In No Particular Order

I forgot this photo at first, but having it at the beginning actually makes sense. This summer has been a gamble in a lot of ways! This particular one happened when Annika found the poker chips in the church garage sale pile and decided it was time to learn black jack and poker. I guess they got some good addition practice. And Daddy time is always at a premium.

Because this summer has been crazy. And I mean nuts. There has been so much going on, we have barely kept up.

Jeff's business took off--he billed in one day this week what he billed last September as a month. Which is awesome and exactly what we hoped for. But, there are also all of those pains of growing that quickly. Jeff has not had a full day off since May and is putting in 12-15 hours most days. He does love the work still and has remained excited about this opportunity despite his growing exhaustion.

I attempted to do a few unpacking jobs for his company and mom was awesome enough to watch the kids. This ended up being really hard to schedule and I didn't do as many as I would have maybe liked. The money is good, the work is actually kind of fun, but the logistics is nuts.

We have had lots of visitors. Few of them stayed in our nest, but we spent lots of time with them. Jeff's sister and family came in June and I took them downtown with the kids to Shedd aquarium and Navy Pier. Sarah, my sister, and kids came and were here for two weeks. Then my sister in law Naomi, and nephew, came to visit too. It has been a lot of fun to see everyone.

We have spent a lot of time at my parents. Between going to spend time with family, the jobs, we went for Mom's VBS/my downtime, individual time for Phoebe and Annika, and other random trips we have been in Elgin at least 3 days out of every week. My parents have been great about hosting us. We have loved swimming (the girls are getting quite good, enough that I can sit on the side and watch when I get tired), swinging, gardening, and watching movies.

One big event I focused on was our church's VBS July 18-22. I wrote the curriculum, Connected to Creation, and was the director. We had 170 kids and forty volunteers. It was a huge success, much to my delight. I added in a science session that the kids got a huge kick out of. Mom came and helped decorate, this is the amazing waterfall she created in the corner. We got Jeff away for an afternoon/couple hours of fishing. Always a good time. Annika caught a bass!

Mom came and babysat during a job one day and the girls had some friends over. They created this very cool giraffe costume and then took it to a whole other level and created costumes for everyone and decorated the tv room. Then they made up a play and acted for us. Super fun.

In Elgin they like riding the big wheels. We had recently gone to the dollar theater to see "Rio" and it has a Mardi Gras parade in it. So they recreated it. They tied the bikes together with jump ropes with the wagon in the middle and then filled everything with stuffed animals.

I picked a few cherries. Not a banner year, but I still enjoy doing it. I like harvesting. Often wondered if I would enjoy being a migrant worker. ;)

I opened my etsy shop, nicplynel. It will be fun to have an outlet for my stash of cards. Hopefully some sell, I have fun making them.
And we still have August to go! The kids don't start school until the 24th, but I have most of their supplies already. I can't believe Annika will be gone all day. They are going to Granny camp next week in Iowa. I am hoping to visit several people. So look for another super post!