Is it really the last weekend of summer all ready!?!

I realize it is early Wednesday morning, but the idea of my minions getting up and heading back to school on Tuesday seems strange to me. I have started to receive transmissions from the school about the first week of classes, so it must be true. We should have notifications regarding our classroom placement on Friday at 3:00 pm, so that will make the transition very real. A name and a classroom, and an entrance location for the morning drop off run. Soon I will have forms to fill out, documents to sign, and waivers to file for both kids.

Homework and packed lunches, early morning wake ups, hair brushing fights over tangles & messy bed head. The school year brings much drama with it. Who else is in their class, and did they get separated from their core friend group. Where is the best friend located. How is recess playing out. Are they eating what they asked for for lunch. How quickly do we have to leave to get across town to practice, tutoring, lessons, and such once the school day ends.

The summer is a really easy breezy time for us because we don’t typically put the children in a tonne of additional programming. Though we did do flag foot ball, and a library reading program, along side the usual daily swimming lessons, so that felt a bit more hectic than normal. Also the intense heat and dryness this year made us want to do absolutely nothing, like ever. But the kids did their things, so everybody should be happy.

We made memories! 7 Wonderland trips, farm runs, partial weeks off & on at the cottage, headed to the mines, Gemboree, town festivals, fireworks, meteor showers, Kpop demon hunter watch parties, sleep overs with friends and extended family. Family visits at the cottage. Tubing with the intent to flip and crash out. Wake boarding, paddle boarding, canoeing on the lake. Beach runs, and swamp crawls looking for frogs and toads. We tried to pack a bunch of stuff into the kids break.

I did ride my longboard on two occasions. But failed to get out on my bike. Nor did I use my roller blades for yet another summer. I swam a fair bit in both the lake, and at the inlaws pool. But, I still put 10 lbs back on because I wasn’t as active as I had been leading up to the break. Back to square one to break 200 lbs again, and get down to 194, and try to keep on going to 180/175 lbs if I can. I found my wife’s bike at the farm, and am in the process of cleaning it, and oiling the chain, and making it suitable to ride. If I want to lose weight I need to get active. Which means making time on weekends to climb, ride a bike, long board and/or roller blade until the weather turns.

The children had playdates of their own and got to see a good number of their friends this summer. It gets difficult to line up folks when everybody splits for cottage country, international travel, or become hermits in the intense heat. It was so much hotter this summer than years previous. We hit well into the 40°C’s this year for a sustained period. You might get one day there before, but we had close to two weeks in that range, with the Humidex. No rain. No major storms to disrupt the heat and humidity build up. It was like living in the tropics. I fear what will become of the crop yields this year with so little rain, and such intense heat. I’d expect food prices to go up yet again.

In July the bugs were pretty horrendous and then by the August long weekend it’s like they packed up and left town overnight. I guess the dryness killed off the larvae by removing the swampy standing pools where they breed. The lake was down nearly 2 feet, so the shaded pools in the forests must have evaporated with no rain to refill them, and the surrounding trees desperate to absorb any water nearby. One bonus of the dry summer.

We did encounter forest fires up near us in the Kawarthas, so that was a bit nerve wracking. Gladly it was wrestled under control — eventually. Did not seem to affect the overall air quality like the major fires from much further north.

From last weekends to forest fires, how do I ever keep my train of thought. I bet if you read my posts both pre & post Covid19 you’ll notice some changes in both the quality of writing, and ability to maintain a dedication to a topic. These are the last six days to really make a splash for Summer Break 2025. I wish you well. Have a safe Labour Day weekend whenever you choose to begin it! Ciao Bella!