Summer: In a Nut Shell

Justin and I at the beach. I love him so!!!
The heart break of the summer, we said good-bye to our beloved Haddie. My mom's chocolate lab was loved by all, she's been around for Cameron, Jalen and Miah's whole life. Saying good-bye was not easy.
Here are a few pictures from the 3-day weekend we spent in Caseville.

My niece, Josey, stayed with us for a week in June. She attended Spring Hill summer camp with my boys. It was a great week having Josey here. She is a real sweet heart and really fun to have around. She's welcome here anytime!!!

The past month has been eventful.

In the past 7 days we have frozen warts on tiny fingers. We have become "do it yourselfers" at exterminating bees, ants and ground hogs. We have burned enough wood, branches, twigs that you would think we lived on 6 acres in the woods.

We have been to the beach like 250 times this summer. To be honest, I hope to never go to a public beach ever again. I am so dreaming of a "lake house" all our own. I love water, the sand, the sun, but I really don't consider a public beach a relaxing place to be. My family loves the beach and we always try to find the beaches with the least amount of people, but on hot summer weekends it is really impossible.

Both of the boys have learned to "do laundry". I taught them the whole system: Sort, Stain Spray, Choose what size load, etc. They are at the age that they love it. At first I decided to only teach one of them, I thought I would only teach Jalen (he's the middle child, and often the oldest does all the stuff 1st). Jalen listened so well and picked it up in one day. He did 4 loads that day and each morning he asks if he can do laundry today? He likes it so much that Cameron kept asking me to teach him, cause he wanted to do the laundry. So I decided to teach him too.

My kids are extremely helpful. They do all sorts of chores, and it is a real blessing to me. We have also done school work all summer. Miah likes it. Cameron loves it. Jalen strongly dislikes it. They are all different. All smart, but they are motivated in different ways and they have different learning styles.

Today we picked blueberries. I am freezing tons for the winter months. Yesterday I made fermented cabbage and red beets.

Justin and I took 4th place out of 30 teams in the COED Elite division for the Urban Adventure Race we were in. We would love to do more races if they were free and we actually had time to train for them.