love love love summer

From my morning walk.

Today has been glorious. The sun shining, the breeze blowing, a coolness in the air that the sun covers up. The pool water seems warmer than the air.

It's the kind of day that goes by way too fast. The kind of day that begs one to spend it outside. To hang up laundry to dry in the breeze, and to putter in the garden. I got caught up vacuuming today, the living room and the furniture, then the stairs and the downstairs hall...the little girls wanted to go in the pool, so they kept asking me and I kept telling them In A Few Minutes. I hated doing housework when it was so nice out there, so I finally just put it away and went outside and sat on the deck to get all hot before swimming. Samuel sat there with me, until some of the girls talked him into going out and about. They get antsy sometimes, those girls, wanting to Do Things, and Go Places.

Sam asked me if I wanted to go, but no, I did not. No sir, today I wanted to stay home. The girls waited impatiently for me to take them in the pool, while I sorted out who was going with Sam and what they were doing. Joseph and Margaret and Evelyn and Sonja and the two little girls were staying home with me. I told them that after we swam, we would go get ice cream....
This is Sonja K. Like the corn fields in the back ground?

Joe declined the ice cream invite, but the rest of the ones home went with me.

(Turns out the princesses couldn't wait for me to take them in the pool because they had a good plan. It involved a realistic looking plastic snake. Scaring Mama is fun! For them, anyway.)

We are home now, some of the older girls are leaving to do some church things, Evelyn is picking wild flowers with Charlotte Claire and Camille, and Samuel is shooting one of his guns with Jonathan.

I have to get moving to make dinner. I sort of know what we are having, but am not positive. Either taco salad or chicken on the grill.

Our garden is producing green beans and some grape tomatoes, a few yellow squash, and some beets. We have had radishes and lettuces, too. Hopefully the melons will grow this year.

Summertime is wonderful. We have blueberries that Emily picked with the girls the other day, a watermelon, and some cherries. I love having all this yummy stuff.

Tomorrow Paul and I are working at the baseball game in the afternoon. In the morning I am taking my brother to an appointment. So I have enjoyed this blissful day of enjoying my kids in the sunshine, but who knows when another day like this will come along? The days seem to have appointments and shopping and library trips and and and....

Early Sunday morning, Samuel is leaving for his duty station in Washington D.C./Virginia, to guard the capitol:),and represent the United States. It will be interesting to see what he ends up doing. He could be a flag bearer in ceremonies, or a casket bearer in funeral detail at Arlington. All the Old Guard are infantry first, and they still do P.T., but most of what they do is in Washington D.C., and they rarely deploy, which makes this mama happy. One child deploying while we were at war in Afghanistan was enough for a lifetime, thank you.

So we have a few more days with Sam home. He is playing video games with Jon now. Jonathan simply adores Sam. He totally looks up to him, and Sam doesn't disappoint. Sam gives him the time of day, talks to him like an equal, and includes him in his outings. When Sam first left for the Army, Jon was so sad and lost....he will be having a rough time come next week.

Well, dinner is not getting cooked, and this chair is extra comfy in the afternoon after a busy day sitting in the sun and swimming and eating soft ice cream, yeah, I had one....and vacuuming and washing dishes and sweeping and putting clothes away and brushing tangles from little girls' hair and taking that long walk down the hilly road....I could definitely take a snooze, forget all about dinner....