I believe I last left off in July. Jillian and Caleb had an engagement party. We got to see my whole family (almost all at once, but not quite) at camp and then at our house. Things were settling down a little bit. For a moment.
The Sunday after everyone left (actually on the day that Jillian and Caleb left), I piled Olivia, Gretchen, and three other teenagers into my van to drive them to St. John's Camp. It's a little over a four hour drive one way. The trip was quite pleasant. After depositing five teenagers at the doors of four different cabins, I began the trip back home. I had a new audiobook to listen to and there was a Culver's along the way. :) I actually didn't need to stop at Culver's for anything because that's where we'd had lunch on the way to camp, but my phone battery was dying, so I stopped to plug it in for a while. It was on this trip that I discovered that my backup battery charger no longer worked. By the time I got near St. Mary's, my phone was at 2%. No big deal, I thought, because two of my children were born at the St. Mary's hospital, so I should remember the way home from there. Unfortunately, I did not start at the hospital. I got off at the exit for St. Mary's and started having regrets just as my phone died and the sun began going down. I pretty much never travel into Lima from the southwest, so I began zigging and zagging along country roads, hoping to eventually hit one I recognized. When the moment came, I almost missed it because it turns out that Fort Amanda is named something else once it crosses a certain point. Luckily, that point was the exact road I was on, and I had a feeling that I should check the street signs going both directions. I made it home and put a new battery charger in my Amazon cart.
Monday began the boys' week of Safety City, which is a free program offered each summer. The kids go for two hours a day and learn various types of safety: bike and road rules, fire and tornado safety, how to yell loudly and run away if someone tries to grab you. The big draw is the scaled city of Lima with business sponsored model buildings along a bike road. There's one stoplight and also a train crossing. Theodore did not love the bike days, though, because he can't ride a bike yet and we don't know where the training wheels went. He works on it sometimes, but he's not excited to try.
Monday began the boys' week of Safety City, which is a free program offered each summer. The kids go for two hours a day and learn various types of safety: bike and road rules, fire and tornado safety, how to yell loudly and run away if someone tries to grab you. The big draw is the scaled city of Lima with business sponsored model buildings along a bike road. There's one stoplight and also a train crossing. Theodore did not love the bike days, though, because he can't ride a bike yet and we don't know where the training wheels went. He works on it sometimes, but he's not excited to try.
This was the second year in a row that had mornings when I was home alone with Kaitlyn. As is our custom, we learned a tiktok dance. This year we picked a harder one, so we started with the simplified version of Stateside and moved on to the harder official version. I've already forgotten a lot of it, but we did have a chance to pull it out and dance it at Jillian and Caleb's wedding.
On Friday after Safety City I took Kaitlyn and the boys to Grandma's house so that Bryan and I could go to a friend's wedding in Michigan. The wildfire smoke that was bad in Lima was even worse in Ann Arbor, but the wedding was indoor so it didn't matter much. The reception was fun -- pickleball instead of dancing. Everyone was warned and brought clothes to change into. Only a few people already knew how to play pickleball, so the groom ended up teaching everyone so that he could beat them. Bryan and I had a good time. Saturday morning we stopped by to visit the Sledges before heading home.
The next week was VBS at St. Stephen. I'm in charge of that, and my helpers are usually whatever teenagers I can coerce. This year I had another adult, which was pretty exciting. Not that the teenagers aren't capable -- after a few years of helping they're old pros. My favorite part of this year's VBS was the homemade Hullabaloo game that I put together. Our categories were churches, crosses, feast days, and saints (the saints being the ones we focused on this year) and in transition times when we were waiting for a few people to finish up we would head out to the parsonage garage and play a few rounds of Hullabaloo. The very first time we played we tried being outside instead, but I immediately dropped St Basil's Cathedral through the slats in the front porch and we had to play without it until I printed another one. It landed face up, so all the kids just flopped down to look at it through the cracks. Kaitlyn helped part of the week and Olivia and Gretchen helped the other part of the week. The times they were not helping were spent at Grandma and Grandpa's house.
On that Friday we all headed to Sidney to visit. On Saturday Bryan and the kids attended Lincoln's birthday party at the park. I met up with some friends and drove down to Cincinnati for a day of puzzles. We did the regular pairs and teams divisions, but I opted for the casual division solo puzzle -- only 300 pieces instead of 500 -- and have zero regrets. My puzzling days are few and far between at this point.
On Sunday we woke up, went to church in Dayton, and then headed to our now annual trip to Great Wolf Lodge. The kids loved it, as always. I'm happy that they are old enough that they pretty much take care of themselves. I think I got in the water 4 times total, and once was to help an unrelated child across the lily pads. My book and I had a lovely time sitting by the wave pool and checking in on people.
I will have to find the pictures from this month and post them later.
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