Simply summer...

The days have slowed and are for certain longer. There are no real schedules to follow, no real structure to our days. We have slept, went swimming and had plenty of fun in the sun. The first few weeks are sometimes difficult to adjust to. The sense of togetherness is a bit more than our usual school schedule. Suddenly, we are together, all day, almost everyday in summer. Occasionally someone has a friend or two over, or goes somewhere with a friend. But for the most part...it's a whole lot of togetherness. This can sometimes cause some tension, or let's call it what is it, fighting! With two teenagers and two tweens, there's a whole lot of attitude going on around here! Seems like lately, someone is always fussing with someone. Then for fun...the four of them join forces and gang up on me! But...it usually all settles in around the 4th of July. We all figure out how to fill our days, how to get along, and how to appreciate downtime. Last week, we had a family adventure that went really well. Just a fun day trip to the Hill Country, but for the most part, it was a nearly perfect day, weather and all. As of now, there are no big trips planned for us this summer and that's OK. Hopefully there may be a camping trip and another day trip or two. I'm up for suggestions! I'm also up for keeping things, as simple as they have been in the last month.

Pooltime is our number one favorite summer activity...with and without friends!

My favorite activity has been catching up on all my magazines! I still love reading magazines more than anything else.

There's been time for outings...sometimes just us girls, sometimes just Jonas!

Lorelei participated in her very first camp...Twilight Girl Scout camp. Every night for a week, from 5-9 p.m. she headed off to camp. She loved it!

Jonas got some alone time thanks to camp!

There's been plenty of Starbuck's treat too, thank to all the Teacher Appreciation gift cards I received!

There's been a lot of this...probably too much! But much deserved down time.

Father's day was s great day for John and the kids. Unfortunately Bailey had to work. Lorelei made him a wonderful breakfast.

We headed to Boerne to enjoy some nice weather and feed the ducks, fish and turtles on Cibolo Creek.

After we went to my mom and dad's and had burgers to celebrate with family. Trooper, my sister's puppy joined us. He's one spoiled pup.

Of course, June means birthday month too. We have the three birthday's in one week...Brieley's on June 20th, Savannah's on the 21st and we end with my sister's on the 24th. We went to Grimaldi's and swimming with Brieley for her birthday, a tradition for the last several years.We haven't celebrated my sister's yet, since she headed to Ohio for her 30th class reunion.

Savannah celebrated a few times with a night at Fiesta Texas with friends, her actual birthday at our house, with her daddy's famous wings, dinner at Grimaldi's with friends and a sleepover after.

Savannah turned 15!!

In honor of both Father's day and Savannah's birthday we took a day trip to Marble Falls for lunch.
We ate at the Bluebonnet Cafe.

After we headed to Kingsland and an area called "The Slab". It's a low water crossing on the Llano River. It was a perfect day...beautiful blue Texas skies, the water was cool and the temperature wasn't scorchingly hot yet.

I read a great little article at the pool one day, from my Magnolia Journal. The article was called "Invincible Summer" by Shauna Niequist. She talks about the joys of slowing down in summer. She really nailed the idea of how summer makes you feel...happy and free. She says, "Summer is wide open, spontaneous, playful." I couldn't agree more. As a teacher, I think we feel even more invincible in summer than most. But regardless if you work in the summer, or are free to be, (like me!)... enjoy the simple pleasures summer has to offer. Happy summer friends!