Summer 2017 it has been real. The backpacks are all packed and ready for the first day of school tomorrow and the kids are all tucked in their beds. Whether we are ready for not, school begins tomorrow in our neck of the woods. I always enjoy taking a few minutes during the last night of summer to recap what we got into as a family. It makes me sad to realize how few summers we have left where all of our chickens are in the nest.
We began our summer Memorial weekend heading to Charlotte to play some basketball with Team Xplosion. We were all so excited because my preschool year was over and both the boys and Hope had enjoyed our basketball camps at the high school. Charlotte treated us well -we stayed downtown and the kids loved the pool on the roof.
Team Xplosion did well in Charlotte and it was a great time!
We returned from Charlotte for Kyle to play summer league as a varsity player for his high school team. They played four games a week during the months of June! It was fun to travel to Ft. Chiswell to watch them play. When it was all said and done Kyle played 28 baskeball games this summer. He was in heaven!
June was also our weekly Nurture program at church. Only for our sweet Nurture kids would we be at church before 8 a.m. for a day of serving!
This little lady turned 8 over the summer. Slow down time please:)
The Summer is always a great time for family time at Claytor Lake! We love our time there with Pops and GG.
Hope also loved every minute of Camp in the Community at church! String games on her fingers, slime and learning about Jesus were the highlights of the week.
My pictures are out of order, but we also spent six days in Myrtle Beach with Team Xplosion playing in Big Shots. It was our last tourney of the season and these boys from southwest Va/East Tn came home winners!!! Such fun!
Another joy of the entire summer was our garden. We are so excited and proud to be organic gardeners growing, canning, and sharing our bounty. We are already planning our garden for next year and we still have a fall garden to look forward to!
Another highlight of the summer was Kyle attending PGC basketball camp with his friend Ian. They roomed together at Eastern Mennonite University and they learned a lot about leadership and character. It was a great learning and growing opportunity for them both.
Ahhh, I cannot even look at this picture without smiling. We took a group of 47 to Charleston SC to attend Mfuge mission trip at Charleston Southern University. It was an amazing and hot week serving.
We never planned to go as a family but that is what happened! God blessed us with a week together serving, learning and growing. We had a blast and will have memories tucked in our hearts forever. It was a wonderful bonding time for us as a family. Hope and I served at a day care, Kyle served at an apartment complex in the city, and Mike and David bounced around doing lots of different social ministries.
Our family at the beach! Myrtle Beach was such fun. We shared a condo with GG and Pops and it was relaxing, fun and just what we needed after a hectic mission trip week. The weather was a little cloudy and we even had some rain but it did not bother us one bit.
We have enjoyed the bounty of our garden using lots of different pinterest recipes to enjoy our bumper crop.
One of the highlights of David's summer was attending Buzz's Bunch camp. Earlier in the summer Kyle attended a basketball camp for several days and this past weekend it was David's turn. We are big Coach Buzz fans in this house so both camps were a treat for our boys.
One of the blessings of the summer was that I learned to can!! I only water bath can for now but I have loved taking our bumper crops of tomatoes and making spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, and salsa. Canning is hot and messy work but it is so rewarding to know that in the cold of winter we will still be enjoying our summer garden. I am so thankful we were chosen to be in the Sprouting Hope homegrown program. Everytime I harvested a vegetable I would marvel that it actually grew! I was a complete garden rookie and to see shelves of canned jars from our garden makes me smile. Canning is not for the lazy but it is so gratifying!
We are excited for what this upcoming school year holds. Kyle will be a sophomore, David will be in 7th grade and our favorite girl will be a third grader. Every year when school starts back I feel a little panicky when I am faced with how fast the years are flying by. I pray our kids learn a lot, make wise choices, show kindness to all, and remember to stick with friends who share our faith and values. We are blessed with an amazing school system and great teachers for this year so we know that they will be in great hands. Happy first day of school-goodbye Summer 2017:)
No comments:
Post a Comment