The Petersens' Brave New World: Where did this summer go??

We are pretty much back at it. Not quite the normal, back-to-school-year routine, because we don't technically start official days back until the following week, but last week was spent at an (inspiring) conference, and I'm spending most of this week in meetings and training (more to come on this)...so, basically this is it.

I think that this has quite officially been the shortest summer ever. We didn't get out of school until June 13 because of snow days and a late Thanksgiving (our district is on trimesters - at least until next year - and first trimester always ends at Thanksgiving, so our start date is always 13 weeks before Thanksgiving). With vacation, June was a blur - it seems it was over before it even started. July was incredibly busy. This was the "Summer of the Twins" - on Monday and Friday afternoons they had swimming lessons, Tuesday evenings were dance, and Friday mornings were gymnastics. The days with no classes usually ended up with play dates.

In between all of those regularly scheduled activities, our summer went a little something like this:

Out at Grandma Helen's farm, Cora got to hold a kitty.

Willa loves her big-girl hat!

The highlight of Evaline's recent trip to the farm: getting to go up in a real, actual attic!

Not a fan of the prickly grass, this girl preferred to stick to the patio.

Sprinkler time and a homemade "water slide"!

A little bit of twin love!

We switched around Willa's car seat last week - she's loving it! A twenty minute car ride full of "Mommy? Mommy? Hi! Daddy? Daddy? Hi! Mommy? Mommy? Hi! Daddy? Daddy? Hi!"