Summer

This summer is going by too quickly. 
It blows my mind that it's already the end of July.
We have been working very hard to document the kid's summer as part of their homework assignment, but focusing  so much on that, I've let the blog slep.  
We have been having many adventures, including Nate spending a week with Nina & Pops last week and Sam up there this week. 
There is no doubt that fun has been had.
I think my parents will sleep well for the next few weeks...

So...the best race of the year happened a couple of weeks ago. 
The Boilermaker is like Christmas for me. 
Pops was hobbling around with a bum achilles, Patrick was hobbling around in need of a new hip and Matthew was puking up a storm, having started training on Thursday, I figured I would bring up the rear and monitor the ambulances along the route for any of my family members that they may contain. 
The weather was beautiful, the people were beautiful, the scenery was beautiful and no one in my family was found in ambulances along the route.
It was one of those super rare runs where everything falls into place and it's so clear that while I may not always like running,  I love it very much and it's part of my heart.  Every step was a prayer.  After all that has happened and all the injuries and how much I worked over the past year and all the doubt that I could ever run a mid-distance race again...the day was everything I could have hoped for. 
Amen.

Happy 3rd of July

Long weekends with no schedule are beautiful.
Sure, there are things we would like to do.
I'd be lying if I wrote that I haven't already made my "to-do" list for the day.
But still.
Nothing has to be done.
And that is wonderful, indeed.

Caroline finished up Language Camp in the mornings this week.
She liked learning Russian the best.  Not that our brains work in even remotely the same way, but I remember loving Russian because it made sense to me in a way that English did not. 
We've got to find a way to keep that learning going. 
Thank goodness for dubbed cartoons on Youtube. 

I lost every braincell not already obliterated by my children on Weds and took everyone and one of our friends to the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Center. 
We found a paper belonging to Sam where he wrote down his goals for the summer.  Goal #1 was listed as "Save my money to buy a P47 Thunderbolt".  He has been working as a good little capitalist, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming and being my right-hand-man and earned enough for his airplane. 
He is so proud.  The Thunderbolt rarely leaves his hands. 
 Even since he has bought the airplane, his motivation to earn extra money has remained high.  I was impressed, thinking it would decrease.  I asked him about it.  He replied, "Mom, I have lots of things to earn for.  I need to save for a B2 Spirit and I have to go to college.  I have plans!" 
As happens to often, Mama was put in her place. 

We had a good time at the museum. 
The kids were a little rambunctious, I think because there were extra numbers in the ranks, but really wanted to do a tour of the WWII airplanes.  We lasted 45 minutes into it. 
We were standing in front of the Enola Gay, listening to her story.  The docent was explaining how the bombing run to drop Little Boy was different with the maneuvering to get as far away as possible from the blast and to have the blast waves come perpendicular to the tail to minimize damage to the plane.  The docent then pulled a small die cast Mustang out of his suit pocket to demonstrate.  Benjamin's hand SHOT up to point out, "Mr?  Why you have Mustang?  That's a B29!!" 
The docent explained that his father was a Mustang pilor and Benjamin forgave him.  :)
We didn't last much longer on that tour. 
So we communed with "Flak-Bait" and the Space Shuttle Discovery for a while before heading home. 
Everyone had fun.  We all slept very well that night.