Summertime

Well, it is summertime here for sure.  The weather has been hot, hot and hotter.  It clouds over most afternoons and the humidity is insufferable.  Sometimes it rains and cools things off a bit.  Sometimes it doesn't.  The kids are mostly doing the pool thing these days.  Too hot for much else. 

 

Here is our whole at-home crowd plus cousin Mary, home from college for a brief break:  

And here is Hannah's latest find.  A reddish-brown stag beetle.  It was a pretty big one!  Lately she has come across some impressive and unusual insects, salamanders, snails and also a luna moth.  But I will limit us to this one for now... 

We are already done with our summer camp for this year.  Yeah!  (Oops, did I say that out loud?)  The girls went to Stringfellows Camp in Montgomery, AL again this summer.  (Abby's 3rd and last time, Hannah Claire's 2nd.)  Most of the bigger music camps are for older kids.  Abby is still just 13 and Hannah Claire, 11 so they can't go to the big camps yet.  They had fun on the campus of Huntingdon College, though.  Not too far away and not too long for it to be a good time for everybody.  They are in the 3rd row on the left end:

 

Usually, we would have been to the beach several times by now.  But, I haven't had the heart to go down this year.  The kids want to keep trying to find a few days when the oil isn't too bad and go down to Santa Rosa Island and swim on the sound side (not the ocean side - as pictured in our big family photo above.)

Otherwise, our summer has been about hanging out at home.  Eating fresh berries, watermelons and veggies from Gram's garden, watching our corn and soybeans grow, keeping cool as much as possible. 

 I have just about completed all our paperwork for our foster care license (not much compared with a foreign adoption dossier!)  And I am working hard to find just the right car to buy...our trusty van being not so trusty anymore.  I had hoped to get the kitchen floor replaced and the porch columns painted, but I am really going to have to get moving to get that done, too.  Just a few more weeks and Hannah goes back to the orthodontist to get her braces off.  Then Moriah is heading to Korea for 10 days, then a few weeks after that Abby has to move into the ASFA dorms and a few weeks later Moriah will be moving into the UAB dorms and then the little kids will be back at school and doing lessons in Tuscaloosa for another year. 

Summer just gets shorter and shorter!