Hello, Hope you had a great summer. It seemed to fly by for us. The girls did 2 camps this summer, Girls on the Run (gotr) and a sewing camp. GoTR is a program for only girls that focuses on self esteem and the power of being female. They have guest speakers and bring in female owned businesses to do activities with. The girls loved this camp and asked to do it again. They have a program during the school year that I just signed them up for. The thing is, they took the camp in late June and it as in the high 90’s every day so they spent most of their time doing indoor activities and the girls failed to really pay attention to the Run part of gotr. The program during the school year focuses on achievement, girl power, and self esteem by doing activities, as well as training for a 5k run. They weren’t real happy when they learned this but are gonna give it a try. I was also surprised after I signed them up that they need a parent to run with them, so now I’ll be doing a 5k too. 🤦‍♀️

They also really enjoyed the seeing camp although I think it was a lot more work than they anticipated. For a couple of years they’ve been asking me to teach them how to use a sewing machine but I don’t have a clue. This camp taught them everything from beginning to end. They thought they’d be whipping up a fashion line in no time. Instead they learned to make a quilt. They had to measure and cut their pattern, sew different stitches and make things symmetrical. None of which I’d easy and there were days that they were super frustrated because they had to rip out stitching, but in the end they practiced patience and were very proud of themselves. The quilts turned out great and they won’t let anyone else touch them.

Most of the summer was filled with their favorite things. Busch Gardens and Water Country are always winners, especially if they are followed by dinner at Cane’s. The local cat cafe is at the top of their awesome list but I’m gonna admit that I kinda hate it. It’s like sitting on a bunch of grandma’s old tore up furniture, while a ton of cats mill about. The only appeal of it to me is how happy it makes them.

We also went to Iowa for a couple of weeks. We went horseback riding and swimming. My nieces turned the girls on to pickleball and we’ve gone a few times since then. The other thing we did was adopt Rodney. Rodney is a bulldog, that had been passed around to couple of homes and no one could keep him. One place had a weight limit for pets that he exceeded and another house said he snored too loudly 😂. He’s a big squishy faced lover, but he snores and farts like a drunken sailor. He also had never seen a cat before and completely freaked out when he saw ours. The 2 cats and he have decided that they do not like each other, so the girls aren’t big fans of Rodney right now either, even though they begged me to get him. It might take a few more months for them all to become friends.

5th grade started and is going fine so far, but it’s only been a couple of weeks. I’m not looking forward to more math homework but I’m excited to see how the girls grow over the year.