Summer's End

When one must return to work on August 12th, summer's end arrives far too quickly.   We managed to fill the final weeks of vacation with friends and fun and a few epic beach days-- summer as advertised!

The end of July and the first weeks of August were full of...

Walks to the lake with this teeny tiny (whose terrible haircut is finally growing out a little...)

Date nights- dinner and comedy on East 4th...

The Paris Olympics!  And a houseful of friends to watch the opening ceremonies...

                                    

Pictured below- Ivy's favorite way to exist :)

Swim team Champs!   Terrific weather thisyear and a nice (dry!) campsite.  Which is good because we were there for two VERY long days.  Worth it to watch our children with their teammates and friends (the 14 year old girl contingent took over our tent and it was great) and to spend time with our swim team parent friends. Swim team people are the best people. 

Our little team did admirably, coming in second in division two with tons of PR's in all age groups.  And Jack took home several team record medals is his new 16 and over age group.  It's wild, that we are here in the timeline already.  When we first started with Tigersharks our kids were the young ones, and we looked at the 16 and over kids and thought, "who ARE these full grown humans swimming in this meet??"  And now one of those full grown humans is my baby boy.  And it is impossible and inevitable and heartbreaking and exactly right that he is. 

Fit in a beach day with Melinda and Jen in between our various travel. It's grand to have Jen back in town.  She's always been the master of creating spontaneous fun (and the best food), and I've missed having her close to bring that light to my life.  We sat and talked and drank and ate pozole and made up ridiculous jokes that I can't even remember and got sunburned and it was perfect.  In the busyness and change of these past two years it is good to stop and remember how much I love my friends.

  The annual Cumberland pool water show...  Jack's first one as a guard .  He's somewhere in that splashing riot of teenagers as the guards "performed" their act.  I love this silly tradition and how our community comes out in force to watch our kids have fun.  Cleveland Heights is a wonderful place to live and I'm so grateful my kids have gotten to grow up taking all of this love and security for granted. 

 

Cocktail Choir!  With old friends and Windsong friends and new friends, singing rock songs at the top of our lungs and soaking up the joy.

Back to the pool for the Tigersharks end of season party.  Again, these people.  The best. 

More wonderful time with friends- Meg and her pup Zora came for a quick visit an it was a great excuse to gather college friends together, for gaming and beaching and daydrinking and playing with dogs and laughing a whole lot.

Then it was time to close out summer vacation 2024 - with two trips to the country fair in two days.  Not a bad was to do it.  Friday evening with Holly, Calida and Cailen, Saturday afternoon with Nat and the kids.

It was partifularly nice to spend a day with this kid, who has been the busyest person in the family by far this summer, between working and swiming and a girlfriend, and being more social in genearl than he has ever been before.  I know it is appropriate and the natural course of things, to see him less... but I've missed him.   

More friend time, at a fun gathering at Katie's house.  

And of course- no summer is complete without the Great Lakes Medieval Faire.  Our friend CJ joined us and we met Mika and Bella there for an enjoyable day of wandering, eating junk food and shopping for daggers and corsets.

On our drive home Ivy decided she wanted to get her ears double peirced (she's been toying with the idea) and before long she and Holly and I agreed it sounded like a perfect new "back to school' tradition- a new peircing for each new school year.  So we made it happen the next day. Gotta jump right on these great ideas.

And then... back to the classroom.  Except for the vacation ending part, I don't really mind going back to work. There is such a tangible excitement to preparing for a new year, and the hard work of getting the classroom ready is so rewarding.

But summer's not REALLY over, is it?  Not when sunset lingers late in the evenings and fun events abound almost every day, squezed into the time left after school.  More August fun to come... but there'll be another post for that.