A bit of a weird-feeling summer so far

This summer has felt a little odd so far. I’m not 100% sure why. Brainstorming, it may be a few things.

1- The kids got out of school extra early- at the end of May!!

2- The weather was super hot for a bit, then chilly and damp and almost fall like for the past week or so. Didn’t feel like summer. Summer is back as of today, though:

3- Our schedule has felt “choppy”. We don’t really have an exact daily routine going, which is okay, just different from other years. In the past, one or both of the boys have usually done summer school from ~8-12 every day. Obviously, that provides very school-year-like structure. Neither wanted to do summer school this year, though. They are going to that daily strength and conditioning summer school class, but it’s only from 9- 10 am.

4- We are still waiting for Ethan’s summer job to start. It’s a farm/ seed company, and they told us “mid-June”. Well, today is June 14. I’d classify that as mid-June, but what do I know. I’m thinking maybe we’ll hear something soon and it might start next week??? It’s been tough, though, because without knowing the exact start date, I haven’t wanted to sign Ethan up for many activities, in case he suddenly had to start working! So he’s just been kind of “around”. Or with friends, etc. Once work starts, he will be VERY busy- working every day from 8-4! Eek.

5- Ethan does have Day 6 of soccer tryouts tonight. These have also made the summer feel a little goofy- running around to different fields, and having our evenings tied up (when normally in the summertime, we don’t have as much at night). I’ll be glad when these are done now!!

6- Another change from previous years: an exponential increase in time they want to spend with friends. Not saying this is a bad thing! It’s great, in many ways- lots of socialization is a good, normal thing at their ages. But it is different from the summers when I had mostly total “control” over their days and they were home all the time. Now, they essentially inform ME what their plans are for the day! (I mean, kind of. Obviously we still have the last word, and they still have some responsibilities at home, etc. But for the most part, we’ve been pretty go with the flow in that area.) It has made some days feel….different, I guess, than I was expecting.

7- The multiple weekends away in a row is not really normal for us in early summer, either! Just worked out that way, though.

So, all in all, summer feels slightly off so far, but then again, maybe not really. Thinking back, I guess our summers have probably always been a little different each year, as the kids get bigger.

“The only constant in life is change.” – Heraclitus

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Online art class:

In an effort to find a little more structure for Asher (who is not going to be working this summer), I signed him up for two different online art classes through Outschool.com– one for June, one for July.

We’ve never tried Outschool courses, but I’d heard of them and they have a HUGE selection of classes. Asher is into art- specifically drawing- but I didn’t have super great luck finding a good in person art class for him for this summer around here.

Besides, with his swim schedule, various camps, etc., we couldn’t really commit, anyway.

So, we went with 2 different flexible schedule online drawing classes! The first one started this week. So far, so good. The teacher will release 3 video lessons per week and he can log on and do them whenever he wants. (Will plan for M/W/ F, the days the videos come out.)

He did the first lesson yesterday:

This seems like a good compromise for now. The flexibility is nice, yet still provides something to do that feels “structured”.

Summer night walk:

We went out for a little walk right before bed, as the temperature was already rising. (Humidity moving in big time.) The moon was one of those ginormous super moons, or whatever they call them!!

It was beautiful. I do love a hot summer night. Ahhhh. The warm air, the sound of the frogs and crickets chirping….love it. We really cherish them, since we obviously don’t get hot nights all year around here.

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for pretty summertime flowers.