End of summer synopsis

The kids start school this week, which seems completely unbelievable.  In some ways it feels like this summer has lasted forever, like when I think of all the Cancer Center visits.  In other ways this summer has been the fastest one I've ever experienced, like spending unstructured time with the kids.   I'm a little bit excited for the kids to start their new school year adventures, but I'm mostly depressed that we didn't create many memories this summer and now the kids will be gone all day.

Here's some randomness from the past couple weeks.

I was officially accepted into BYU-Idaho as an online student!  Classes don't begin until September 15th, so I still have a month of freedom before I dive back into the books.

One day Lindsey knocked on my door and said she felt something painful and squishy on the back of her head.  When I checked it out, I saw this nasty bug attached to her head.  I literally had to rip the bug off, so the white part at the top is a piece of Lindsey's scalp.  Ewwwwww.  At least bugs in the hair are proof that she's enjoyed her summer outside.

3 years and $7,000 later, Brevan has a beautiful set of pearly-whites to show off!  One kid down, 3 to go on the braces trek.

He also received his official Permit License in the mail.  What a handsome, grown-up boy!

This nightmare is almost over.  After spending most days working on the rental house this past month, we have finished the biggest projects.  We have patched all the holes and painted almost every wall, filled in gouges on the doors and baseboards and re-stained all of them, fixed plumbing issues, installed all new fire alarms (because the previous ones were all MIA), ripped up all the carpet and pad, bleached and Kilz-ed the floorboards, had new pad and carpet installed, cleaned, scrubbed, cleaned and scrubbed some more, did hours of yard work, and the list goes on and on.  After all the hard work, I'm proud to say the house looks beautiful again.

The front door was my guinea pig, because I've been wanting to paint the door at my current house this color.  It looked great, and made me wonder why I never painted this door years ago!

You might see a typical home.  I see hours of hard work and a home that no longer smells like dog urine and garbage.

A new family is in the process of moving into the house this week.  They are ecstatic about the prospect of buying the house when their credit has improved next year.  They have been living with the husband's parents in the yellow house next door (on the left side of this picture) as they waited to find a house in the neighborhood so they could also be near his sister's family (who live in the house on the right side of the picture). 

We are enjoying the end of summer with some fun activities!  First was a day at the pool with Napiers.

The next day, we tagged along with Napiers to the Deanna Rose Farm.  It was a hot day, but the kids had fun feeding the goats, fishing, riding ponies, mining for gold, and wearing the dunce hat in the 1800's schoolhouse.

 

This past Saturday, we went hiking as a family (plus Chloe, who joined us) so Brevan could pass off his final Scout requirement.  He had to pack and prepare a meal for us along the route.  Hiking around Smithville Lake is as good as it gets in Missouri.  It made me miss the Rocky Mountains terribly!

Tomorrow is Back to School Night and then the kids hit the books on Thursday.  I'm hoping we can enjoy the last few days of summer since life is hopefully starting to settle down a little.  We are looking forward to having my parents come in town in a couple weeks!