This Is It!

This is the last day that I will wake up late and center my mornings around Regis and Kelly and The View.  Funny how today I slept past both of those shows.  I'm totally OK with that.  Work begins again on Monday.  I know, I practically heard the cyber "gasps" from all of you.  Going into this summer I knew that it would be a busy one with classes and the music production.  I wouldn't trade anything for that special time.  Once all of that was over I spent every moment in July soaking up my family and doing things that I normally do not get to do.  

Adam stayed with us a few times while his big brother was away doing camps and such.  Once the oldest, Bryce returned, he stayed several days with us as well.  During these days we really enjoyed having them in our home.  We loved hearing the funny things they would randomly say.  

We loved doing things for them, taking them to the park, or teaching them new silly things. It was awesome waking up with them in our home and starting a whole day with them.  We loved every moment with those special boys.  My sister is so blessed to have them in her life!  

A dear friend Stephanie spent a few days and taught me how to put up corn.  I felt like I needed to learn how to do this.  And I wanted to as well.  

Turns out, corn is fun and I loved getting to do this with her.  

I spent an entire day with my Aunt Myra.  She is the queen of canning.  

She taught me how to can spaghetti sauce.  We used everything from the garden of hers, mine, Aprils, and Andreas.  Even the herbs were from the garden.  It was an all day process--very intense.  I loved every second.  I will never forget the funny conversations that we had, or the gloves and aprons that flew about the kitchen, or how excited I was when I heard the can "pop"  It was a very fun day!

Since we had so may cans of the sauce we decided to share it with several new neighbors we have in our neighborhood. We loved meeting all of them.  We have a lot of couples our age now!  They were all very sweet and were very excited about the sauce.  We have since then made friendships with those that live around us and we are excited about that as the days go on.

For the fourth we enjoyed a local fireworks show in the community I work in and loved it.  

We packed a picnic dinner and enjoyed dinner and show on a quilt in the park.  It was a good show.

This was the first summer my gladiolas bloomed.  We planted them along our fence row in the back yard as well as lined our sidewalk by the patio with them. 

This was our first one to bloom.  It was abnormally tall for the first year to bloom.  We had to steak it in all it's glory of 3 1/2 feet tall.  I was a proud mama!  They were all hot pink this year except one was a deep velvet.  They were so gorgeous and it was so fun to wait and see what color each one would be.

Several days were spent poolside.  At Leslie's we would relax and lay out, break for lunch, lay out more, and then treat ourselves to Rita's.  

The best shaved ice on the planet.  Lindsey's mom was so sweet as to let us spend time at her pool as well.  

She was always a fun hostess.

My summer reading has consisted of two mind blowing and eye opening books.  Max Lucado-It's Not About Me (As the world of you laughs) is phenomenal.  We do in fact live in a self-centered world, and I hate that.  I want to strive to be more like Him.  I want people to see Him and not me.  The other book is Gary Chapman-Now You're Speaking My Language.  It's a play off of The Five Love Languages which we read in marriage counseling before we got married.  Both very amazing books.  

Our neighborhood had a huge block party and ordered in a huge jump slide, had amazing food all day, and we ended with fireworks at night.  They were gorgeous.  It was cool watching them so close.

We enjoyed a community event at my work for all students in the county.  It was fun to see so many people in the community and to be able to give to each of them.  

And we got to meet some new people as well!

Speaking of work, I visited my classroom yesterday and it was all a frazzled mess.  The only light in the middle of it all was that it was being painted.  As I type, it is being finished up.  I'm going to start my weekend with hitting it full force and hopefully turning into a hip, new place to be for this school year. I have so many new ideas and things we are going to do to it for the new year and I can't wait! Just talking about it gets me a little excited!  

So this is my first summer vacation as a teacher.  It's been the most memorable summer thus far.  God has shown his greatness in unusual ways to us this season.  It's amazing how just when we think He is finished with us for a while, He laughs I'm sure, and then drops another challenge before us.  We love that we have seen our family grow in the Lord this summer.  We thank the Lord for all He has given us this summer.  It all has been a bright light and a burst of strength for the two of us.