Stow Aways: JULY 2015: The rest of it.

It is incredible to think we still packed more into July after all that, but we don’t seem to be able to stop. Honestly, I was scrolling through my iphoto library the other day and I’m astounded at what we can pack into a year. I have been feeling like the kids are growing up too fast, and feeling like "what was I thinking – why haven’t I spent more time with them? Why haven’t we had more time together?" But, when I look at the photos, there is no question that we have done plenty, more than most, just oodles, together. I guess that’s why the time goes so fast – because we stay so busy. We haven’t been bored for one second since they were born.

The rest of July brought:

Grace’s first time at girls’ camp with the young women from our church. It was EPIC. David was up there for most of it too. So glad she had a great experience. I HATED girls’ camp when I was a kid. There was nothing worse, in my book. Grace is excited to go again. A true testament to the kind of tough kid she is: on day 2, (David wasn’t up there yet,) Grace was doing a copes course and she fell off of it, hard. She got beat up pretty badly. The leaders were dying, thinking for sure they’d have to call us and have her sent home. They said any other girl would have been in the first-aid tent crying and begging to leave. But, Grace (may have cried for a minute), got herself up, dusted off, and finished the course and wouldn’t dream of leaving. She had cuts and bruises and big knots where she fell, but she just kept going. I am glad David went up. He was a huge hit with the girls, totally got into their theme days, and they all had a great time. There were showers available, but when I went to meet them at the church a week later… Grace had not showered, for the entire week. She was too afraid of the spiders in the showers. STINKY GIRL! She had made a pact with the camp leader and she hadn’t showered either!

Grace, Keely, Kayla

While Grace was at camp, Harriet and I joined David on a river trip that his work sponsored for their summer students. The Rio Grande doesn’t look too grand from above, but if you’re in a boat, it’s pretty darn fun. Granted, nothing like paddling the Assabet, but the Assabet doesn’t have these wide open skies and dry air around it either.

Harriet’s first time at a sleepover away from home. She went to her awesome friend, Alexis McKinley's, birthday party. (Her mom is Harriet's cheer coach too.) Holy smokes, this kid has put me through the ringer about sleepovers. We had a very firm rule - "no sleepovers"- but after much rational conversation and convincing, Harriet rightfully won the argument and made me realize that I was wrong about keeping her from sleeping over with her super close friends. Now they are just part of her month – when will the next sleepover be?

Then, we did a science project on the porch. Albuquerque got soaked with rain this summer. Monsoon season did not dis appoint. It left huge ponds out on the mesa where all of a sudden, tadpoles started blooming by the hundreds. Where the heck they came from is beyond me! How do frogs just suddenly appear in the desert where there were no frogs before? Obviously, life will happen if given the right circumstances, and this was no exception. It became a neighborhood “thing” to go out with buckets and nets to catch your own crop of tadpoles, bring them back to your house, and set up a habitat to watch them turn into frogs. We did two batches, one after the other. It was pretty cool to watch them slowly lose their tails and grow legs and start hopping out of the water onto the rocks. We released the adult frogs back into the pond each time – to what end? I don’t know. I knew the ponds would dry up at some point, but what are we going to do? Keep a bunch of wild frogs on the porch forever? No thanks.