Just Like Keyser Soze...

{poof} it was gone...for those of you who get the Usual Suspects reference, that pretty much sums up how I feel about our summer. It still looks like summer outside, it still feels like summer outside (seriously this 95 degree weather with 98% humidity has to be on its way out, please!) And yet, here we are already with two weeks under our belt in a new school year, carpool line, earlier bedtime, and all that jazz. We have purchased folders, notebooks, pencils, cap erasers, glue sticks, Elmer's glue, markers, crayons, tissues, dry erase markers (do teachers know that those markers don't come out of clothes???), felt tip pens, highlighters, wide rule paper, Flash drives, ear buds & more. All the kids have a brand new pair of sneakers & new cleats because soccer practice started last week. And I'm pretty much sitting here in disbelief that a whole, entire, complete summer vacation has come and gone in the blink of an eye.
Now, I am not complaining, we had a great summer! We were not too busy & not too bored...there were swim lessons & football camp, art camp & more. We spent lazy days at the lake & other days we filled with all sorts of water activities. We had play-dates with friends, Slip-n-slided to our hearts' content, went to the pool, amusement park & even a museum or two. We ate LOTS of frozen yogurt, watermelon and Popsicles. All good summertime fun!
But, still, here I sit in disbelief that it is really over, kaput, fini, ancient history...
And you may be wondering where I have been, probably not, but just in case you were slightly curious, here is the story...
Round about mid-July when I last posted, we were home from our 4th of July week at the lake & I had that feeling that the big snowball that is "summer break" had crested the hill & was picking up speed on the way down...our lazy days were numbered. We had a couple of busy weeks of camps & looking back at my photo files on the computer I see that I got lazy. I only took pictures on a handful of days in the last month.
That may also have something to do with the fact that a few weeks after the 4th I started feeling really tired, and kind of sick...I'm sure you can see where this is going...a sweet & wonderful surprise blessing! As it turns out, I am expecting another sweet baby in March...on March 14th, Drew's 2nd birthday to be exact! We are all very excited! So long story short, all of August was pretty much a blur.
Oh, oh, OH, and I dare not forget to mention our Internet troubles...our internet service was knocked out after a big thunderstorm one night in July and the fun began. Many calls to AT&T our DSL provider & they continued to assure us there there was NO outage in our area...let's send you a new modem that will arrive in 3 days...well, that didn't fix the problem, so more hours on the phone with AT&T & they determine it must be an outside line problem, so they will set up a service call...and the technician will be here within 7 days! (And still they hold fast to the claim that there are no outages in our area, but their service & repair crews sure are busy?!!) Meanwhile, we continue to get calls from AT&T assuring us that the problem on our phone line has been corrected, to which we always respond, "But we never had a problem with our phone connection!" As the seventh day of the repair "window" approaches, I ask Jeff to call AT&T again because I think they have forgotten us...and sure enough, he tells me to sit down when he calls me back...AT&T closed out our problem report since they "fixed" the problem on our phone lines (that never was a problem in the first place.) So they no longer had an open report for us in the system...This is a Thursday afternoon when we have been without internet service for over a week, AND we are packing up to head to the lake for a long weekend with friends. But, AT&T finally promises us that they will send a technician that afternoon before 5pm. And he does show up at like 4:55pm while we are waiting to pack up the car & leave. He very quickly determines that the problem is not at our house, since the signal isn't even reaching our box from the nearest distribution box. So off he drives down the road to the distribution box, locates the problem & fixes it there. It seriously took less than 30 minutes...and I had to wait 10 days for that? Okay, bygones, but remind me to make sure Jeff called AT&T back to tell them to pro-rate our bill for the 10 days we were without service! So no blogging for those 10 days, then 5 days at the lake with no internet access again...Jeff was starting to watch me for signs of withdrawal! And then it is mid-August and school is starting, and I'm feeling all icky & exhausted...and remember that snowball I was talking about, well, by now we have all been enveloped & all you can see are odd arms & legs sticking out while we just wait for the ride to reach the bottom of the hill, and SPLAT it did & school started, and well, there you have it!
So, I apologize that this post has no pictures. I still need to sort through 6 weeks worth of end-of-summer fun & back-to-school festivities. I promise a nice picture intensive post tomorrow this week sometime soon to catch you all up on all of the fun we had. I do have some great lake photos & more to share. I pinky promise :-) but now I am going to take a nap before school pick-ups start, and maybe a shower, but definitely a nap!

Thanks for bearing with me & thanks for the emails or FB messages saying that you missed me. I was also missing you guys because without internet service I couldn't read my daily blogs either, so I had a lot of fun catching up on everyone the last few weeks!