School Time/Bed Time

Why is it so difficult to make the transition back to school? No more staying up late, and sleeping in. I have been struggling all week with trying to enforce an earlier bed time in order to get back into the routine of early to bed, early to rise again.
It's still light outside, or I'm not tired yet. Can I just have 5 more minutes outside? I'm sure I'm not the only parent who has heard these lines.
My goal is to have this complete transition by next weekend. I could use as many prayers as I can get.

I have decided that this school year, I'm going to be a little more involved with school volunteering and projects. So I have volunteered myself for quite a bit this year, and I'm not sure how I'm going to work this all in. I signed up for the walking program (count the laps around the track that kids do), Thanksgiving feast, accelerated reader program, star cafe, book fair. As you can see, I'm doing my fair share. Ugh, let's hope I don't go loony by winter break!

Natalie is going to continue swim team, diving, and of course, horse riding. Let's fit that all in the mix too. So how many days till next summer?

I'm going to take some advice from a song I love by Trace Adkins:
You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

One Summer afternoon

Since daddy had to leave for work early this afternoon, Natalie and I took a different approach to the afternoon. We decided to go get a bite to eat and then went to feed the ducks in St. Joe.

Here are the bachelor's

The next thing we did was look at the sculptures along the river. Some of them are a little strange, but if you are artsy, you might like them.

Did you loose your muffler?

Natalie thinks this looks like a toothbrush, I think it looks like a pelican, what do you think?

Natalie and I love to go to St. Joe, so much to do, and she has already asked me to take her to the Venetian Festival this weekend to see Mitchel Musso. I'll have to see about that, fighting crowds and heat is not my version of a good time.

Natalie asked can we go to the beach tonight? Ok, let's go, just for a 1/2 hour. I love taking her to the beach, but I cannot relax when I am there. I fear Lake Michigan. About 4 years ago on the 4th of July, Anthony was working and there were 6 lives taken within 2 hours because of the rip. I have respect for the lake. Let's go!

While Natalie went swimming, I paced the shore watching. I thought I would look for rock glass along the shore. I found quite a few pieces and Natalie was thrilled! She asked me if I was wearing my contacts tonight!


Did you know that you could hide in the dune grass, totally camouflage yourself? Tell me what you see?

Funny story about dune grass. Once upon a time, not too long ago, there was a 20 year old girl visiting our side of the lake, from her side of the lake(Chicago). Anyway, she had too much to drink one night, and passed out in the dune grass. At 2:30 in the morning, a sleepy fireman I know, was abruptly awakened to the sound of the pager going off, needing his help to find a missing girl. Her cell phone was found by the water, her friends were frantic with worry, listening to the sounds of the helicopter searching the waters, the state police with the dogs, and the fireman with flashlights. Anyway, enough drama, she passed out in the dune grass, woke up, wandered up to a fireman and asked, what's going on man? 15 fireman, 3 state policeman, and the coast guard made it quite clear to her what was going on. tee hee

It was a good summer evening, I hope to have more of these this summer

List List List

Since Anthony is done teaching his high school class for the summer, he gets to spend his whole summer with Natalie. What kind of trouble can they get themselves into???
I'm struggling here because today was Anthony's first day on the job and Natalie called me 4 times at work today "I'm bored." So I've come up with the idea of making a "schedule" of things to do during the day for each day of the week, so Natalie knows exactly whats going on and hopefully avoid those phone calls.
I got a little help from a website called chartjungle. They have printable calendars and charts to fill in. Wish me luck!


ChartJungle.com

Thursday 13

13 things I'm looking forward to doing this summer in SW Michigan

1. Go to Lake Michigan

2. Ride my bike in the neighborhood

3. Take the dog for walks

4. Camping

5. Get the yard looking pretty again

6. Walk on the Bluff in St. Joe

7. Get ice cream from Kilwins (yummy,nummy)

8. Catch a movie

9. Go to summer festivals

10. Watch the sunsets on the lake.

11. Watch Natalie play in the sand on the beach.

12. Catch fire flys

13. Take a swim.

Speaking of summer, I found a good sign in my yard that it is coming!

Yeah, I'm so happy!