It's Finally Summer!

School is finally out after the longest school year in the history of ever.  All those snow days came with a heavy price--School ending on June 27th!  So here we are just days away from the 4th of July and we aren't even in our summer groove yet.  Oh well.  Makes it easy to keep everyone busy and happy when we have to soak in every second of a short summer.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will have recovered from the school burn out in time to start back up again.

 Usually I make ice cream sandwiches and we do something fun to celebrate the last day of school but the weather was cold and Henry needed a nap so after celebrating with ice cream and pizza for lunch, I took a quick nap while the boys played video games.  Everyone was happy.  Then I felt guilt for doing nothing so we went to the YMCA to swim in the indoor pool.  Parker miraculously passed the swim test (good thing Marcus was friends with the lifeguard) and then we stayed up late watching a movie. 

Dropping Marcus off at EFY at University of Puget Sound.  He takes great pride in using trash bags instead of luggage.

Marcus already came and went EFY.  He had to take his finals early so he could go but it was worth it.  He had the best time at EFY, made a bunch of friends, and is constantly talking to them on the phone now.  He came home without a COW (Crush of the Week) this year because "there were just too many girls."  Poor kid (not)!  The girls make fools of themselves falling all over him.  At one meal he had three different girls pass him a dinner roll with their phone number written on it.  His response was, "Ummm, thanks?" Seriously girls can be so pathetic and act way too desperate around him.  I'm embarrassed for them.

We've had a quiet house for the past couple days with only Marcus and Henry here.  Randy flew to Utah to see his parents and took Ethan, Landon, and Parker along so Marcus came home to a quiet house with just Henry and me to welcome him back from EFY.  Ethan is currently en route to Lake Powell with his best friend who moved to Utah so we won't be seeing him for a couple weeks.  I'm kind of bummed that the best part of his summer will be time spent with another family but I'm so happy for him because I know he'll have the time of his life.  In the meantime, I miss my right-hand man terribly.  Marcus and I both commented that we didn't realize how loud our house usually is but it sure is quiet now!  I always joke about it being loud but now I know that it truly is loud.  Poor me.  But apparently I like it that way.

Last night I hosted a farewell party for a family in our ward who is moving to Tokyo for three years for a job assignment.  There was a great turnout and it was fun to hang out with our ward family on a beautiful Sunday evening.

other than a bloody nose and a scraped knee, no one got hurt

 This summer will be a learning experience for me.  Summertime always stresses me out since I am the one who decides what work and how much work my kids do daily, along with how much screen time, and how much lazing around they do.  It's hard!  They whine about work and too much screen time is never a good thing.  Marcus is too old for daily chore charts and he got a job as a life guard/swim instructor so I'm not going to control his free time the way I have to with the younger ones.  It's all a balancing act.  Landon has enthusiastically helped me come up with a bucket list of things he/I want us to do this summer so we can have some fun while Marcus, Ethan, and Randy are off on their various camping and scouting adventures.  I love that my younger boys want do stuff with me without being forced to do it.  Marcus and Ethan come along for the ride sometimes which is totally understandable but I just really love being with my boys and love when they want to be together.