I’m beginning to feel like every school year is a new milestone for us. The end of every school is the end of another era.

Today marks the end of Kindergarten for Logan and Third grade for Cameron and if I’m being honest it makes me a little sad. The babies are long gone and the big kids are here. The school bus riding, full day going, no nap taking big boys.

Just yesterday I was talking with a friend about just how fast the time goes. When Cameron was a baby and people would say things like, “enjoy it now because the time goes by so quickly.” I thought they were crazy. Nine years later I’m sitting here at the end of yet another school year wondering where the hell the time has gone?

If the years continue to go this fast they boys will be going off to college in the blink of an eye. Last summer sucked with me being hurt and basically stuck on the couch all summer so I think the boys earned a great summer. Since my years with these little creatures are numbered, I hope to give them an awesome summer this year.

Last school morning for a while.

They have four weeks of camp to look forward to, many trips to Maryland, and day trips galore coming their way. My hope is that when they start first and fourth grade in a few short months that they’ll have some great stories to tell their friends.

Those tears I’m sure to shed as they step off the bus for the final time this school year aren’t just because many of my summer days will be spent breaking up fights, they’re also because the time is just going by way too fast. We had a great year and I’m going to miss the teachers as well as the structure.

Have your kids started their summer yet?

The summer has been over for exactly a day, so it seems like as good a time as any to take a look back.

While it wasn’t a bad summer it wasn’t the best yet, that distinction goes to last summer. The area where this summer was better was that there was more Bill in the picture. This was the first summer EVER that he hasn’t been tied to the golf course so he was able to come along on some adventures with us.

We hit all the major attractions in the area. The zoo, the aquarium, Longwood Gardens, Dutch Wonderland, the Herr’s Chip Factory, the Turkey Hill Experience, we even made it to Hershey Park (for a minute). What we didn’t do was go on little hikes and excursions like we did last summer.

Looking back I’m not really sure what we did all summer but we missed out on the butterflies, and many of the other nature adventures we took last year. The kids enjoyed them last year but had no interest this year and I wasn’t going to push the issue.

We did have both boys in full day camp for three weeks which took up a nice little chunk of summertime.

Honestly though, the kids had a much different attitude than they did last year. They fought with each other a lot more and they didn’t really want to do anything. Often times it wasn’t even fun to go out with them because they were miserable. Don’t let those smiling faces fool you, we had more than our fair share of temper tantrums.

There was a lot of fun had this summer but we also missed out on a lot more. My hope is to make next summer the best one yet, so jam packed with fun they’ll be begging to go back to school just to get a break.

How was your summer? The best ever? Not even over yet?