Bye-Bye Summer!

The official beginning of fall is still weeks away, but today we said good-bye to summer vacation. Tomorrow T will go back to teaching, and Tiny, Buba, and I will begin to reestablish our school year schedule and routines. All in all, we had a great summer (not counting the two weeks of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease- of course!). The kids went to their first carnival, we snuck in trips to the nearby farms and the zoo, and we had a great time swimming at Grandpa’s pool this past month.

But this summer was also crazy busy for me. I took on more students and more hours than I ever have for private tutoring, and my schedule was all over the place as I tried to fit kids in around their camps, playdates, and scheduled activities. Some days I’d be teaching at 7:30am, while other days, I didn’t have a session until 11am. One day I’d have three or four students in a row, the next I’d have two in the morning and one in the afternoon, and the next I’d have just one student all day. It was a lot to keep track of and a lot to prepare for. So, I was really glad that this past Friday was my last day of summer tutoring.

However, I’m going right from summer tutoring into fall tutoring with no break at all. Tomorrow my fall schedule begins, but at least I’ll be back to just one hour a day. I’m so grateful for all the families who hired me and kept us afloat all summer while T (and his paycheck!) were on vacation. But I’m also so glad to be going back to more predictable days.

We ended our summer vacation with a weekend full of family fun. Yesterday we hit a couple of yard sales (and picked up a Madeline tea set for $2!) before heading over to our twin club’s summer event at a sprinkler park in our town. The kids had a great time running through the sprinklers and fountains before snagging a spot at the picnic tables and wolfing down hot dogs, veggie chips, grapes, and brownies at the potluck lunch. (Seriously, I’m not sure there was any chewing going on. That food just disappeared!) This morning we ran errands. I got an 80 minute swedish massage while the kids were napping (a reward for all my hard work this summer ), and then we spent the afternoon at the pool with Grammy and Grandpa. Both Tiny and Buba were clearly very comfortable in the kiddie pool, as well as the shallow end of the big pool, which has convinced me that we must get them Y memberships and keep the swimming going as much as we can.

I know tomorrow will begin a period of adjustment for everyone. This year, I expect the kids to have a harder time with T going back to work than in years past. But I’m sure it won’t be long before we’re all back into the school year groove of things. And I’m really looking forward to it.