June, and now July!

I can't believe it's been so long between blog posts. But A LOT has been happening -- I mean, a LOT. June simply didn't slow down, not even when we ditched the kids at WinShape for 2 weeks. Er, lovingly dropped them off.

Much of my own "busy" was at work. It has just been non-stop. We had a Sales Meeting to prep for and then attend (11-13th, I stayed in a hotel down by the airport). We had an impossible deadline to meet, launching brand-new microsites in 4 different countries. Then they decided to throw in a PR campaign for said websites (2 press releases to write and several meetings to talk about how to manage the PR). More immediate deadlines. Then I don't even know what-all.

It made it a little harder that I had signed Kate up for a day-camp the week of June 18th. Oh, summer day-camps, how I hate thee. It is so unhelpful to have camps that begin at 9:00am and end at 3:00pm. I guess the SAHMs find those times perfect, but not this mom. No offense to the SAHMs. (Dear Kate, I advise you to become a teacher.) I brought her to my office most of those mornings. She was good as gold, actually, and I had worked out some carpools with friends, but it still complicated my week somehow. I also had an offsite, all-day meeting one of those days. WHY!? Gah. Extra shuffle, Shawn took her to work and to camp that day, and Carli helped with some afternoon pickups, too. Oh, also also, one of those days included dentist appointments for both kids, and since Alex had brought home a cold from Winshape, I went ahead and scheduled a doc appt for him, too. WHIMPER. I "worked from home" that day, which I love to do, but... after toting my laptop around town, sneaking in a half-hour here and half-hour there, I was mentally and physically exhausted by Friday. Mostly mentally. Had a touch of a breakdown, in fact, when I hit my head with the vacuum (because why not, let's also vacuum the house before we leave town, we don't have enough to do). It HURT, and I cried.

Thank GOODNESS we left for the beach the next day. And we did nothing, zero, zip, zilch at the beach for a week. It was a memorable year for that reason, and for the kids' parasailing adventure with Papa Joe (poor Alex got sick from the boat on choppy waters), and for the reason of having no extra uncles/cousins/people to entertain. Hooray! I read 3 books: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (pretty weird, but interesting enough and well written); New to Me by Linda Sharps (the best! Laugh out loud funny); and then Return to Sullivan's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank (perfect easy (almost wrote 'dumb') beach read with a kind-of surprise ending).

Which brings us to now! This week the kiddos have been at Mom and Dad's for "Camp Grandmommy." And none of us knows what is going on with Kate, but she has called us and cried that she misses us (and she's scared of thunderstorms) nearly every night. WTH?! She's been going to their house since she was four years old with hardly a backward glance. The only thing I can figure is different this year is that she's ten, and maybe has some pre-teen hormones swirling around making her inexplicably weepy. Right? Surely that's it. She was weepy for 3-4 days after we returned from Seattle, too, missing it, overly sad it was over. So that has been weird, but they're having a great time, I think. Playing with the cousins, swimming a bit, shopping, movies, pedal/paddle boats, and today a ferry ride across the bay. I'm so grateful to my Mom and Dad for enduring the moody one, and for hosting/feeding/entertaining both of them.

We pick them up tomorrow, if I can get through one more day at the office. Then a quick weekend -- including Alex's 14th birthday on Sunday (WHUT?!) -- and then back at it.

Next post may just be about the first week of school. Whatever happened to deliciously long summers?? Sigh. These poor kids don't know what they're missing.