Here's a roadmap for this post:
1) Our Weekend and Summer Recap
2) Lindsey's Birthday Party
3) Back to School Profiles
Here we go:
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School has started. Summer is over. It's fun to look back at some highlights:
Overnight bike-packing through the chain lakes; Rachel's sister moving to Post Falls; Portland; Nashville; Boise; Many overnight kayaking trips and exploration of waterways; Climbing the Grand Teton, Chimney Rock, and the North Cascades; Two family reunions; Lots of camping trips and short hikes throughout Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon; Lots of Wallace trips; Lots of lake days and time on local trails with bikes, rollerblades, skateboards, and scooters; Lots of great time at home including backyard cookouts, sleepovers, movie, and game nights.
It's been good. It's been a little hectic. It's nice to be coming into a shoulder season where we can settle in and establish a routine again. Holidays and ski season are just around the corner, and we're excited about those things, but for now we're just gonna catch our breath a little.
For this weekend we intentionally stayed local...ish. A quick overnight in Wallace was refreshing as always, and we had some good finds at the annual flea market. The small-town parade in St. Maries the next day was was fun, I guess. That was more of a Rachel thing. We finished our back-to-school shopping and a few little house projects. We practiced going to bed early. We wore flannel because it is fall now, and then we took off the flannel because it was still 101 degrees outside and it isn't actually fall now.
*****
I am writing this on September 3rd. Lindsey's birthday was on July 3rd. We finally did a party for her. That's what you get for being born in the summertime.
But the party did not disappoint. Lindsey and a bunch of her weird quirky friends went to an art studio for the afternoon, and then Rachel took them all up to Wallace for a sleepover. Rach made a great Harry Potter themed cake, because apparently the imagination of a child is bounded on one end by Frozen and on the other by Hogwarts. Alas, my impassioned campaign for originality falls on deaf ears. I blame AI, the mainstream media, capitalism, the illuminati, and Russia, all while shaking my fist at the clouds.
I think they had fun.
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| The more you look at this picture the stranger it gets |
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| Kind of a cool cake- it's the tree in Harry Potter that beats up a car. Rachel made it. |
*****
Back to school. There are mixed feelings, but overall everyone is positive. And we no longer have any kids in elementary school. That's kinda crazy.
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| Evelyn is going to be a senior this year. She's doing band, and band, and band, and ski. She's also keeping her job at the burger place. I don't think she has gone to bed before midnight since school let out, and has definitely made the most out of this summer. She'll be busy and there will be stress, and weekends will be important. But if anyone can handle it, she can. |
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| Adalie will be a sophomore. She's also doing a bunch of band stuff, and will likely do ski club as well. Her and Evelyn get up at 5:30 every day to make it for Jazz, and then they do homework until dinner when they get home. They are both extremely driven and it makes me tired to watch them. |
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| Jackson is also going to be a sophomore. He has spent more time with friends this summer than ever before, and when I dropped him off at school he started fist bumping the first people he came in contact with and was immediately absorbed into a crowd. I've never been that kid, and it's neat to watch. He is super into sketching right now, which seems like a hobby that pretty much everyone has experimented with at some point, but he is actually good at it. |
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| Maren is coming into her own! It's fun watching her gain confidence both socially and academically, and I think this is going to be a great year for her. She is in 8th grade, which makes her the queen of the middle school, and she is already looking forward to New York and Washington DC with friends at the end of the year. |
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| Lindsey is in middle school! 6th grade makes her the baby of the school, but she doesn't know it for all the confidence she carries. As for activities, she will do all the things. She's taking a bunch of honors classes, and will likely join a bunch of clubs. That's just who she is. |
Have a good week!
