We end where we began: in our little schoolroom at home.

It has been a pretty great school year.

• For the first time ever, every single kid finished their math book. (This is huge. Usually at least two of them have to continue doing lessons through the summer until their book is done.) All of them began their math book for the next grade. Kyrie (who just completed first grade) is already halfway through second grade math. (I know I'm subjective, and I really think all my kids are very intelligent. But Kyrie? The girl is wicked smart. I'm in awe of how quickly she digests material, she easily accomplished in this one year of homeschool what all five who went before her did in two years. She'd just breeze through every day and then ask, "What can I do next?")
  
  
• Jackson, Ethan, and Kyrie all improved unbelievably in reading and comprehension skills. I can hardly believe they're the same kids from September. Every year I come up with one substantial tweak to the way I do things. This year, the tweak was to our reading program, and I'm very pleased with the results.
  
  
• We made it through our whole science curriculum once, and then started over and did half of it again. I feel like the kids have a great grasp of earth science and a pretty darn good grasp of space.
  
  
• I was trying to prepare Libby for next year at The Academy. Her writing skills have blossomed. She wrote lots of essays this year, lots of paragraphs, lots of stories. I'm so pleased with how far she's come, and I can honestly say that I feel like she's ready for what I know is coming in ninth grade.
  
  
• Geography has been fun this year. All the kids (Mack too) know the continents, the oceans, the Mediterranean Sea, and the major countries from the medieval period. I know they won't remember everything they learned in history, but they had a pretty good grasp of it in the moment. It'll be a good pin to hang their future knowledge on.

I love summertime. I made my list of projects this morning, and it's really long. I'm going to be busy, busy, busy—painting, constructing, rearranging, organizing. But it will be a free sort of busy, not an oh-I-should-have-done-that-with-them busy. It makes all the difference in the world.

It's only 60º today, breezy and now clouds are covering the sun. I think yet another storm is rolling in. We've had an unbelievably (and uncharacteristically) wet spring. It doesn't feel even remotely like summer. Two months from now on a 100º day I'll look back on this cool wistfully. But for now, I've kicked off my shoes and I'm leaning back, watching my kids play Wii. I'm ready, summer—come find me!
_____________________________
Listening to: Thurston Moore - Benediction

Last week of summer. Where did it go?

We've had a great summer, a fantastic summer. I hate to see it go, but at least it wasn't wasted.

Last May, the last day of the school year at about 3:00 p.m. when I figured we were more or less done, we started removing the doors from the kitchen cupboards to begin our kitchen facelift. It was supposed to be a short (week or two) diversion, the first little thing in a summer of construction.

Nothing ever turns out as it should, does it? It took us most of the summer to refinance, so we still haven't started the three bathrooms that we thought would be the centerpiece of the summertime. But we did get the exterior painted (I love it! even if I did have to sacrifice my shinbones) and the kitchen is so improved.

The last two weekends we've been working on installing the bargain kitchen flooring. It's so beautiful. Our kitchen table is in the piano room which is a minor temporary inconvenience, but will be so worth it. We're just about a half hour from done, but we had to stop early on Saturday because when we pulled up the old flooring in front of the back door to prepare it for the new flooring, we saw the subfloor had quite a bit of water damage. So Emma and I hopped into the Suburban and drove an hour to Home Depot while Blaine and Christian took out the back door and cut out a section of subfloor. When we got home they patched and replaced the subfloor, but all we could do was set the new door (with a window! natural light in my laundry room! oh squee, I love it) in the hole. B had to install that yesterday.




The door is the sort that has a miniblind right in the window, so I never have to dust it and it doesn't bang against the door when the kids slam it. I hope we'll finish the last remaining bit of the floor in spurts in the evenings after Blaine gets home from work this week. The kitchen still isn't done—needs trim around the base, around the windows and doors, but I love it anyway. :)

We're working with a plumber, I believe we'll begin the bathrooms in the next couple of weeks. Lots to do there, and we're doing the bulk of it ourselves—but that was going to be the case even during the summer, if we'd gotten the start we'd wanted to.

We're all beginning school next week. I imagine the swimming pool will have to come down sometime this week—nighttime temps are falling, the water is getting pretty cool, and after school starts the kids won't swim anyway. Oh, I hate to see another summer pass! I love summertime. I love the warmth, and I love the ease in my schedule. But I love teaching the kids, too; Kyrie is crazy excited to get started with kindergarten this year, and of course I need to make the most of the school year with Christian as it's the last year before he follows Emma to the Academy.

We took a trip to Priest Lake for a week, we went camping with my extended family in May, we took a number of day trips up to SLC. The McManii came and stayed with us, and I saw my high school/college friend Janae and her family. Christian was able to take over the job of tugging hoses, setting sprinklers, and keeping the lawn green. Emma and Christian were responsible for all the mowing. The kids kept their bedrooms clean (mostly) and stayed up on their housework jobs (mostly). We've had great vacations and done a lot of hard physical labor this summer. Seriously, it was one of the best. The kids were active, busy, and helpful, and so much got done. I'm happy. I do sort of wish it could continue another three months at least, but there's a sort of magic to autumn and learning and rearranging the schedule to fit in what's most important, as well.

Summer of 2009, you were a great one.

----------------
Now playing: Muse - Uprising
via FoxyTunes

Priest Lake

August 8-16 we went to Priest Lake in northern Idaho with my sister Joan's family. It's the same cabin where we went for Christmas, and it's a pretty darn long drive. The first few days were sunny, gorgeous, and warm, and the cousins had a great time together in the sand and water.

(This is me, showing my sister my back diving technique.)

We rented a boat one day—a day it was cloudy and rainy with brief rays of sun.

Water skiing! I love it so.

The kids loved tubing.
And Libby learned to ski. That's my girl!

The rest of the week was cloudy and cooler.

But it didn't keep the kids out of the water, and every time the sun peeked out from behind the clouds we rushed down to take advantage of it.

Blaine taking Jackson and Macklin out in the kayak.

The swimming dock

The floating island

We had a totally fantastic trip—so relaxing. The kids all got along together so well, and so did the grown ups. What's not to love?

Pioneer Day

The 24th of July is Fairview's big event of the year. There's a parade, which Blaine and I help co-organize and execute with another couple here who are our very good friends (holla, Shauna!). There's a demolition derby at night. And about an hour after the parade, there's the Fairview Idol competition.

Emma has entered every year since it began, prepared, hoped, had fun, but never won. Libby entered last year as well, and had fun giving it her best shot.

This year, Libby won first place in her age division, 0-12 year olds. :) Prize: $100!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRW2WJRSQk0

And we all joined in with Emma and did a group piece for the Ensemble category, which we also won. ($300, woot!) Christian said that winning felt like he'd taken the Felix Felicis potion—like he would succeed at everything he did yesterday. Aw! And Emma was so excited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVocGnWqq2o

My sister Joan and her family came down here and made the whole day possible by saving chairs in the pavilion, standing on the parade sidelines with the kids while Blaine and I were off being official, and many other tasks. One of the best Pioneer Days ever. :)

Spring time in Utah :D

Last week my friend Spring came from TX with her three daughters to stay with us. I've known Spring for years, but we'd never met until last week. Our kids got along so well, they may as well have been a single bunch of siblings. We had a great time, and I really hope they'll come back, and that we'll go visit them. Here are photo highlights, click any photo to go to the stream and see more.

Boing!

Last year one d-ring at a time failed. Finally, our old trampoline jumping surface gave up the ghost last autumn.

Today, after much joyful anticipation, the trampoline is back! :)

Birthday feast

Tomorrow is Libby's birthday, but we're going tomorrow afternoon to stay at my sister's so we can go to Lagoon (amusement park, about 140 miles from here) on Thursday. So tonight is Libby's birthday feast! She wanted mashed potatoes, sausage gravy, and corn on the cob.

I'd never done oven-roasted corn before, but it was so easy I doubt I'll ever do anything else from now on. No soaking required. Fantastically delicious. Easy. Shucked right at the table as we ate it (silk everywhere, ha!).

Happy 12th birthday, Libby Loo!

----------------
Now playing: John Denver - The Eagle and the Hawk
via FoxyTunes

WHEW!

By 6:45 a.m. Blaine, Christian, and Jackson had to be at our church for cub scout day camp. (Blaine's the cub leader.) By 6:45 a.m. Libby had to be at a different church for a week of girls' camp. Emma left yesterday morning at 7:45 for the fourth year campers six-mile hike-in, where they have to pack all their own food and stoves and tents and everything, and she'll hike into the girls' camp this morning.

It's 7:02 and I feel like I've already done half the day.

More kitchen painting for me today—and it's just me and the three littlest here. :-/ How do you think that's going to go? Two more days of painting, and I should be done. *crosses fingers* All the knobs and handles are on the freshly painted cabinet doors, but I need longer screws for the drawer pulls. Blaine's put up all the beadboard trim. It's really coming together, and at least the counters are somewhat functional again. :)

----------------
Now playing: David & David - Welcome to the Boomtown
via FoxyTunes

Odds and ends — boring little life :)

(1) One more week of school. SQUEE!

(2) And then we start summer school. (Still a little curriculum to wrap up.) But Emma will be home, our schedule will change, and somehow it's all different with that word summer on the front there.

(3) Am refinancing the house. Again. (Third time's a charm?) Just refinanced in February and got 5.25%, which rate I also locked in today. But I'm getting cash out. Renovations here we come!

(4) We're going to have plenty of projects to do this summer.

• "Master" bathroom redone from subfloor up.
  
• Kid bathroom completely rearranged and redone, so what is now a tub-only will be a tub/shower. There's not a good way to make that bathroom really functional due to awkward construction, but at least we can make it a place for showers.
  
• Addition of new bathroom in downstairs. Nine people, three bathrooms, that's a pretty good ratio.
  
• New, non-carpet kitchen floor.
  
• Window in Emma's room, to make it a legal bedroom and, hey, let in light and air.
  
• Can't afford a new kitchen, but I'm going to paint all the dark cabinetry and walls and make it look bright.

(5) But none of my contractors have given me a bid yet. SIX WEEKS. Outrageous. I don't care. I'll do it myself! To heck with 'em.

----------------
Now playing: Missy Higgins - Peachy
via FoxyTunes

Favorites

To start off 2009 quirkily, I've decided to give you a list of some of my favorites. Just, you know, because.

Colors: pinks and browns

These are both things I actually own :-/
Car: if I could buy a car today, and if it didn't have to fit seven children, it would be a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. And I would have it painted a lovely pastel pink, as long as I'm dreaming. And I'd go topless as many months of the year as I could.

Game: Couch of Power. Fun, fun, fun, and the more you play it (in a single sitting) the more difficult it gets. :)
Pizza toppings: onion, green pepper, pineapple, olives. Sometimes, I admit it, I miss pepperoni.
Restaurant: P.F. Chang's China Bistro. Could eat here every day. Vegetarian lettuce wraps! Ma po tofu! Yum.
Dessert: iced sugar cookies. Chocolate's good, but it is nothing to iced sugar cookies.

Vegetable: red bell pepper
Movies: While You Were Sleeping, Muppet Treasure Island, The Matrix, too many Jane Austen adaptations to list
Books I read last year: To Kill a Mockingbird, Stargirl
Thing to wear: A brown lawn shirt I got from Eddie Bauer for my 40th birthday.
Band: Muse. :) I know, what a surprise!

Song: at the moment, discounting my Muse favorites, Pride by Syntax. Afterglow by INXS is a close second.
Dream that might not come true: being able to take my children on vacation to Hawaii.
Thing I'm working on: getting out of debt. I can get so fired up on this, and also so bummed when we have to increase our debt for something really needful.
Television show: I watch Bones faithfully via hulu.com, but Firefly is still my favorite show of all time.
Season: summer
Wish list items: remodeling bathrooms, new kitchen floor, general prettying up the house. Seeing Muse live in concert. :)

Life Elevated

I believe (I can't remember?) that's our newish stupid state motto. An equivalent runner up in badness would have been "Life with an Altitude". Either way, it's fitting.

Our house is located within a few feet of 6000 feet above sea level. It keeps our temperatures about ten degrees cooler than Salt Lake City (~4220 feet) and the main Wasatch Mountain valley where 80% of the state's population lives, and it also brings on our autumn earlier.

Just two weeks ago I could go out at 6:30 in the morning for a jog in only a T-shirt and be fine. Now our overnight temps are hitting the high 40s, gasp, and this morning I had to wear a jacket for my jog.

*clings to summer* Don't go! Not yet!

----------------
Now playing: Bananarama - Cruel Summer
via FoxyTunes

In which I confess

I don't like gardening.

I am programmed to think I should get up before dawn each lovely summer's morn (which is almost all of them here in Utah) and enjoy the peace, quiet, and cool as I pull pernicious weeds endangering my precious, thriving vegetables. My heart tells me I should devote several hours a week to raising all the produce a family of nine can consume, and I should take great pride in doing so.

My brain says, why? The grocery stores are full of the stuff, and a buck for a huge bunch of spinach certainly isn't my biggest grocery expenditure.

We Mormons have a pretty advanced sense of guilt. It's pretty common to feel really crappy for things we aren't doing, aren't doing well enough, do too much of, etc. We even tend to feel guilt for things other people do or don't do, if we can in any way tie their actions to our behaviors or deficiencies. And as I said before with the programming, we Mormons are Gardeners. We believe in being proficient at raising our own food and being able to care for ourselves. It isn't dogma, but it's certainly part of the culture.

Except, if I'm getting up pre-dawn on lovely summer mornings, which I am, I want to be outside running. I'm not a gardener, I'm an exerciser.

I don't have pride in a well-organized garden plot, I don't feel a sense of accomplishment from neat rows of carrots and cabbage, and when the weeds overtake the crops I think, "Oh well, I don't feel like pulling them."

But I totally want to lift weights, to jog, and to walk briskly up steep hills. This gives me a sense of well-being, accomplishment, and, yes, pride. To be almost 40 and still improving my physical condition! That's worth 20 bushels of home-grown spinach to me.

If only I could release the faint sense of guilt that whispers, "But the garden is the worthier pursuit."

In other news, I've totally revamped my exercise program. (Instead of gardening.) I feel great. But I've decided I can't weigh myself more often than fortnightly, perhaps even monthly. Because after a hard week of working out when I see the needle in the same place or (horrors!) even half a pound up, I think GAH it isn't working it doesn't matter what I do and then I eat whatever I want. Counter-productive. Solution: no weighing. Yay!

And no gardening.

----------------
Now playing: Ludovico Einaudi - Andare
via FoxyTunes

Simply Gorgeous

I'm trying to hold on to today, even while it slips minute by minute past me. Today is our last official day of summer vacation: school starts next Tuesday, and I go back to juggling household chores, personal endeavors, running-about errands, and five students' progression. I love summer and am always sorry to see it go. All of my ambitious plans of last May have not been executed like I planned and hoped, and now I'll need to try to fit them in with everything else that crowds our busy school day schedule.

The weather is so beautiful right now, too. It isn't as unbearably hot as the end of July, and yet not so cool that we have to shut the windows at night. Last night Blaine and I were walking home from several blocks away at 10:00 p.m., and the temperature couldn't have been more pleasant. Autumn isn't in the air yet, but it is nice to have those oven-like days behind us.

Tomorrow we'll drain and clean the pool, and leave it to dry in the sunshine. We'll try to paint the front door frame, which really should be done while we can comfortably leave the door open twenty-four hours a day. We'll mow the lawn and organize the bikes in the shed. And while there are still plenty of warm, sunshine-filled days ahead of us before winter sets in, it still feels like the end of something golden and lovely.