before school started, so we swam as much as possible, spent time with friends, and enjoyed some good lazy days. Serena and Asher have a wonderful time playing together, this summer had made Serena an incredible swimmer (and Asher much more comfortable in the water), and Josiah's gotten the hang of crawling everywhere and getting into things. So, I guess it's been time well-spent. It's definitely been a lot of fun!
Serena also began ballet lessons this week. After agonizing over the choice between ballet, soccer, and piano, she chose ballet (which i kind of guessed she'd choose all along). She goes to class on Monday nights and had a good first class. At the end she told me, "The dancing was fun, but the music was boring." It will be fun to see whether she comes to enjoy dance as much as I did, or finds her niche somewhere else. In the meantime, she sure is beautiful in her dance clothes.
