Hello! I hope your summer went well. I have to admit that it went by pretty fast for us. The kids have been in school for a week now. We are one of the few remaining school districts that start school after Labor Day. The girls are now in 2nd grade and I think they’re happy to be back because of their friends and a reason to get dressed up. I’m not so certain they’re in love with the education part of school 🤣. The good news is that our town has a Primary School which is grades k-2, so the girls are at the top of the pecking order. They’re still quite shy and reserved but are slowly coming out of their shells.

Part of the reason summer flew by is because they did quite a few camps this year. Taya asked to do a pottery camp and I was able to get them in a 2 week art course at the beginning of summer. They did a lot of work with clay but Taya was peeved because she wanted to do the pottery wheel. I tried to explain to her that nowhere offered this for kids her age because the wheel can actually be dangerous but she did not care. The do make a child’s toy version of a pottery wheel and she will be getting that for Christmas.

The next camp the did was a Girl Scout Camp. It was not a sleep away camp but was all day and was more like an old school kind of camp, with arts and crafts, swimming, archery, kayaking etc. The girls loved it and asked if they could do sleep away camp next year. I’m not sure if they are ready for it yet. I don’t think I am.

Their brother, Tas, goes away for a week in the summer for camp and when he does, we do what I have secretly named Camp Kill Me. For that week we let the girls decide what we are doing every day. It’s their opportunity to run the show (to a degree). By the end of it I’m exhausted. We went to the public pool, Water Country which is a huge water park, Busch Gardens Amusement park, roller skating, the beach, and had a home spa day that included a fashion shoot.

The last camp of the summer is the one I was most unsure about. It was a musical theater camp where they put on a show of the Aristocats. The girls have always been pretty obsessed with cats and pretend to be them a lot. They love music and singing at home but they also have that super shy aspect. It could have gone either way but I thought it might help with the shyness and if they didn’t want to do the shows in front of an audience I wasn’t going to make them. Turns out I didn’t need to worry about any of that because they both loved it! They were part of the chorus and played alley cats. They were part of several song and dance routines. It was the cutest thing and I was surprised by how good the shows were with only one week of camp. It’s been a month since camp ended and I still get one or two songs daily and sometimes they’ll put on the whole show by themselves just for fun. They took to it so we’ll that I have signed them up for weekly classes at the performing arts center.

We did also visit Iowa for a couple of weeks in August. We had our roof and siding redone on our house and it was better if the kids and I were not around. It was abnormally cool during our visit so we didn’t do many of the usual summer activities. We did go to the Maquoketa Caves and really enjoyed it. I had never been even when I was a kid so it was pretty fun for me too. We tried to campout ina tent in the backyard but the girls lasted about 10 minutes. They are not fans of crickets or spiders and the idea of them being right outside the tent freaked them out. I’m gonna admit that I was more than happy with the decision to go back inside and sleep in a real bed. I’m too old to sleep on the ground. We’re going to have to stick with cabin rentals while camping and I’m ok with it.

So that was our summer in a nutshell. We’re still getting adjusted to being back at school and having a routine but I think this is going to be a big year of personal growth for the girls. Hope you all are well. I’ll post again in January. The very top photo is Taya in flowers and Emi in gold.