Summer Catch-Up

Look, I'm writing a post you guys. It's a post!

I went through a massive blog drought over summer. I can't explain why, since summer should be when I finally feel the freedom to write. But right from the onset I knew I didn't want to even look at my blog.

There's so much to talk about from this summer...it would make for a very long and boring post (and still might). So I'm just going to abbreviate the main things that happened:

• Grandma's Ashes: I flew to Cushing, Oklahoma to deliver my grandmother's ashes to her hometown. I made the trip with my half-sister Sarah. We stayed in a lovely hotel suite, swam at an awesome pool, enjoyed some nice dinners, had a little girl-time at the local bars, and met a lot of really cool people. Very memorably experience.
• My Niece Graduated! I guess this doesn't seem like a big deal, but it was for me. Not only am I close to my niece Cassidi, but she's the first of my and Shannon's kids to graduate. It makes me feel weepy--to think she's all grown up now, and sort of marks a new era. 
• Clint's Knee Surgery: Clint had knee surgery the first week of July and is out of work until October. The first week he couldn't walk and I learned what it feels like to do everything.
• Jamboree Days: I ran a Chasing Echoes booth in Crestline selling my books and some other related stuff (see here). It was fun! The only caveat was I was supposed to do the booth for two days, but I only lasted for one day before getting totally wiped out. In my defense, I was staying at my sister's house that weekend and her entire household (including my kids) were still up running around at 1:30 a.m., on a night that I was supposed to get up at 6:30 in the morning. Plus it was the 4th of July, so we were up watching fireworks and celebrating. And I had a crippled hubby who couldn't help me with the heavy-lifting.
• Comic-Con: Comic-Con was immensely fun--even better than last year (even with Clint on crutches--which he turned into assault rifles, by the way).
• Camping: This almost didn't happen due to Clint's parent's RV breaking down. But after spending over twelve hours fixing it, we ditched our original plans of camping in Oregon and, instead, found a beautiful campground outside of Lake Tahoe called "Snowflower." I could do an entire post just on that. It was gorgeous.
• Monopoly Tournament: Elijah participated in the Juniors Monopoly Tournament on the world's largest Monopoly board in San Jose. He didn't win, but the experience was awesome! We all stayed at the Hilton. Clint's parents were trapped in their room the morning of the tourney when their deadlock broke. Maintenance couldn't get them out, so they were forced to climb out the window onto the roof, down an emergency escape, and through a service door to get back to the lobby. I wish I was making this up.
• Dog Beach: I went to a dog beach for the first time with Shannon, Jeremy, my parents, and all the kids. A dog beach is just like a regular beach...with dogs.
• Ringworm: My whole family (except for Elijah) came home from camping with ringworm. I still have scars. 
• Writing: I didn't get a lick of writing done.
• Art: I drew with charcoal for the first time! And I dabbled with oil pastels too. I LOVE charcoal. My goodness where has this been my whole life? Here are my first two drawings: 

I have a ton of other pictures from summer but I'm too lazy to find/organize them.

That's about it. Now I'm back to work. We're in week 4, actually. It already feels like it's going so fast. And of course I've already slipped up in the classroom. Last week I told the class "In today's society you just don't see balls anymore." Of course we were talking about the setting for Cinderella, but it didn't matter--the class was howling (7th graders. *sigh*). Today I was tempted to play AC/DC's Big Balls to the class, since, like me, he's talking about parties and dances (ha!), but I thought that might be a little over the top.

Okay, a real song now. You've heard it before...it's pretty popular. When I focus too hard on the lyrics, it makes me sob like a baby.