Life At The Circus

I love apple picking with the kids.  It is one of my most favorite fall traditions.  This year Scott was able to join us since we went in the late afternoon.  We actually closed up the joint… checking out literally at closing time.  The weather was perfect and the event, like everything in life, was so much more enjoyable with Scott.

Almost every fall, I enjoy taking the kids to the county fair.  We’ve been going since my oldest was under a year old.  This year my youngest was so super excited.  He talked about it for months.  “When are we going to go to the fair and see the animals?”  We went on Friday morning for the preschool preview day.   Then my parents and I returned on Saturday for the girls to perform a gymnastics demo.  Saturday we brought our cousins back.   It was so cute to watch all of the kids interacting with the animals.  My niece is quite the animal lover.  I loved, LOVED watching her interact with the animals. The pig and duck races were a favorite event for everyone. My heart was full as I watched my kids interact with their cousins.. making memories and building relationships… precious, precious times!

Because our homeschool tutorial meets on a Mon-Thurs schedule and the board doesn’t like to start the year on a partial week, we are THE LAST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD (or so it feels like) to start back to school.  But, today we finally had our turn for the morning poses on the front step.  Another school year is upon us.  We had an EPIC summer.  One for the record books… and I while I didn’t tackle every project on my summer to do list, we are starting the year off a little more organized than last year.  So, even though I am not ready for the early mornings and the long afternoons… I am ready for a new year. I can’t believe this is my 5th year of homeschooling!!  That’s right I have a fourth grader now.  I also have a second grader… sporting the contacts she got this summer.  Definitely a new look for her (and her doll Molly).  She also lost a new tooth this weekend! And last, but not least, my 1st grader!  She was almost litera...

Labor Day.  What does it really mean anyway?  I’m not fully sure of it’s tradition or reason for existing, but I do know it means a 3 day weekend at the end of the summer and so I’ve never really questioned it. It wasn’t until the summer of 2002, that it took on a whole new meaning for me and my family.  That was the year we went to my friends family cabin with 5 other couples and just hung out.  For three days.  Stayed up late talking, played games, ate a lot of junk food.  It was glorious.  And we decided right then and there that we should do this every year. And we have. Many of you know about our Labor Day tradition.  You come to expect this blog post or the slew of pictures on face book.  This year it took me awhile to recap on it.  I’m still not sure I can put it into words.  The last few years I noticed a change in our Labor day gatherings.  It started subtle at first.  The original core of our group was ...

It was a typical afternoon for me… rush the kids into the van, make a quick stop at Walgreens for cough drops and pictures… a quick glance at the clock tells me we should make it to practice in time as long as we don’t hit traffic. And then… the car just stops… it almost felt like I could feel it drop, the steering wheel locked and I did my best to coast and steer it to the side of the road… or the entrance of the bus circle at the high school.  I look over and see a van waiting for me to move.  I am completely blocking his exit.  I have no idea what to do.  I put my window down to say this and a man comes over and says, “Put it in neutral and I’ll push you to the side.”  We both did a double take.  He was the father of one of the girls on my daughter’s gymnastics team.  The same team I was taking the girls to practice for.  After pushing my van out of the way so cars could drive around me, he offered to drive the girls to practice for me....