Marathon Month

No: not a real marathon.  (Although 11 years ago at this time I was deep in training for a marathon!)

We're having a marathon month: an unusual phenomenon which involves travel every weekend for an entire month. It all started with the eclipse trip, which was wonderful.  That weekend my aunt and uncle's church had their annual picnic; the worship service and picnic were nice, but the best part was that Finn bravely decided to ride in a tube behind a speedboat.  With strangers.  And he'd never even been on a speedboat before, much less had been pulled by one.  I won't go into all the reasons this is a major milestone for our boy, but let's just say that sometimes I have a nice "parenting gratitude cry" in random situations, and that Sunday, I shed a few tears on a speedboat. 

This past weekend we squeezed in Finn's birthday camping trip, which was also wonderful. We went to a local state park and enjoyed 4-ish miles of hiking each day--which is pretty good considering Annie is only 6, cool lake swimming, s'mores at night.  It was all quite idyllic until bedtime, which is when I was subjected to sharing an air mattress with Annie.  It was a rough night.

Fortunately my husband is always looking out for me and he had brought the electric kettle, so I was able to survive the next morning with a couple strong cups of Yorkshire Gold by the fire.

This weekend we plan to visit my father and stepmother in their mountainhouse. They're only out of Charleston for a week or two, and we don't want to miss our window!  The Blue House is always fun: poking around the yard, visiting the Amish store, playing music, napping.......

And after that, we're heading to a family reunion and then on to my alma mater for a few days. 

It all feels like a whirlwind, and we also began school last week. So we're packing, traveling, or unpacking (or laundering!) a lot, and when we're not, we're getting back into the school routine.

And Thursday morning, a dumpster gets delivered to our back yard because major demolition begins soon on our deck and patio.  I'm curious to see how well we focus on William Cullen Bryant and Greek history with a jackhammer out back.....

It's all part of the marathon month!