is it just me, or do those gilly sketches go on way too long for way too little return?

It's the last week of summer, and boy, are we ready.  The fighting about the absolute stupidest things has reached an unacceptable level, and I think everybody just wants to be shut of each other for a while.  This is how the modern world has broken the family, you guys.  Instead of spending our short, brutish lives working our family farms together in harmony and ignorance, we have come to enjoy--nay, prefer--living in comfort and ease with greater access to health care, education, and foreign cuisine.  What a sad commentary on our society. 

We went school shopping and got clothes for everybody, and it was brutal and not at all enjoyable.  I so rarely have to take my kids on errands anymore that it was almost like I no longer have that set of skills.  Like that muscle has atrophied and now I'm useless.  They were not even that naughty, it's just that there are four of them, and they wander like crazy!  All over the store, grabbing and touching everything on the shelves like a family of goshdarn raccoons!  But we prevailed and got everybody taken care of.  Grant and Willa got the most because there's nobody to pass stuff down to them.  Poor Emmett and Ike.  At least they get new shoes, and I do always buy them a few new shirts that no one else has sweated in and spilled on yet. 

Grant and Ike are done with basketball, Emmett and Ike and Willa are done with swimming lessons, we have eaten about 1/10th the amount of shaved ice we should have, and we turned the basement room into a dormitory so the boys could still be all together, but not smooshed quite so tightly. 

John asked about a job at work that would require a transfer to Europe, but his current boss was like, "Uh, who's going to do your job if you move to Europe?"  Flattering that they aren't willing to let him go, but it would have been nice to have an adventure, especially because as soon as we heard about the job I was on that like flies on a gutwagon and had already picked out where we were going to live.  Oh well, Groceries and Rex would have hated the plane ride. 

what does it even mean to miss someone by their hair

Last week I went to Girls' Camp.  We had flushing toilets and showers, and it was so much better than dirt camping.  When I was little we were always going camping and woodcutting with my mom's side of the family.  There were never bathrooms and you just had to wander to a private area away from camp, collect some soft leaves, and do your dirty business over the side of a fallen log or something.  I didn't really mind it then, and I would still probably prefer that to an outhouse, but I am old enough now that a real bathroom is pretty important to me.  Anyway, the second afternoon we sent the girls off to read their letters from their moms, and two of them found a decent-sized rattlesnake.  Thankfully our camp director's husband was there, and he is a mountain man deluxe edition who trains dogs to hunt bears and mountain lions (he just takes pictures of them; his reasoning is that if people kill all the bears and mountain lions there won't be any left to hunt, and then what is he supposed to do with his dogs? I like this approach), and he tromped off into the weeds with the shovel and soon found the snake and dispatched it and buried the head.  It was a very exciting time for everyone.  Thankfully none of the girls fought and there was no crying or meanness.  Our testimony meeting was only about a 2 on the bizarre/awkward/inappropriate scale.  Pretty much it was a terrific success and I'm looking forward to next year. 

I had the kids sort all their clothes so we have at least a vague idea of how many shirts, pants, socks and underwear they have before we go school shopping.  They never use their drawers and all their stuff just lives on the floor and travels up and down the stairs every week, being washed over and over again without being worn because they're too lazy to differentiate their clean and dirty piles.  Where do they get that from?  I'm sure I don't know. 

but sadly we just left rhode island

Last weekend we had our final family reunion for the year, sniff.  I love my family in all its multitude and it makes me sad we don't see each other more often.  I rode a horse for a minute.  I stubbed the crap out of my toe on a stump and thought maybe I broke it, but it turns out not.  I got a 91 on my BB shooting attempt, which I think is good but not great, but I'm not sure.  I think I overheard a conversation defending whaling, but I chose to remove myself from the situation rather than end up in an argument.  There was a brief game of what was called fireball, which is exactly what it sounds like, which was shut down by some killjoys who didn't want to set the borrowed mountain ablaze.  I got a sweet hat that belonged to my grandpa, and I must say, I look way foxy in it.  My cousin's fifteen-year-old son is 6' 4 1/2" and Grant standing next to him looks like he's next to the World's Tallest Man.  It seriously looks like photoshop.  I feel a little jealous of all the talls in my family. 

Grant is at scout camp, probably being initiated into all sorts of unspeakable teenage behaviors.  I have done such a good job of dissing BSA at our house that I've had to backtrack a little and defend it for the good life skills it teaches, aside from just knots and fires.  Overall I guess it's a decent program to be involved in, but I sure as heck am not going to hold any of my kids hostage and say they aren't getting a driver's license until they get their Eagle.  I mean, how dumb.  What in the world do Eagle Scout awards have to do with driving?  Parents, if you're doing that, stop it.  Read a parenting book that talks about natural and logical consequences. 

Emmett went on a 14-mile bike ride the other day along the highway.  Ugh, the highway.  Why can't we have a bike path in this place?  It's nothing but cyclists from dawn to dusk in the summer, and how many of them need to be hit and killed before we figure out they need some room?  At least Emmett wears a helmet, so if he does get hit by some texting jackass he will have a lovely, intact head atop his mangled body. 

Ike cut his foot open again today, because: aggressive researcher.  It was only a small cut, even though he was bleeding like a stuck pig.  I predict that the infrequency of his shoe wearing will not be affected. 

Willa has worn a hole through the mitten.  I might have to make a new one.  At the reunion we took it off for a family picture, and her hand is all pale and white like a cave fish, so she said that she wants a mitten for both hands so they'll be the same color.  But she's singing a different tune now, and all of the sudden wants the mitten OFF.  Well, hoss, this is the choice you made all those times we told you to take your fingers out of your mouth and you refused.