July 2012

Another month of summer just flew by and now we are 2 weeks away from the start of a new school year. The school supplies are bought and we are getting geared up for another year, but this year will be at a brand new school! The girls have already made several great friends and for that, I'm very thankful.

The month of July was busy but fun! It began with some of our very best friends coming in town for a 2 week long visit. We enjoyed having them over for dinner, spending the 4th of July with them (and several other great friends) and going swimming at Lake Fort Smith before they had to leave and head back to Pennsylvania. Travis, Sarah and girls - we had a great time and look forward to seeing you again soon!

The first weekend of July was also a big deal for Macie as she was able to go to Church Camp for the very first time! They can go after they complete 3rd grade and it was her first time away from us and home for that many days. She was super excited and had a wonderful time. She's already looking forward to next summer and has been making plans for all the fun stuff she wants to do!

The girls have enjoyed having friends over to play and they've spent lots of time outside on the water slide and in our neighbor's pool. We've done lunch dates with new friends, spent the night with the neighbor kids and gone on ice cream dates with them and have just had a great time! We are SO blessed to live by such great people!

Toward the end of July, the girls and I headed to St. Louis for a few days and then over to Illinois from there to visit our family. We were gone a week and enjoyed every minute of our time with family! We celebrated my nephew's 16th birthday, celebrated my parent's 45th Wedding Anniversary and had so much fun in Illinois with Mike's family - swimming, playing outside, eating yummy dinners, watching movies and just hanging out. Mike didn't get to go on that trip with us because he was out of town at a meeting and we missed him lots!

We finished up the last few days of the month just spending time together as a family. After being away from daddy for a week, the girls were excited to get back and see him. (And so was I!)

We packed as much fun into July as possible! It's hard to believe that we are into August and going to have to start getting back into the old routine. Part of me is ready for it, and part of me wishes we had a little more time to just be home and enjoy the lazy, but fun days of summer. Time just keeps on ticking away and we are trying to make the most of it - here's to the last 2 weeks of summer and packing in as much fun as we can!