Summer Lovin'

Here are some of the odds and ends that never made it on the blog this season.  As you can see, it's been another fantastic summer!

 We picked blueberries.

We rode roller coasters and spinny rides at Great America.

 We spent lots of hours swimming and reading at the community pool.

We also loved visiting our pool-owning friends.  We did a little tally and it ended up being 17 different people's pools we got to swim in this summer!  If you rescued us from triple digit heat and a boring day at home with an invitation to chat and swim at your place for a few hours...THANK YOU!!!

We tried to stay connected to our school friends.  With their buddies, the girls enjoyed making lemonade stands and having sleepovers and staying up late for movie nights and shopping at craft fairs and rollerblading in the church parking lot and sharing our dark sanctuary for Sunday night laser tag battles when everyone left after the pm service.

I'm so proud of Ella for finding all sorts of ways to keep the creativity flowing this summer!  After Hawaii, she taught herself to play the ukulele.

She'd encourage her sister to join her in setting up wacky and wonderful things in our house all the time.  They filmed newscasts with commercials and a full replica of the safety video you watch on airplanes.  They made a huge "Abstract Noun Store", full of decorative and seemingly empty bottles containing things like "contentment", "love", and "forgiveness".  She turned every room in the house into a living game of Clue we could all play, complete with weapons and costume changes for the characters.

 Ella also read a book about a kid who starts a business, thought it sounded fun, and launched her own business, 1 Thess. 5:17 Crafts, selling the little Altoid tin prayer boxes she loves to make.  One post on my Instagram account generated enough orders to earn her $39!

We survived another week of VBS.  Our church saw a record numbers of kids and we all agreed it was one of our best years yet!  Both girls have graduated to Crew Helpers, but Ella was needed to help play a dramatic part in our Bible room for a day.  She was great and convincing as the High Priest's Servant who gets his ear cut off in the Garden of Gethsemane.  She is now asking when Dave and I will retire from telling the Bible Stories, so she can take over. :)

This summer has also included family hide-and-go-seek laser tag wars, late night moon gazing, entire seasons of shows watched together, the 6th Harry Potter book read aloud, a million Minecraft homes built, crafts galore, and a sad goodbye to one of our guinea pigs.

It's been another summer of togetherness, adventure, and memories-- the exact thing I always crave at the end of every busy school year.  I feel confident that we are fortified and ready to jump back into our rigorous school schedule in just a few days after such a splendid season of fun and rest!