The Second Half of Summer

It's July already, but a lot has happened. In what is becoming a tradition for us, we headed to the movie theater with the girls to see the new Pixar movie, which was excellent (as usual). I don't think I've actually cried in a movie theater before, but about 20 minutes into Up was the closest I've come (and this is Mike writing, by the way).

In the past few weeks we enjoyed (and survived with three kids) the three C's: Chicago, camping and Columbus. In Chicago we visited Lisa's mom's side of the family. Annika and Abby even went there earlier than we did and spent four days there, playing with Lisa's younger cousins. Two weeks later we took our first family camping trip, borrowing a pop-up camper and the services of friends to tow it for us. It was a roller coaster experience, ranging from really awesome fun (swimming with the kids, hanging out at the fire, riding horses, tie-dying T-shirts) and the insanity-inducing (like taking Abby for an emergency pee outside the camper at 3am and not having it go well). Finally, we just got home this weekend from Columbus, where we saw my entire family, celebrated Abby's 5th and cousin Will's 1st birthdays, swam at the hotel and went to the awesome Columbus Zoo. It also involved more than 12 hours on the road, which ranged from tolerable (when Jake is sleeping) to the nearly intolerable (when he's not).

Unfortunately, after getting home from Columbus, we had to deal with the four C's: Cat in the Closet and Crashed Computer. We apparently trapped Layla, our poor cat, in the closet of our fourth bedroom for four days. I first heard her meowing early Monday morning. It took me a long time to find her, but there she was. The closet became her bathroom, of course, but that's the biggest issue we have to deal with, since she seems fine otherwise. The crashed computer is a bigger worry for us, since it involves a dead hard drive containing nearly a year's worth of pictures and videos that we hadn't backed up yet (stupid stupid stupid stupid us). We're hoping to recover them without agonizing over a high cost of doing so.

One of my three summer classes has ended, and it was taking up the majority of my time, so we're now looking at a summer that feels a bit more free than before. We're hoping to accomplish a few things but have some fun too - the girls already have a sleepover at Gramdpa and Grandma's and a trip to Great Wolf Lodge with Uncle Mark and Aunt Lizzy on the docket. Lucky!