Summer "Break" So Far

Whew! I'm not sure where our first four weeks of summer went, but they're gone. Here's a peek at what we've been up to:

- Ryan (with help of secretary Tobi) coordinates a first-ever fundraiser for his Cross Country team - a Dash of Color 5K and mile race.

collage and photos by Karen Belcher

photo by ESP (Eric Shrum Photography)

photo by ESP

photo by ESP

photo by ESP

photo by ESP

- Bigguns start summer school at their new district! This requires two trips to town a day - one at 6:45 a.m. Luckily, it still gets good ratings!
- Ryan and Tobi start and coach a club track team, requiring four practices a week, four weekend meets, ordering equipment, begging hurdles off of a high school, lots of paper work, and tons of tracking down teenagers to try to keep everything going!

- Ballplaying four nights a week. Daddy coached Cal's T-ball and Reed's parent pitch teams. Two weeks of rain required an upgrade in our texting plan, due to all the "Is the game cancelled?" conversations.

Thank you, Sherry Long, for taking photos. I've been a major slacker!

- Max tags along to almost every game and practice and we try to keep him happy (which is not easy when every time he tries to race a runner they "beated" him!)
- We babysit our two-year-old niece during her Daddy's work times for a week. I still can't do piggies.
- Two bouts of sickness.
- Minimum of 16 trips to town (20 mn one way) per week
- Trip to Kansas to visit family. A great time by all!

-  Usually-nine-hour drive home from Kansas with frequent pit stops for a child with diarrhea.



Did we overcommit? Probably. But we survived, and, after one more week of ball and track, July looks free and clear!

A Tale of Two Sickies

A bug has swept through our household, illustrating what we already knew -- these kids are like night and day. Consider:

Sickie A:

Is “sick” off and on for three weeks.

Sickie B:

Is “sick” only when they are currently throwing up - or don’t feel like going to summer school (never mind that this happened days before the first physical symptoms). 

Sickie A:

Misses two days of school, has nurse call me to pick him up early another day, and skips several of brother’s T-ball games.

Sickie B:

Misses a day of school and doesn’t understand why he isn’t allowed to play in his T-ball game that night.

Sickie A:

Spends his sick days home laying around moping, reading, not eating, and asking “How much longer will my stomach hurt?” 

Sickie B:

After vomiting and watery diarrhea, rallies and proceeds to don a Batman costume and attack his baby brother with plastic balls. Is unfazed by the series of toot-squirts that follow - other than expressing anger the “I didn’t have ANY warning!” and disappointment that his Wolverine jumpsuit has to go in the washer. 

Sickie A:

Carries a barf bucket with him EVERYwhere he goes for days after his last barf incident, “just in case.”

Sickie B:

Throws up in bed, doesn’t tell a soul, rolls around in it all night, then gets mad when I make him take a shower the next morning.