Hello, Again!

Well, I certainly never intended to take a whole month off of writing on this here ol' blog. But, I tell ya what... "vacation" is NOT a vacation! Getting out of routines and then trying to get back into them is like, well, pulling toenails (I imagine that to hurt much more than pulling teeth.) around here.

We had a good thing going with a nice rhythm. Learning everyday, working in workbooks, exploring occasionally, keeping things relatively neat and tidy, etc... THEN, we all parted ways. The trailer parked at the shop (more on that later), Pops to work and the treekids and I over to Illinois to hang with Geemah and Grampa (yea, more on that later) for a couple weeks. Pops visited us in Illinois for Father's Day weekend and then jetted off to work a bit more until he left for a week in Alaska (sure... more on that to come, too!) with his dad and 3 brothers. We got back together in Nebraska around the 1st of July, played for the Fourth with some friends, bustled out to Iowa for work and then off to St. Louis where I have been tortured by this horrible heat for the last week. What happened to the weather in the midwest that I recall from my youth or even from several years ago. I could hack it then.

I am officially a hot weather wimp. Put me in the frigid freezing cold any day. I'll snuggle under a blanket with my sweater and possibly a treekid or two while we read a story with a big mug of hot cocoa or licorice spice tea. Heat? Me? Cranky. Crabby. I cannot get cool enough. Our air conditioner seems to run non-stop as the thermostat is at 66 and it never gets there. Yes, I turned it up to 70 to see if it would turn off. It DID! But, 2 seconds later it turned on again. I am finished complaining about the heat (for about 5 minutes anyway).

We will be heading out again soon... after we pick up our truck (more about that soon enough - oh, see what happens when I don't write for a long time? You are all out of the loop and don't know that I hate the heat I cannot beat and that we have been dealing with all sorts of issues since mid-June!! Good times. I'll be back - after we go spend the morning at the pool. THEN, I will hope to make time to sit and tell some stories this afternoon!