Change and Certifications

It was the kids' last full week of summer break. Jeff went back to work on Wednesday (August 21st). Even though I have lived with these seasonal school year changes for my entire life, it is still a surprisingly bumpy adjustment every time! And it's not over yet: the first day of cross country season is Monday (August 26th), and the kids' first day of school is Tuesday (Aug 27th). Throughout the day while Jeff was at work this week, I took mental notes of things to tell him or ask him later when he got home... and then mostly forgot those mental notes for a day or three until something jogged my memory hours or days later. Mid conversation at dinnertime or during family scripture time or other random times, I would suddenly remember to tell Jeff something. Sometimes I managed to tell him before it left my brain again; other times it had to wait even longer. It was much easier to keep Jeff up to date during summer break when he was home all day! 

Nice dogs

 The last full week of Jeff's summer break was full of morning runs with the cross country team, afternoon naps, and a surprising number of nice dogs. In just six days, we were visited by five nice dogs. It all started with a very sweet husky-German-shepherd-blend dog that ran five-plus miles with our cross country team every day all week and then hung out at the barn with the team afterwards. Some detective texting up and down the street revealed that the dog's name was Luna, and she lives a few houses down the road from us. She joyfully joined in on our runs all week. 

Olympic Peninsula Date Week

Jeff and I stayed closer to home for our annual date trip this year. Since we didn't go to Paris for the Olympics, we decided that the next best thing would be to go to the Olympic Peninsula. We were right; it was a marvelous trip! On Saturday, August 3rd, my Mom flew in to stay with Rose and Amber at our house while we journeyed. On Monday, August 5th, we drove Jay plus four other teenagers 3 hours to Seattle University for FSY church camp. We deposited them at the edge of campus with their bags, offered hugs to any kid who wanted one (Jay plus one of his friends accepted our hugs). Then we continued driving west for two more hours until we reached Sequim, WA, a small bustling town on the northeastern corner of the Olympic Peninsula (pronounced "skwim").

The Olympic Mountains are stunning!

Lazy & Hazy

We finally had a lazy relaxing summer week! It was the first week after summer swim season ended, and not having kids at the pool by 6am felt decadent--we didn't have to be ready to roll until 7:30am for cross country practice. On the other end of the day, there were no late night swim meets to slowly drain my life force. Each day, we basically ran with the cross country team in the morning, did some yardwork, and then vegged the afternoon and evening away watching Olympics and various other screens. The morning runs and workouts were intense enough to make the afternoons feel extra necessary and luxurious. My legs are sore after our relaxing week!