September Is In Full Swing!

I have not disappeared. I've just been sucked into the vortex that is back to school chaos! It's one thing to have four kids all in school full time now, but to also work at a college where things get absolutely insane the week before and the week of students returning to classes. WOW!! The last couple of weeks have been an insane whirlwind of activity.

Thankfully, the extreme chaos has passed and we are just left with slight disorganization as we all fall into routines while fighting road construction, holiday craziness and extracurricular activity schedules. We've got this!

Is it sad that I actually had to look at my trusty calendar to remind myself of what has happened since the last time I posted?? There are actually days where I'm impressed that I manage to find my way home at the end of the evening. But here's a quick synopsis of our final weeks of summer fun...

Emmy Lou attended a Back to School Karate Camp the second to last week of August. I love watching her grow and mature with her newfound love. She has found an activity that she likes, that she's good at and that gives her self-confidence. I love it!! She also put in some extra classes in preparation for her belt test last weekend. Oh, and she finally convinced her dad, The Hubby and I to let her try Kali4Kids (another form of martial arts) and she's loving it! You can check it out here if you want to see what it is. She started 4th grade and sounds like she is enjoying her new teacher and being back in class with her friends.

Kenziebug also spent the end of the summer putting in extra classes after taking a break from the dojo for the first couple of months of the summer. She and JackJack played baseball a combined total of three nights a week this summer in the town they go to school in, so that left no time for karate classes in the evenings. She didn't skip a beat though and caught right back up with her classmates. She started 3rd grade and says she's liking school so far this year.

Abbycakes wrapped up her summer with one final week of summer camp. She and her sister are already putting in requests for fun summer program ideas for next summer. Crazy kids!! Abbycakes started back up with karate this month and is expressing interest in expanding her horizons this fall. She does twirling club through the school, but we're exploring other ideas as well to mix it up a bit. I remember Emmy Lou going through her search to find the activity that she really loved at about this age too, so I saw it coming. There's been talk of dance, ice skating, swimming... She wants to play lacrosse, but there's no kids team withing a 2 hour readios, so no solid decisions yet. She started 1st grade and absolutely adores her teacher. Emmy Lou had this teacher in first grade too and we all love her!

JackJack also returned to karate at the end of this summer. He seems pretty content to stay with the Dragons class at karate and is having a lot of fun in it. He had a good first year of t-ball and is very excited to play baseball next year. He's also super proud to finally join the girls in all-day, everyday school days! He was ready!! Last night he told me he's really liking kindergarten and has lots of new friends!

The four of them did plenty of fun things this summer and went on many adventures. The Hubby even helped them wrap up their summer of fun with a road trip up the shore to go hiking and exploring while I was at work. Yup, they had a pretty darn good summer!

The Hubby, Emmy Lou and I all completed our belt test last weekend and we all passed! The Hubby and I are now working hard toward our blue belts while Emmy Lou keeps on cruisin and officially has her blue with black belt and is prepping to get her green belt next test. She's got a goal and I don't think anything can stand in her way at this point!

Needless to say, it has been a busy few weeks! We even celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary in there! Plus, yesterday was my birthday. Some days I'm feeling every single one of my 37 years. Due to that, I've actually started on a new journey with a program called Thrive. I will share more about that journey tomorrow, and the weeks to come, but I can say I'm pretty excited about how I feel right now! Stay tuned for more info on that.

For today I'll say that we're here, we're rocking the school year and we are slowly finding our rhythm. I love fall!! This is by far my favorite time of the year and it hasn't disappointed so far!