Autumn Change and Summer Accomplishments

"All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven." - Ecclesiastes 3:1 

 It's the time of pencils, paper, chalk boards, early mornings, lots of coffee, smokey evenings, spider webs and sweaters (with sandals). The mornings are finally cool, but the afternoons still warm. Here in Washington, there is a haze and smell of smoke that hangs in the air from the tragic wildfires that have ravaged the eastern side of the state. Everyone knows someone who is fighting the fires. May God protect them all.  The filtered sun hangs like a red ball low on the horizon, it is a season of change.

The leaves are beginning to change from lush greens to brilliant golds, talk is changing from "What are you doing this weekend?" to "Did you have a good summer?" and now, our days are about to change from lazy and spontaneous to scheduled routine.

Lately our days have been spent at the school cleaning, organizing and rearranging the classrooms. The kids have spent just as much time as I have putting work into preparing for this new academic year. One day, recently, we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at the school. I had to remind one of my sons (and myself) that I am lucky to get to spend the whole summer with them, footloose and fancy free, hours of dedicated work at summer's end is a small price to pay.

After our parent orientation meeting, I was asked, "What did you do this summer?" When I stopped to think about it, I was impressed with how much we did do. I won't go into to detail, as I already have in other posts, but I wanted to sum it all up for my children so they can look back on the summer of 2015 and remember all the good adventures we were fortunate to be a part of.

Here is a breakdown of our adventures:

States we visited outside of Washington: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Colorado and New Mexico.

National Parks we visited: Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Park, and, of course, Mount Rainier.

Miles driven: over 5,000

On top of all that, I've run my first Half Marathon and the kids and I have moved into a new home! It was quite an eventful summer. We also got many memorable hikes and finally got to go camping with family for Labor Day.

Note: written weeks ago, but it started to gather dust in my draft section of posts, so I figured I'd post it anywhoo. Have a wonderful day.

Gina.