Summer, swimming, sweating. . .

I haven't posted for over a month, eghads!! Its been busy with the kids home for the summer. Sylas is doing online summer school for 1 full year of world studies and a half year of English. We all want to start 10th grade fresh, and think he'll have a much better year. We had to pay for the online school so he is paying us back for half of it by babysitting twice a week. I'm still working 2 days a week. Ken has been gone during the weeks at his job in Indiana and home weekends so it is challenging at times being a "single parent" again.

We decided since we have a YMCA membership not to get a pool pass at the city pool this summer. So, we've been riding our bikes to the Y and then swimming and riding home again. It has been super hot the past 4 days, so we drove one day. But on the days we ride, I love all the exercise we're getting. It's about 2 miles to the Y. We have an amazing bike path here too, so the girls and I rode 9 miles last week round trip to a place 1/2 way to Springfield called Cedar Bog(Rona made it 7, then Ken had to come pick her up). But I was proud of the girls, it was challenging!

So, the heat wave recently has been oppressive. It has been in the 90's with humidity. We had a wicked wind/thunderstorm on Friday and several in the state lost power. Also many trees went down and large limbs and debris all over the roads. We were some of the only ones that didn't lose our power. We're having another severe thunderstorm tonight. We did need the rain. It has been so dry and I've been watering so much. Almost lost my basil plants, but they've rallied.

We are planning to visit some friends in Missouri for July 4th. Ken has the week off before starting his next project. It will be a long road trip there and back, but they have a boat and we are going out on the lake to watch fire works. It should be a lot of fun; the kids are really excited and Ken is really making an effort to enjoy his least favorite holiday. The family we're visiting are true Ozark people and pretty lively. We laugh a lot with them! Just their accent makes us laugh.

We have a pretty busy month ahead, so not sure how much I'll blog. I have my ultrasound in a couple weeks and we really hope to find out what we're having. Colin's friend Alex, from Connecticut, is coming for a week to hang out. My sister Amy and her hubby Steve are visiting on their road trip across America in about a week. We are really looking forward to them coming. The boys are going on a youth trip to Washington DC on the third weekend of the month and at the end of the month, we will go up north again to our conference center in New York for a couple weeks. I love a busy summer and I love the lazy days in between.

The weather forecast for this week is hot and stormy; it almost always storms on the 4th of July here. I am very, very thankful for central air! Happy Summer all!!!