The summer has come and gone. Somehow. Many plans were made and few were accomplished. We had an unusually cool and wet summer which means we are not choking on wildfire smoke here at the end of summer but it didn’t feel like summer. Still, I think we had a good summer filled with slower days and time with family.

The summer was filled with celebrations starting with the 4th of July. We met up with Mr. McGoozle’s family (without him) and watched the city fireworks show. Many friends and family had birthday parties, including one that was German themed.

Mr. McGoozle and I celebrated 12 years of marriage by trussing me back up in my wedding dress (an almost annual tradition) and heading to the park to play with family and friends. I was able to get a picture with my nieces who were my flower girls (not shared here but fun to have). We also went to dinner on a different night. The most exciting thing about our anniversary was Mr. McGoozle’s presence at home; he returned to a full travel schedule in July with 35 days away from home over the past 2 months. We are thankful that by December he will be transitioning to a position with far less travel.

The kids all attended day camps or swim lessons for a couple of weeks in July. Those were less slow days! We participated in the library summer reading challenge and enjoyed some Jr. Frostys from Wendys as part of the prize package. I had the opportunity to speak at a girls’ Bible camp- I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to say before we left home so I brought a few books to make sure I had all my resources. God was so good and it was a really fun time. Extra fun because 3 of the 5 campers were related to me so we can continue to have those conversations. We attended a production of Measure for Measure produced by Montana Shakespeare in the Parks and attended part of the Montana Folk Festival. I took myself to the movies to see The Hiding Place- I hope that it eventually is released to streaming as it was very good. We snuck in one camping trip with 2 of my sisters and their families. The kids and I went to a couple of the local county fairs. At one of them the kids participated in a stick/noodle horse rodeo and got to pick some prizes. The kids read and drew and played outside and worked on their own little projects and generally enjoyed being kids in the summer!

I didn’t get as much done on the house as I had planned at the beginning of summer but we did clean up the basement and patio area quite a bit. We laid down some foam floor mats in the basement so the kids have a play area down there. We got a new picnic table for the patio and have been enjoying that on nice days. We planted a small garden in July which is doing surprisingly well! I finally finished a coffee/floor desk that I started working on last fall. The kids have been sleeping in the basement because 1) it’s too hot upstairs some nights and 2) we’re painting and getting new flooring. We started with just painting the girls’ room (which I don’t even have a good picture of) and then decided that since we had 1/3 of the upstairs cleared out, we may as well clear the rest and get the flooring done. Hopefully by mid-September we’ll have the upstairs restored to (cleaner and cozier) order.

And, just like that, it’s time for school to start. I’ve been deep in planning and organizing for our homeschool year. These are our “first day of school” pictures which we took while out on an adventure to the kids’ favorite tree. Squeaky made a “Shakespeare” of our adventure (including the woolly bear caterpillar we saw). Even Slinky wants to do school this year so we’ll have students in 5th, 3rd, “insistent on doing school”, and “bird murdering and napping expert” grades

I hope to post more regularly as we get back into a regular routine with school. Book update definitely coming soon!