Summer time and the living is BUSY.

Whoa.

We start school this week.  And I am NOT ready.

So what else is new?

Anyway, I had a birthday.  I know, I know...when you are my age...big whoop.

But this year it was so great.  Because see...my husband bought me this:

How much do I love it??!!??!  Let me count the ways.  Now, as excited as I am abouthis wonderful bicycle, I have yet to ride it.  It is either raining, or we are out for the day.  :P  TOMORROW is the day. Irene is gone, no big plans for the week, I have to do it.

A few of the things we did this past week:

We went to my friend's parent's lake house.  You could fit my house in their great room.  

Yeah.

Anyway, the kids loved it.

Elena is canoeing.  Now it looks like it is just her & her pal, but one of the older kids is in the back holding on.  Yes, I tend to be a responsible parent more often then not.

The older kids coming back from water skiing and tubing.  It was Samuel's first time. He fell and 'rode' his face.  He thought it was cool until his bathing suit was coming off.  

Then there is this girl, who happens to be my daughter, who has more facial expressions then her brother.  I KNOW!!!  Who woulda thunk?  We went shopping for Christmas in August.  My mission girls put on a sit down dinner for the church and they did a great job!!!

And we went to the city on Friday.  Yes, the Friday before Irene was going to come to town.  And can we remember that people from the city left the city that day, and the traffic was a nightmare.  I mean more so then the normal nightmare city traffic.  It was on a monumental scale of bad traffic.  But it was the only day we could go see The Pompeii exhibit.  We had tickets for weeks. And it was worth it. 

The boys at Times Square.

And, yes, Irene showed up as she said she would.  We lost power for over 15 hours.  But since it is summer and I had over planned, it was ok.  I even did all the laundry and ironed everything so we would not have wrinkled clothes.  Because who wants to have wrinkled clothes like we just came back from the woods?  When really, it was just a storm...

Our neighbor's tree.  On our garage.   Great.

But we are all safe.  And my daughter and her family are safe.  And my parents are safe.  And my son, though his place flooded, is also safe.

So, life is good, and GOD is great.

Today, as we started to clean up the yard, I kind of got excited about the fall decorations, buying mums, pulling out the sweaters.

My favorite season.

Yup, GOD is great.