It's Mid-June? How did that happen?

Slow down, Calendar! Where are you going so fast?  June 15th already, sheesh.  Well, must be time for a mish-mash blog post about little things just to catch up. Every paragraph is totally unrelated to any of the others, thus making this a multi-post blog post! I'm catching up!  You'd better sit down for this one with a full cup of coffee, you're going to be here a while.

School is over for the year. Keith finished his middle-school year at the end of May and I was completely caught off-guard. I thought it was over at the end of June. I forgot that they adjusted the school calendar. So nice to have him home! I love it! I'm pretty sure he does too.  He's still teaching evening classes at APU. Fenna was done on June 1st. Her last week of school was kind of strange; it was all half-days and she didn't have to go for every class so some days she only had one hour or nothing at all. But, her high school exchange year came to an end albeit a fizzled out finish. I think she had a good year and I'm proud of her for all of the hurdles she encountered and all of the good things she squeezed into her one school year. I think she enjoyed it and learned more than she thinks; the classes were fairly typical American and the school structure was very typical. She had a lot of friends in school and I'm sure she will miss them all very much. Gracie's school ended June 7th. On the 6th she got to have lunch with her future 1st grade teacher and some of the kids from that class. She's excited and she already made a new friend who has the same birthday. Her teacher is tall and as Gracie said, "She looks like she is 23 years old."  Hmm, well, I have no idea actually. Age is so important when you are six. On the 7th, the kindergarten class had a picnic at the park. The kids all played together for 3 hours! They had a blast! It was nice too. So, that's it, no more school.

Libby is reading. School is out and she decided to have a burst of brain growth. She can read small words and we practice the same ones over and over so that she'll have them memorized with ease. I'm going to go ahead and keep working with her on reading small words since she seems to love it so much.

Both girls have a reading poster in their rooms now. It is just a sheet of poster board and we are putting nametag stickers on the poster for each book they read. Gracie has to read a book and Libby has to listen to one. When they get a million stickers (this rule will likely change as we approach vacation time and they need a new toy for the roadtrip), they will each get a Merida doll. It's a very good incentive!  Right now, I'm telling them 50 stickers, which is doable in 10 weeks of summer. Plus, they want those dolls!

We went camping. It was awful but we made the best of it. We planned a two night tent camping adventure and it deserves it's own blog post. You can read all about our interesting camping adventure HERE.

Fenna is packing. Ugh. I don't like the idea of letting her go.  She's having a hard time trying to squeeze it all back into one suitcase and one carry-on. I told her to take another suitcase home or ship some boxes, but she wants to minimize how much stuff she takes home and not have the added expense of extra things. She said she'll get rid of some of her clothes and things and I asked her if she would like to donate some of it. Also, if she has some clothes that she will be saying goodbye to, I'd like to make dresses out of them for Gracie and Libby so that they'll have their own "Fenna Dresses" and they can get Fenna hugs when they feel sad for her. She loved that idea. We've been running errands and trying to tie up loose ends. We went to La Jolla for her final doctor appointment. Got her gym membership cancelled. We have to send in for reimbursement from her insurance company for the meds we paid for, and we have to settle up her Fed-Ex bills for the tariffs on the boxes she received, just business. We have a little list of places to go, favorite foods to eat and things to shop for. And we have a lot of things done that needed to be done. She took her piggy bank to the bank and cashed in her coins. She didn't think she had much, but it counted out to over $37. Pretty good! I'm glad YFU let her know when she leaves and got her e-ticket to her in a timely manner. When she arrived, they gave us barely any notice of her arrival date and time (luckily, we talked to Fenna and didn't wait for YFU to notify us!). We'll get things done soon and next thing you know it will be time to decide what to do with her empty bedroom. Ho hum.

My camera has dust or sand in it again. I want to throw it in the ocean, or run over it with the van.  That wouldn't get me anywhere would it? Sigh. It just isn't as nice as the Canon powershot cameras that I had, the  pictures are not as clean and clear and it has trouble focusing. Plus, it gets crap inside the lens all too often.  I'm noticing people aren't using cameras anymore unless they are using a big elephant professional camera. People are using smart phones as cameras now. I'm not going to get a smart phone, they are just too expensive for what I would use it for. But, I would love to get back to using a Canon Powershot.

Charlie has a new game. He loves to take his diaper off and run around half naked. He can shed his jeans and diaper before you can blink. Streaking in the back yard is his favorite.

Speaking of the back yard, the neighbors just spread fertilizer and now we can't open our windows. The kids can't play outside and we have to hold our breath between the van and the door to the house. Isn't there a law against stinking up the whole neighborhood? Why don't Californians put straw down over the manure? Ugh. It just stinks!

Another back yard item to note: Keith cut down another tree. It was huge. Luckily, he got it down before the neighborhood started to smell like crap. This tree was ripping up the fenceline and the neighbors were more than happy to see it come down. He's taken 11 trees out of our yard since we moved in.  We still have plenty left too. Who planted that many trees anyway? Wow.

We went to Scout's graduation party. I'm probably not supposed to mention this online, because the invite list was secret but now you know. Don't tell anyone. Her parents are both teachers at the same school where my husband works, and there is so much drama among the teachers and staff there so the invite list was to remain hushed to avoid hurt feelings. I'm glad they invited us, the family is such a wonderful family I can't get over it. Amazing teachers who have amazing kids! They are sending Scout to college in Switzerland. I googled the college; it looks amazing! Of course. It's an accredited American college in the middle of Europe. Perfect! I wish I would have had clear cut goals and objectives when I graduated from high school. Of course, my life would have been completely different and I probably would have skipped that whole living-in-a-trailer-house-while-collecting-food-stamps stage, so it's probably best that my life went the way it did. I am blessed and I'm happy for Scout and her family for her opportunity to start her adult life with this great adventure.

We took Henry to the graduation party. He loved it and made a new friend. George was especially happy to see Henry since he married Henry's parents. Hard to believe it has been three years ago that Katie and Andrew were married.

Lexie quit her job at Shakey's. Yes, again. But this time I think she's really done and never going back. She was so stressed out this last month and her schedule was crazy. I was on her case too, mostly because Charlie was spending the night too often and when he spends the night, she goes home and sleeps in while I have early morning babysitting duty. So, I told her that if he spends the night she has to spend the night too. Between that and the stress of the craziness at work, she decided to just leave Shakey's. She'd been through enough. She seems happier now and she's enjoying her time with Charlie. She's going to run out of money though.  But, she is launching a new photography business and I know she will do well! Starting a profitable business is always a slow process, but she is off to a great start already! And she has a natural talent for the art of photography.

The other day we had spaghetti for dinner and we all ate too much. So, we went for a short walk. Keith, Fenna and I took Libby and the dog.  Libby rode her big wheel. It was so nice, we walked an extra block or two and then decided to take a hilly walking trail behind the elementary school. I've never taken it before since I am usually pushing a stroller, so we went exploring. Up on top of the hill was a big rock that stood alone. Keith told Fenna to climb up on top and she wasn't sure she could climb it. I thought I could do it, so I kicked off my flip flops and climbed up.  I'm like a squirrel! Getting down was another problem. We made it though. It was hilarious! Keith took some pictures which turned out to look a bit deceiving. It's hard to tell that the rock was hard to scale. A walk around the block turned into a fun little adventure.

A friend of mine is pregnant with twins. I am sewing receiving blankets for her and she asked me for burp cloths.  I made 20 burp cloths out of plain white handtowels. I bought a package of 12 white bar towels at Sams Club years ago thinking they would make great bibs, but I never did use them. So, I cut a few of them into fours and serged up the cut edges. They look like washcloths now, but they'll be really handy I'm sure. I have time to put some cute appliques or trim on them. I want to sew princess dresses and kick off a little boutique, but it isn't happening with all the other sewing I seem to have. I'm storing up a lot of ideas though!

Father's Day is coming up soon. The girls and I picked out a gift for Keith and it's been hiding in the van for a while now. Libby picked out a card a couple of weeks ago to mail to her new Grandpa and it's still just sitting here. Now it will be late. Darn. The Mother's Day cards are still sitting here too. I won't be winning any awards for being a good post-office patron, but the sentiment is there. The cards are here. Maybe I'll make it my New Year's Resolution to be better about honoring Mother's and Father's Days next year. Yeah... next year.  :)

I don't know why June feels like it went so fast already. Probably because it did. I just don't think we did much though. The days have just been going along rather quickly without any outings to speak of (except for the doctor appointment and the camping trip).

Your cup of coffee should be gone by now, this was a long catch-up blog post!