First week of summer vacation

Yes, folks -- school let out for the Summer last Monday already!!  Already.

I was kinda surprised at the LOADS of excitement the girls were holding back that morning, too.

At least Caitlyn was showing me some eyeballs.

So now, the routine of waking at 6:00, eating, and heading out to the bus by 6:50 are now behind us for awhile;  soon to be taken over by 7:00 wakenings in order to head out the door for 8:15AM summer school schedules.

I'm not sure who or when our bus drivers started the annual ice cream treat bus stop, but pictured here is Trish, our bus driver.  Instead of traveling the normal route, she stopped off at the ice cream place with her posse and helped all of them order up their ice cream cone flavor of choice.  Each night for the last week of school, a different bus stops to celebrate with their kiddos.  How cool, right???

So now, the schedule of summer vacation takes over.  One week into it, I'm kinda wondering how this summer will be different than the others.  This is the first year that Cassie is too old to participate in the summer school class offerings, so she is going to be staying with me for much of the day while the other two head off.  On the schedules this summer's mornings:  archery, intro to weight training, tour the town, photography, learning to tie knots;  and the afternoons are known as "stay-n-play" this year. Small groups of science, swimming, arts-n-crafts will take the kiddos through various stations of Day Camp activities, mixing in time for swimming lessons to boot.

We've scheduled an hour each morning for Cassie to hit the weight room;  all the while I'll probably work in my classroom gearing up for the big changes to start my new school year in a couple of months.

And then... gardening.  laundry.  cleaning.  {{at least to start off the summer!}}

Paul's bee keeping mentor (our neighbor) has been taking him through the ropes of bee keeping;  the girls helped decorate some new boxes to increase the height of the hives.  And of COURSE, she arrived the moment I needed to jet out with Shadow (dog) for his appointment, so I wasn't able to get any action shots.  Soon, though.  His hives have kinda reached the "not much to do" stage.  The bees are doing all the work.

The day of the duck hatching came and went, and went, and went.... with nothing to show for it. :(  

I've been reading up on incubating more and more and have some theories as to why nothing came of these eggs.  I'm saddened, but not overly so...

... because about a week after starting up the incubator, Mutter (aka: Muttduck) started sitting on a nest. We are hoping to see some lil' ducklings come week's end :)

Steve, the rooster, has transitioned in with the hens very nicely!  It's been over a week, so a couple of days ago, we decided to "leave the eggs" for a few days to see if Big Mama (front right) will try sitting on them.  She's our brooder mama! :)

And naturally, I've tried to find my crafting time, but seriously... this past week was filled.  Two days alone (Wednesday and Thursday) were filled with road-tripping around the entire northwest region of the state, looking for a truck for Paul, while the girls stayed home to clean their rooms.  (Ask me if they are finished yet!?!?!?!)

Truck hunting was a success... at the last minute... on the leisure ride home... on the backroads. 

All of that time in the van allowed for me to make some great  progress on the lazywave Fall Ripple afghan I started a couple of months ago.  The picture doesn't justify just how well the colors match my Asics shoes!  

And after six months, I finally finished up all 121 blocks for Celtic Solstice!  I found three turned blocks after analyzing the picture.  This will be the first project I try to tackle to the finish line this summer.

 5:20AM was the wakening time for me today;  I'm sure much of the summer will be the same.  I'm not sure why my body wants to wake up that early -- I'm just going with it.