All good things must come to an end

Today is the very last day of summer and I have a heavy heart. We had a great time this summer. Yes, there was a lot of yelling, fighting, frustration, annoyance. But we had a lot of fun and mostly genuinely enjoyed being together. Tomorrow the boys will go off to school. I'm nervous for them. I'm nervous about Sam starting a new school, so far away from our house. It is such a big school, not at all comfortable and familiar. I'm nervous about Nathanael having a grouchy old lady kindergarten teacher, nervous about who will hug him when he cries at drop off like last year. I'm nervous that this choice I made to leave him at his preschool for kindergarten won't be as great as I had hoped it would be. I just wish we had a little more time together.

Before the summer even began, I had made grand plans of fun things I would do with the kids. Each day would have one fantastic activity. But, well, being at home with kids is exhausting. And most days it just didn't happen. But daggum it, we had one fine summer, in my opinion, and I hope that they enjoyed it. I think they did because they aren't looking forward to starting school tomorrow.

This summer we made treats together. I picked out a few new recipes that were simple so that they boys could do a large part of the making. They had a lot of fun with it, but mostly they just enjoyed having treats to eat. We made chocolate covered s'mores on a stick (more than once), caramel covered Pirate's Booty (eh, I'll pass on making that one again), York peppermint patty brownies (sugar overload), cupcake batter muddy buddies (total fail), and cookies, of course.

The boys had play dates with friends and cousins, at our house and theirs. We did crafts with friends and took field trips with friends.

At this play date, we made sun catchers by melting plastic beads in a toaster oven and we made more s'mores. 

   

One of our field trips was a picnic and scavenger hunt at Paris Mountain State Park. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the boys did with the hunt. It was a lovely day.

Another day, I took the kids geocaching locally. The first one I knew would be easy to find. Success. The next two, epic failures. It was a hot day. Claire was tired. I couldn't get the compass on my phone to work adequately. We went home angry. Or maybe it was just me.

On a very rainy day, we went down to Clemson for a class about edible parts of plants. The kids played games (veggie bunco and veggie twister) and had a taste test. The boys tasted very little, leaving Miss Claire to scavenger all the bits.

Claire had her very first trip to the zoo. She enjoyed it, except sitting on the dreadful bear. Her favorite part was feeding the goats.

Our final field trip of the summer was to the park to start another of our science experiments. The kids wore a sock over their shoe, as they walked in the woods. When we got home, we wet the sock, placed it in a baggie, and we now have the baggies taped in our kitchen window waiting to see what (if anything) will sprout.

We went to shows at the library with friends, and checked out TONS of books and movies. Sam became a boy scout and participated in the rain gutter regatta. He tied for first place. The boys stayed active with sports. They both played in a summer season of basketball. Nathanael did a bit of gymnastics with Max. And in the last few weeks Sam has started tackle football.

We said goodbye to some of our favorite friends. It still hurts my heart that they are gone. The good ones always move away.

I made the boys do school work to earn electronics time each day. It was just as torturous, if not more so, for me to have them do the work as it was for them to do it. The limited amounts of electronic use (they still use it a lot, but I tried...) forced them to learn to play together. They did really well. They were creative and used their imaginations. They laughed together, exercised together, Sam started an at-home gymnastics class for Nathanael at the rate of $1 per day, and they beat on each other.

We got into a bad habit of staying up later and sleeping in late. There was lots of lazy cuddling and lots of staying in pajamas late into the day. 

Tomorrow is a new day. It's a new chapter. It makes me sad to see summer go because it means my kids are another school year older. They are growing up so fast and I know they are only mine for a short time.