Where Did It Go?

The weather is still hotter than hot, but school starts on Monday and that signals the end of summer.

 It went by way too fast and I am not ready for it to end.  

We had no big cross-country trips this year but we seemed to always have something going.  Here is a peek at how we filled our days.

Of course, with the much anticipated arrival of Preston, we did a whole lot of this:

We also spent massive amounts of time in the pool.

 Some of us really spent a lot of time goofing off.

Notice that there are blue water balloons stuffed in her swimsuit.  Heaven help us!

If you have been to our house, you have seen that we have quite a few fruit trees.  This summer we had a bumper crop of pears and we were determined not to let them go to waste.  We spent several afternoons teaching our children the joys of canning.  

Day one started out all smiles and fun.

But soon the heat and stickiness made it a little less fun.

 On day two and three, we decided to embrace the mess and move the operation inside to avoid the oppressive heat.  We had smiles once again.

 Alli had the great idea to wear goggles to avoid the juice spray that comes from the peeler.

Kate took the pictures in an effort to avoid being in them, but she was a huge help with filling the jars.

  After three afternoons of this torture fun, we had 75 quarts.  We could probably do over a hundred more with the pears still out there, but I think our children would stop eating pears if we continued having this much "fun."

We also had a fun trip to see the manatee and gators at Wakulla Springs when Zach's parents came to visit.

In summary, summer is over and I don't know where it went.  I guess we did a whole lot of nothing, although some of did a lot more of "nothing" than others.

Slacker.