August. In several posts.

August kind of escaped me this year, with nary a blog post.  Perhaps it was the two week trip halfway across the U.S.  Or the blur that ensued upon our return, with endless loads of laundry, school preparations, a new church assignment (more on that later), and some weird depression I sank into for a week or so at the realization that summer was coming to an end and our bucket list was far from complete.  Darned overacheiver that I am.

This gap in blog posts is completely unprecedented.  So I'll do my best to catch up with an onslaught of photos and maybe a few captions in between.

First, we went to Lake Michigan!   Tim had just spent a week at scout camp, so I enlisted by father-in-law to make the drive out there so Tim could squeeze in a couple of extra days at work before taking off another 10 days.

Having never attempted a road trip of this magnitude, I was nervous about the possibilities of squeezing all four spunky girls into one car for over 6000 thousand miles and depriving them of the movies that typically occupy them on our relatively "short" trips to Utah and back.  No, this trip was epic.  And I couldn't live with myself if I didn't take advantage of my captive audience.  So I tortured them with books on CD, Broadway songs, trivia games, coloring/sticker books, worksheets, and plain old conversation.  Poor things.  By our return trip, they forgot to even ask for movies.  It was lovely.  Well, minus WWIII that erupted at about 3:00 in the afternoon on a daily basis. 

My FIL, Steve was an able companion - introducing us to tidbits of information I feel sure would never have been imparted had Tim occupied the passenger seat(much as I missed you, babe).  He gave us a 400-mile warning about the town of Egbert, Wyoming, thriving metropolis that it is.  Had to get a picture, naturally. 

Still, the drive out there was relatively uneventful - save a disgusting Wyoming rest area experience which caused Anna to proclaim that Wyoming must be a "poor" state (the water was out and the toilets were full to overflowing with refuse).  And the time that Steve accidentally left our car door WIDE open overnight in Omaha (Surprise, surprise, nothing was stolen- I guess a minivan full of smashed Cheetos isn't worth the effort.)

We made it there after three days in the car, two motel stays, and a brief (or not so brief - if you know Chicago during rush hour) jaunt into Chicago before picking Tim up at Midway.

The next day we were off to the beach.  It looked something like this:

Sending our kids scurrying out into their deaths, er, I mean, the waves for hours on end.  The most amazing part about frolicking in Lake Michigan is the complete and utter lack of salt therein.  I felt to drink it up with each and every splash, but, well, that would be gross.  But not as gross as ocean water - mark my words.

Oh, how I would love to dig through my archives for a copy of a memorable photo of myself, looking much like Rachel, bearing tan lines of where my swimsuit should have been.  Thank the heaven's she's only five.  And yes, the swimsuit has since been canned.

We spent our days swimming...

Playing in the sand with cousins...

Eating...

Spraying good-natured uncles with water guns...

And visiting with rarely-seen relatives.   It was delightful - and leaves us all to question why in the heck we don't get together more often?

                                                                 (Don't do it, Eve.)

Thanks to those who made it all happen.  I'm thrilled to be part of such a wonderful extended family.