Monday, July 21, 2014

Our Summer.............

Our summer has been a very interesting one.  We have had a lot going on and then not much going on.

LGA turned 10 last month.  Where did my baby (3 yrs old when I met her) go?  In her place is a tall, lean, tween looking girl.  Double digits!!  Wow.  We had a very small birthday for her as I couldn't get a 10th bday party for her together.  So much has happened that it just was not possible. I felt so bad for her.  She really wanted a party.  Here are some pics from her birthday though.  Nice dinner at home and a Spongebob cake (her choice).

The pic here, I did not mean to cut out BGA but she refused to stand next to her sister and I had my sunglasses on (major darkness) so couldn't tell if I had them in focus, LOL.
 Check out the terrier photo bomber in the cake pic!  LOL.

The tent was a last minute gift but she has slept in it every night since her birthday.  Loves it.

We also celebrated our 6th year as a family.  Celebrated our "gotcha" day as well last month.  Here are some pictures of our first couple of weeks together as a family and then one of the girls last month.




My hair also is continuing the process of turning white and grey and I have about 2 1/2 inches of white around my face and 2 1/2 inches of grey/white at the crown, and evidently grey in the back. I am still enoying it being blonde in on top and growing it out to grey/white.  This is 6 mos progress.




We have had a rough summer as far as Dave's work schedule has gone. Last month he had a change in hours that did not (and still don't) suit our family, he worked night shifts, he went in early. It was a very hard transition.  We also learned he would be getting a promotion (Operations Manager) and going to work for a company that hauls for a major specialty food chain.  His current company lost a 30+ contract to work for this company and brought their own company in, which in turn has hired all the workers to go work for them in early August.  So our summer was all disorganized.  We didn't know if Dave would have a job so did not enroll the girls in any outside activities.  It has been a very hard summer as it took the girls 6 weeks to transition to summer (due to no summer school for LGA this year).  There are 3 more weeks until school starts.

We did have a couple of playdates and have a few more hopefully next week.  The girls and I have gone to movies, and small day trips when we were able to, so it hasn't been a totally Judy Moody and The Not Bummer Summer.  But it was not the summer I imagined it to be.  With that said, I have been thankful for the times Dave was off so we could be together as a family and I do think that helped in the girls summer transition.

We also have a couple of Groupons we bought so I hope to use those before summer is over.

It was nice that we celebrated our family anniversary as well.  BGA has also been asking the tough adoption questions so big summer of dealing with some issues as well.  She did make us a very nice card for our family anniversary and knew what day it was and wanted to make a point of celebrating it (we went to dinner).  That was really a great thing, as in the past the kids dictated how we celebrated it and the girls never really wanted to celebrate.  This was a nice change.

The girls have been great help around the house this summer as well, very intune to the pets and their needs, doing dishes, cleaning, bringing in groceries, etc. I have really enjoyed their help and I like that they are willing (at first the "almost" teen BGA was not into it at all) willing to help out.

We found a great used bookstore in our town and each girl got some reading material for the summer.  LGA is coming along well, but retention is her issue so I will start her this week reading a book a day (they are small ones) and also starting some math. Her teacher let her have some work books so we will try to do some basic math and reading to make sure when school starts she will be ready for it.

Lots of changes, a middle schooler (BGA) and Dave new job next month.  We didn't really have a lot of changes last summer, but this summer has more than made up for that and is one we will remember as a summer of change.

I haven't had much to blog as we have not really had much of a summer but hopefully next month will be a good one for us, with a regular schedule for Dave and we will be able to do a few more fun things.  The girls have seen how life can be when there is not a lot planned and how you can make total fun out of it (hello playing with ZuZu pets and Barbie).  That's kind of a good thing in my book.  Making your own fun.

More later........hope your summer has been grand.