In some ways, August came fast. In other ways, it felt like it might never get here and I would have been okay with that.

July was a whirlwind of activities. It kicked off with a fantastic private fireworks display near us.

If you are a regular reader here, you might remember that was the night I thought I was going to die.

I’m hoping August will be less so and at least this week it should be less crazy.

In July we had a lot of activities – summer reading, camps, swimming, appointments, new trucks to pick up, and friends of Little Miss and The Boy coming over. It was all a bit crazy at times.

We tried to go swimming at my parents at least once a week in July to take advantage of the pool my dad had worked so hard on throughout May and part of June.

I wrote a little bit about Little Miss and me and how we play in the pool in a post last week. She, of course, is very creative and likes me to rate her jumps from the ladder into the pool in the voices of the characters from the books we’ve read together over the last couple of years.

Most of the events we had weren’t the entire day but they were in the middle of the day so it would make traveling or attending other events a challenge. It was okay, though, because it gave us something fun to do without draining a ton of our time and energy – or at least it shouldn’t have drained our energy but there were some weeks where we felt a bit drained from all the running around.

There were a couple 45-minute trips, up and back, to either drop cars off places and pick them up or pick up the new truck (last week).

Being so busy didn’t give me a lot of time to blog or read blogs. I did have some time to read and work on book two of my cozy mystery series, however. I’m really enjoying writing this series. It’s a ton of fun.

This week I need to shift into homeschool planning mode, even though it doesn’t start for another couple of weeks.

Usually, we start school after Labor Day, but this year The Boy will be attending a career center near us and school starts August 24th for him so I decided Little Miss and I will start the same day, but with a reduced schedule. We will probably read a few books, or watch some educational videos each day to ease our way back into the school year. Math, which neither of my children enjoys, even though they are both good at it, will wait until sometime in September.

I won’t give The Boy any assignments after school those first days when he starts at the career center and instead will start adding his homeschool lessons in very slowly as we get closer to September. The career center classes are from 8:30 to 11:30 each day and then he will have homeschool lessons in the afternoon throughout the school year.

This should probably be in a separate homeschool post and most likely will be put in a separate one too, but I am truly looking forward to our homeschool year this year. By the end of last year, I had found a groove for homeschooling that works much better for us as a family. A more laid-back groove that will allow us to learn in a more relaxed and free way. There will be more emphasis on reading, exploring, hands-on activities, music and art and less focus on strictly following a curriculum, worksheets, busy work, and anything else that public schools focus on and call a real education. I don’t want my kids to have to prove they know something by filling out worksheets, taking tests, writing essays or regurgitating to me what they’ve learned.

We will, of course, have to do some of those things to help me know what areas we might need more work on and because those are the kinds of things I need to show a little bit of at the end of the school year to our evaluator, but it will not be our main focus this year and I’m so excited.

We have a few more summer activities for August – including a local firemen’s carnival, trips to local state parks, and a vacation Bible school at the local Catholic Church, which is held by all the churches in town – Catholic and Protestant.

We also are planning at least one or two more trips to a local state park and maybe to an amusement park a couple hours away. It’s hard to get too far away because of The Husband’s schedule. A lot of the events he covers during the summer are on the weekends.

How about you? How was your July and what’s on your schedule for August?

Here are a few photos from the month of July. With all the activities we took part in, I am surprised I didn’t take more photographs. This isn’t all of the photographs I took. I have some on my phone as well but in August I hope to take even more on the Nikon.