How can the past two months, and the severe lack of posts, possibly be defined in one? We’ve been up to our ears in busy-ness, to say the least. August is a tough month for us, almost like the holidays for the rest of the world. Between Bruce’s birthday, our anniversary (twelve years already!), Riona’s birthday, three girls going into a new school year, and me the same, overwhelming couldn’t begin to describe the stress involved during the hottest month of the year that everyone knows ought still to be summer.
All the same, we have survived and made it into the fall. Mythili began kindergarten this year, and has adapted well to only listening to Spanish all day long. She is already learning some new phrases and repeating them at home, though she did admit the other day, “My teacher finally understanded me when I told her, ‘I have Girl Scouts.’” (Her teacher doesn’t speak English–ironic, right?). While she is a bit tired at the end of the day, she seems to like school, and has also enjoyed joining our Girl Scout troop.
Meanwhile, Riona began her one and only year of preschool. To say she loves it would be an understatement. She knows details about her teachers’ interests and lives and has made a few friends already, though at first she was a bit shy. Bruce has also been taking her to Prairie Preschool at the Plains Conservation Center, where she gets to ride the wagon, feed the chickens, pick vegetables from the garden, and pet the snakes!
Isabella is a full-fledged school girl, delving into complicated subtraction and word problems, reading short books in Spanish, and longer chapter books in English. She and Mythili both participate in a once-weekly after school activity: for Isabella, dance class, and Mythili, art. Both girls are enjoying their school year.
In addition to the usual day-to-day activities, we went troop camping this year at Twisted Pine Girl Scout Camp just outside of Genessee. The girls had a blast creating survival bags, hiking and observing nature, learning about and searching for constellations, singing songs and telling stories around the campfire, and playing outside in the homemade tee-pee. The lodge was amazing, with three large bedrooms, a decent sized bathroom, and a huge, fully stocked kitchen! We can’t wait to try out all the Girl Scout properties and have already booked a different camp, Meadow Mountain Ranch near Estes Park, for some winter fun in January.
In addition to working with new teams this year and teaching a computer class (ACK!), I am also very busy teaching three University of Phoenix online classes back to back until December 20th! In addition to cramming in bike rides to school and walking thousands of steps for our district’s pedometer competitions, busy is the only way to describe my life right now. Fortunately, Bruce has been amazing, taking the kids to and from school, doing all the shopping and errands, cooking delicious meals every night, and dealing with our breakdown-central van. Thank goodness for some stress relief!
On the weekends, we’ve been enjoying the glorious Indian Summer weather in Colorado with long bike rides, hikes, and trips to various farmers’ markets to pick up fresh eggs, vegetables, and Colorado peaches and apples. And of course we made our annual visit to the Aurora Jack-o-Launch, watching the pumpkins fly through the air from their catapult and rifle-like contraptions, enjoying some Dry Dock beer, and watching the kids create crafts and play in the corn box (rather than sand box). Now that autumn is upon us, we’re hoping things will settle down a bit and we can r-e-l-a-x!
For now, 
