It’s been really great, and it’s not even actual Halloween yet! So I thought I’d share some pictures. Enjoy!
October so far…
Back in the saddle
School started 2 weeks ago, and man, is it off and running!
The girls both have cross country practice after school each day, with meets once a week or once every two for Della and once or twice a week for Lana. Morrison is playing fall ball with Little League and flag football again, so those games and practices are once a week. I’m waiting to sign the twins up for their next round of swim lessons until this winter, mainly so the family calendar doesn’t burst into flames and my head keeps from exploding. 😀
We did make sure to have a lot of fun that last weekend before school began again, though. Obvisouly Donut Monster, Della went on her annual up north trip with her best friend and her family, Ryan took the other 4 up to Sheboygan Falls for dinner with his family and a hometown high-school football game, and those here did a few nights of backyard camping. Well, not me. I don’t camp. But I did put up the tent and get it all situated for them. 😉
I went to Parent Orientation for the boys this week, and I absolutely love getting the peeks into their daily lives at school when they’re away from me. I hope to god our schools always stay safe and keep them protected. But they all have fantastic teachers and are off to a great start, so I think it’s going to be a wonderful year!
And we’re off!
School got out exactly 1 week ago, and it’s already been a whirlwind! The kids all had a half day that last day, then we got home, ate lunch, and immediately drove to Peoria for our annual summer weekend with family. It always coincides with Father’s Day, so I get to see my dad and Ryan gets the best Father’s Day gift every year – silence. We spent a day at my mom’s on the tail end of that trip, then we got home and their true summer break began.
So far this week we’ve worked on flipping our rental house before a new tenant arrives, and the big kids have been absolute rock stars helping with everything. The twins have done a great job entertaining themselves so we can get all that done, Lana and I have started our summer morning walks together, and we’re getting ready for our first of 2 trips this summer. Morrison’s spring/summer Little League is winding down next week, Lana starts cross country camp next week, the twins start tennis lessons the week after next, Della starts lacrosse lessons the week after next, and she started online driver’s ed today!
I love this season so much. My work will unfortunately be busier than usual this summer, but that’s ok; we’ll still have fun. Let’s go summer vacation!!
One last time…
November was most likely our last annual fall trip up to Eagle River, and it really bummed us all out. We’ve been going each year with our friends since the twins were born, so this was our 7th trip. It stinks that it was our last, but the owners are selling the whole place and our friend’s family whose timeshare it was isn’t continuing on with the new ownership. Can’t blame them, but now the week getaway we so looked forward to each fall is gone, too.
Here is a big photo dump from our last hurrah. Thank you for all the years and great memories, Lake Forest Resort! We’ll miss you! And maybe someday we’ll make it back to our favorite hike to see if Lana’s stick is still there…
End School –> Summer –> Start School
As usual, I am far behind over here, but such is a busy life with 5 kids and a full-time job. Said kids all passed their grade levels last year, whew!, we had a fun-filled summer vacation, then they all started back to school within the past 2 weeks. We are now in 3 different schools for the duration with Della starting high school and Lana starting middle school, so that’s a big change, too!
Here are pictures from the last day of school in June and the first days of school this month, but I’m not going to photo dump everything from summer in here. So sorry, that would take forever. I’ll mix a couple summer fun pics in that I might not have posted on social, but our vacations (late winter/early spring break in Florida, Canada in July, and St. Thomas in August) would be entire posts all their own and I just don’t feel like doing that. 😁 But that little Instagram box in the right sidebar here rotates through all my Instagram pictures so they’ll pop up over there, and if you follow me personally on Facebook then you’ve seen most of them there, too. And if you haven’t, just use your imagination! 🤣
Up Nort-giving
We took our 4th annual fall trip up to Eagle River with our good friends last month, then 2 and a half weeks after that I took the kids down to Peoria for our family holiday. It was so great to spend time with everyone again after not having the big, fun family gathering last year.
So no, we didn’t spend Thanksgiving up north, as the title might imply, I was just trying to be efficient by combining all these pictures into 1 post instead of 2. Or lazy, whichever.
So, so much to be thankful for, not just on Thanksgiving, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking for the rest of this one (go ahead and click on each picture to open it up larger).
#summervacation2021
I know – summer vacation has been over for a couple weeks now. But you know how things roll around this blog by now. Posting only a *couple* weeks late isn’t bad! 😉
I have so many pictures to dump here from our summer break this year, I’m just going to break it up into a few different galleries. Not much explanation is needed, either – we were planning to go back to Canada finally but the border didn’t open in time for our trip so we did a couple smaller trips around here, soaked up the warm weather (thank goodness for air conditioning this year!), and enjoyed as much time together as we could. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the slideshows!
The start of summer vacation back in June and a trip to Palos and Peoria to spend time with family:
Door County and 4th of July:
A long-overdue trip to Eau Claire:
More summer fun around here, our third trip to Palos of the summer, our first trip to the zoo in about 2 years, and our first Brewers game in a long time:
We are now fully back into the swing of a new school year, so more about that will be coming up next. Stay tuned!