I saw on a blog a recording of the whole summer. I like that, as sometimes life can seem to slip away, and you mean to sum it all up at some point, but by the time you get around to remembering all that comes to mind is, "We had fun...I think...and there was lots of...stuff...yeah, stuff!"  I suppose this is one of the whole points of blogging, so that things are remembered in the moment.

So this Summer was a big one for our family - it was the last summer at home with Elisheva before she starts Kindergarten.  We moved the last couple of weeks of school, into a new little white cottage, with almost the same (but much better in its tweaks) layout as our old home.  It is also across the street from Avram's brother Samuel and Aleatha, so that has been fun to be so close to family.  Avram attended Origins, a convention for games and roleplaying, in June, and our friends Matt and Sarah came into town to visit for the week.  Matt and Avram and Samuel attended Origins, and we had lots of late nights talking.  Guinevere discovered her alter ego, a little two year old girl named Gwen (Sarah's niece).  Guinevere proceeded to talk about Gwen the rest of the summer.  Guinevere turned three, and we had cupcakes for her.

Avram attended Scout camp, and I single parented for the second week this year (the first being when he attended Wood Badge in May).  Then we drove off to Virginia for a week, to celebrate the wedding of a childhood friend of Avram's from his home ward. We also got lots of Mum and Papa and Uncle Luke and Aunt Sariah time.  Guinevere and Luke are soulmates and Elisheva follows Sariah around, begging for makeup and fashion things constantly.  Home again, home again, jiggity, jig, for a whole two and a half weeks.  We did the normal summer things - park days and library days, lounging and reading, playdates and movies (more than normal at least - usually around two a week.)

Then, thanks to the generosity of Avram's older brother Joshua, and his wife Missy, and Avram's parents, we went off to Maine for a week.  We visited the ocean, and the outside of lighthouses, we walked out on a rock walkway in  harbor, and camped for a whole week - one of my life time goals. Josh and Missy blessed their baby Ariana, and the whole Shannon family got together for family pictures (I don't have them yet).  When I was a kid I always wanted to live in Maine, and walk the rocky coastline, while gazing romantically out to sea.  Being that I had four kids with me, I never quite got to live out the dream, but I did get to sit and watch the ocean for a long time and that was pretty great.  We ate soft shelled lobsters boiled over a campfire, and we pulled over and bought wild blueberries from Maine, from a car on the side of the road.  A great week, in all.

A mere half week after we got back, we went up to Lake Erie, and camped with a bunch of people from our ward for a couple of days.  The girls enjoyed playing on the rocks and pretending to swim in the shallow waters of East Lake Harbor.  I love camping, and didn't even mind the two camping trips stacked on each other, although it is nice to have creature comforts as well.

Matt came and visited again, and now we're to school starting - whew!  It was tiring.  Lydia started school today, but because of how they do Kindergarten orientation, Elisheva won't start school until Friday.  Lydia is in second grade, and I'm excited for this year.