Summertime, aka You Missed Me

At the beach last week. Don't fool yourself; everyone had a blast.

Hi. I'm back. The summer has gone by so so so quickly. Why does summer always do that? It's one of the best times of the year and it's gone in a flash. We still have a week before Madeline starts school, and I'm trying to make the most of it. Anyway, while there has been a lot happening and a lot to say, I've barely been keeping my head above the water so blogging about this near-drowning experience has been the last thing on my mind. Instead, I've been:

1. Growing a baby.

2. Hunting for a house.

3. Teaching my kids to use the DVD player.

4. Taking naps.

5. Completing all 1,001 tasks it takes to keep a household running smoothly.

Does that make me sound busy? Not busy? Lazy? Not lazy? I have no idea. All I know is that all of these tasks consume insanely large amounts of time and energy.

This summer I've tried to keep things low-key with the kids and that has been great. We participated in a nature camp at the beginning of the summer and then did swimming lessons for two weeks in July. Madeline also participated in an awesome gardening class once a month, and we usually go to a yoga class at the library once a month as well. Other than that, it's been pretty unstructured. Plenty of time playing in water in the backyard or riding bikes up and down the sidewalk. We've gone to the park when the mood strikes, but honestly, it's not my favorite thing to do in the summer because the heat and humidity just suck all of my energy away by the time we even walk over there. We all end up a lot happier and arguing less if we just stick close to home, where we can spend time outside but still eat as many popsicles as we want.

I have tried to do a weekly art day and a weekly science day with the girls (Dave does the science just as a fun dad thing). They totally look forward to it and love it, even though the projects are sometimes awesome and sometimes very low key (read: unplanned).

So, back to growing a baby. I'm 20 weeks along and due at the beginning of January. We recently found out that we're expecting a little girl! So of course that will be fun. I am still absolutely unable to function without getting a nap every afternoon, which makes it hard to get other things done, but other than that I'm now feeling great.

Also, the house hunting thing. Our landlords informed us at the end of March that they were planning to sell their other house and move into ours. Ever since then we've been debating where to live, whether to buy or rent, and looking looking looking. FOR FIVE MONTHS, PEOPLE. This has consumed incredible amounts of time. We decided to buy a place in Lancaster, but after having looked at loads of houses and even putting in three offers, nothing has worked out. We weren't able to get into a place before school started, which was our big hope. Our landlords are slowly moving more boxes into the attic and even having a new couch delivered to the garage this week, so it doesn't look like they're going to change their minds at all . . . and we need to find a place pretty quickly.

So, to summarize: There has been nothing big or stressful going on lately. Business as usual here in the Dave & Sarah household. Hope your summer has been just as calm and relaxing!