Today is the kid’s last day of summer.

*sigh*

While admittedly it hasn’t been the best summer between some crazy weather, damaged property, the Hubs being sick for a solid 4 weeks and some other craziness, it’s still been summer. And I love nothing more than summer.  I love leaving the house at 5 am and it being light out. I love getting home at 6:15 am and having hours of time before I have to get the kids anywhere. I love the laid back nature of camp for the kids. I love picking the kids up at 4 pm and feeling like we have all the time in the world until bed. I love time spent in friend’s pools, local lakes and walking in our creek. I love dinner on the deck and grilling just about everything. I love weekends with nothing to except go explore and swim and soak up the sun.  I just flat out love summer and I’m not at all happy that it’s over.

Scorch starts school tomorrow and the Bean starts on Thursday so today was our last hurrah.  The Hubs had to work, but the kids and I set off on an adventure. We drove to a near by gorge and went for a hike. While it wasn’t warm enough to swim, I brought the kid’s water shoes and just let them walk in the water as long as they wanted. I’m normally a “hurry up and get going” person- we’re always trying to arrive somewhere but today I threw that out the window and we just meandered. I let the kids set the pace and trail and went with it. And we had a ball!

After our hike we went out to lunch at the kid’s favorite place. The food was as good as it gets, the kids got along and I didn’t have to mop up a single mess. Another successful outing!   We all go home happy and full and tired.

And then a hour later, Bean started puking and hasn’t stopped for longer then 30 minutes in the past 4 hours.

Seriously, after the summer we had, I wouldn’t have expected any other ending!

The kids both had baseball games tonight in two different places. I took the Bean to her game and the Hubs took Scorch to his. About 20 minutes into the game a siren went off warning us of impending bad weather and we were told to clear the fields immediately and to head to our  cars.  Now, living in NY, our severe weather is nothing like we’ve seen out of the mid-west but after seeing the footage out of OK from yesterday, my first reaction was to scoop up the Bean and run for our car as fast as I could.  It was this immediate, irrational panic- and even that was only a fraction of what those in Moore must have felt.  I’m both horrified and drawn to all the news coverage out of OK- my hearts and prayers are with all those family affected.

I’m sure you know about all the ways to help those affected by the recent storms, but if not, here’s a great list of ways you can make a difference.

I’m terrible with dates. Birthday, anniversaries, appointments- I’m awful at remembering them. It usually takes me a good couple of seconds to remember my kids birth dates for goodness sake! But for some reason Jan 16th, the date of  my first date with the Hubs, stays stuck in my head.  It’s not like we celebrate this anniversary- I make a remark about it, the Hubs rolls his eyes, we kiss and the kid’s groan. No presents or cards- just a passing comment and we’re done.

I think this one is boggling my mind the most because I was 19 when we met- which means we’re fast approaching the point where I’ll have known the Hubs as long as I didn’t know him. And frankly, that astounds me.  And makes me feel old. And lucky. I knew I liked the Hubs on that first date, but I could have never have imagined the crazy, awesome life we would build together!

Happy Halloween from my goblins to yours…

I often joke about living out in the sticks.  And while it’s true that seeing a tractor of some sort chug up our hill is a common sight and our next door neighbors have raised a cow on their 2 acres of land, we really don’t live that far out in the country. If you head one way down our road, you’ll hit a grocery store and Wal-Mart within 2 miles- how rural can that really be?!

Judging by the visitor sunning himself in our backyard this morning, we’re rural enough!

Why hello, Mr. Coyote!

We’ve lived here for almost a decade and we’ve heard the coyotes plenty of times, but I’ve never seen one up close.  We visited with a few of our neighbors today and it turns out, this guy has been making the rounds and we seem to be one of the last on our street to be honored with a visit.

See you- no need to hurry back!

While I don’t mind the occasional visits, I’m very, very thankful our cats stay in doors and our dog is too chicken to pick a fight.

My kids are not adjusting to our crazy weather very well. Last month we had almost 2 weeks of warm weather- it even hit the 80’s for a few days.  We all but lived outside- dinners normally eaten at 6 weren’t served until 7, bedtimes at 7 were pushed back until 8.  We were out of sorts and tired, but we sucked up every minute of the sunshine and warmth on the swings or at the baseball diamond.

Sadly, the weather has turned much more seasonable- in the 40s and 50s. The sunshine has stayed around though so my kids are convinced we need to continue our streak of outside time. The problem with that is that 1) it’s freaking freezing out and 2) I’m a wuss. But, going outside means my kids get tired out  much more quickly so I suck it up.  We usually log at least a good hour outside every afternoon- running around, riding bikes, playing in the creek.  Since we living in the country the kids have a lot of privacy to run around like crazy people.

Which is why I had to have the fun discussion with Scorch about the effects of cold weather on certain parts of the male anatomy when he was too lazy to go inside to use the bathroom. That was a conversion I never really expected to have. Ever.