Summer at 11

Summer turned 11 a few weeks ago.

This is kind of a big deal! The mark of a very big year for her. Before she hits her next birthday, she will have joined Young Women's AND finished up elementary school!

She's seemed to me, still, like such a little kid that the above concepts have felt ridiculous. Only, she bore her testimony on Sunday, and both Mike and I admitted afterwards that she did almost seem to be a young woman up there. (A very tiny young woman, mind you.)

I'm not sure what to think about it all. I sort of felt these last four "little kids" would stay the little kids, well, forever! I really think I did. And when we moved up here two measly years ago, she was still such a little kid (she and Mette spent all the first weeks up here playing with their Calico Critters). I am not ready to start moving another crew out of childhood! (I sort of lump my kids into three groups: older, middle and younger. I've already moved two groups out of the little kid phase. Can we be beginning on the third group already?) Well. I take some solace in the fact that she still wanted some toy sorts of things for her birthday.

Readying for the Fair and Filling up August

Yesterday was busy. 

Getting Jesse off to something in Pleasant View (only his second time driving through Sardine, etc. on his own), arranging with him to feed animals on his way, cleaning and laundry (nothing new there), finding everyone's fair clothes from last year and redistributing to get sizes that would work, searching for 4H patches, driving to the county building to buy more 4H patches, driving to Old Navy to see about other possible black fair pants and having everyone pick out some back-to-school things while there, heading to Wal-Mart to get posterboards to hang over our goat pens and special soap for shining up the goats, swinging into Lee’s to grab some of the cookies Kenya’s mom asked my opinion on for the reception, driving Penny back to the Old Navy parking lot where we'd left a car for her (she'd wanted to run errands with us but didn't have a lot of time before work so I'd had her follow us out), stopping Anders at the D.I. to look for something he was desperate to find (no luck), backtracking to our landlord's to drop off the rent check that I nearly forgot about (he doesn't love Venmo), rushing back home for the HVAC guy who was coming to see why our wall AC unit is leaking a stream of ... I don't know what ... down the wall, filling out several back-to-school forms requested by the kids' new elementary teachers, trying to get the printer working properly and pictures loaded to the computer for the kids to print to make their goat posters, making a quick dinner, putting Summer and Mette briefly in charge once Jesse returned so he could help me and Anders go figure out which goat pens we were assigned at the fairgrounds, stopping off at the house to see if they'd fixed the shower heads or over-the-kitchen-sink light yet (alas no), and lastly: poor late-returning Mike spending until about 1:00 am helping get the last goat shaved for the fair (why must it be like a beauty pageant?).

Today has been a bit calmer. I've mostly been trying to get everyone's school forms and fees taken care of (why are the fees not showing up properly pray tell? and why does Starling not exist on the lunch fee site?), but, while doing that, the calendar began to fill up with more and more things (as I realized I couldn't mentally keep track of everything and started jotting it all down): goat show (and market and auction) all the rest of this week, back-to-school nights, Jesse's high adventure, activity days at Pinder's pond, the ward pony-ride fundraiser, a wedding, etc. ETC!!! Quite suddenly what I thought was still a full month of summer ahead turned into ... an August all booked full! (And, only as I typed this, did I actually pay attention to dates and realize the kids didn't even have the whole August I was assuming anyway! Only 15 more days of summer break! Goodness!)

Welp, with Summer trying to shuffle itself off so quickly, I better try and lay a firmer hold on its existence by sharing these pictures:

Backyard tenting:

Sunday evening at the farm:

Typical Hans:

Flexing:

Doing the chicken dance. 

Mette and Sarah:

Anders and Butch Cassidy:

Summer and Destiny:

You can glimpse the house back there. We are mostly just waiting on a few windows--like the one that blew over and shattered before they ever installed it--before they will start sheet rocking: