Back to school already

Well this has been a short summer. For the first time since I was 16 I have summer school. Luckily it is an afternoon class and only two days a week. Two weeks down and so far so good. Honestly, I am not really enjoying it, but it isn't horrible.

Despite being back to school we are still on summer schedule. The kids and I have completely switched our sleeping schedule around, staying up until 3am most nights. The problem is Kara starts summer school next week and has to be to school, for PE at 8:00. Glenn will be taking her in the morning, thank goodness. But I am still worried about her that first few days. I have been trying to start getting everyone to bed a little earlier but it isn't working too well.

Why can't I be one of those people who love mornings? My mom was a morning person, always up before the alarm, happy and ready for the day. But I have never been like that. There are pictures of me as a child on Christmas morning, my siblings all happy and excited and me with a look on my face saying, "why am I out of bed?" Instead of being excited to get up in the morning, I love staying up late. Even when I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open, I just don't want to get up and go to bed. This is why I find myself staying up until 3am watching Ice Road Truckers or Jon and Kate plus 8. You would think if I am going to stay up so late we should be doing something fun, but no I am watching some stupid show on tv. It is funny when we are all up at 2:30 and the dog (who sleeps in Kara's room) has a look on her face, begging us to go to bed. When Kara gets up and heads in the direction of her room, the dog jumps up excited only to find out Kara is only going to the kitchen or something. Maybe I need to learn something from the dog about not staying up so late.

Family Reunion

We just returned from a family reunion in Northern Idaho. It was wonderful. It was great seeing all of my family. The first few days were cold and rainy so we mostly hung out at the house and visited. The rest of the week was beautiful so we did plenty of sight seeing around the area.

We went for a hike up the mountains.

We saw beautiful lake Pend Oreille from many places. Although the water was too cold to do any swimming on this trip.

We drove up to the local ski resort, Switzer. Even between seasons the scenery was beautiful, and there was a little snow to play in and climbing to do.

The kids spent a couple of days creating a tour around the property, driving the gator. They worked really well together. Here they are returning after taking grandpa around. When taking the Moms (my sister and I) they got Doug and Sarah to jump out and scare us. In these scary mountain men outfits.

We also had a cookout for the whole Cox family. All of my aunts and uncles made it (seen in picture below), as well as a number of cousins and a few of their children.

We spent a day at Silverwood theme park. Kara finally faced her fear of roller coasters.

Here is Josh, Lori, Kara and Amy riding one of the coasters. We even got Grandpa on one of the coasters although he said "never again". We all enjoyed the log ride and something else similar to white water rafting which was a good way to cool off. Kara, Josh and Amy each rode the Corkscrew 20 times. Tim didn't make it on any roller coasters but unintentionally went down the water slide with speeds up to 65 miles an hour. He seemed to enjoy it.

The last night we had the excitement of a bat in the house. The kids and I discovered it after everyone else went to bed. We woke up grandpa to help get it out of the house. Tim video taped the entire event so that may end up on youtube at some point in the near future.

On the way to the airport we stopped by Riverview park in Spokane and rode the tram over the river which was running high.

It was hard to say goodbye, luckily we will be seeing everyone again in September for Doug and Sarah's wedding.

Summer is here

Summer has begun! Tim's last day of school was Wednesday and Kara's last day was today. I haven't figured out yet what to do to keep the kids busy. We do have a vacation for a family reunion in Idaho, we are all looking forward to that. Then Kara and I both have summer school. So my main concern is keeping Tim busy, he thinks he will be happy just spending his days on the computer but I know he will need to be a bit more active then that.

As for myself, I am working to get the house ready to put on the market, it is moving slower than I would like but there has been some progress. Other than that I want to work on getting healthier, eating better and exercising more regularly.

I also have a huge book list to read. I always have the hardest time deciding what book to read next. I am currently working on Great Expectations by Dickens. I have been getting into the classics recently. I also hope to get my hands on What Happened by Scott McClellan, it sounds like a good one.