Around Here Week 34: 08/18-24

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

photo cred: Miss Hannah

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 562+ hours
Up 33 hours this week thanks to day camping, Friday night high school football game, and some last summer days (swimming, outdoor playing, and visits) helped boost our hours this week. I can already feel though the crunch down on time with the school year around the corner- there's a little pressure on time for getting all the things done and I know I'm going to have to be intentional with my outdoor time to keep my numbers up as we head into the next season!

Reading I'll Think It You Say It by Curtis Sittenfield and really enjoying it. I read a few chapters in the hammock this week and it felt like such a full circle for the summer when I was reading so much outside in early June fresh out of school. gah, time - why do you move so swiftly?

Singing happy HALF birthday to our Gemmi Ro who turned seven and a half this week! We had muffins for breakfast and she got to spend most of the day with Miss Hannah - so it was a pretty good half birthday for that little chickie.

Listening to Violet retell all about her amazing adventures on her special day with Gigi&Pap. They drove out to Gettysburg on Wednesday to visit The Land of Little Horses Farm Park  She had such a great time and enjoyed so much to have one on one time with her Gigi and Pappy. (thank you!!)

No bummer summering with the Fiores at Delgrosso's amusement park on Wednesday! Kate and I took Rusty and Charlie around the smaller rides while our three big kids spent their afternoon riding the big rides - they even got enough courage to ride the big drop! We had pizza and snacks in our pavilion and then the kids were anxious to head back to the Fiore house to swim. Always the best day when it's the Fioder crew.

Day camping at the Que with Abba & Chum who rented our favorite two Que camping spots for the weekend. The kids were thrilled to spend most of Saturday at the dam; kayaking, swimming, playing in the hammock, and eating campfire food. Our friends, the Huffmans came out to visit, my parents' friends Pam & Al came to camp out too, and the kids were overjoyed to have Aunt Kitty all to themselves for playing and rock skipping on the water. It was a perfectly lovely last summer camp day before the new school year begins!

Teacher-prepping with a visit to my classroom that turned into mostly catching up with my fav coworker (hi Renee!) and a student who was working on her schedule that day (hi, Alysha!) Thank you to Miss Hannah for staying with the kids for my classroom visit AND then so that B and I could grab our annual back-to-school coworker lunch date. The school year officially started on Friday with our first teacher In-service day. We had some meetings and then had an opportunity to get in our classrooms to get ready for the kiddos coming next week!

Fall Sporting with two cheer practices (including finishing our run through sign painting!) and a Path of the Pride cheer spirit event at the varsity football home game opener. The boys had three football practices, they served the Varsity players a meal one night with Common Grounds outreach (thank you Loni for the great idea!), and had a scrimmage vs. CV. Grey is so excited to be back in a helmet and pads and seeing those boys work together always has me smiling.

Frugal Living was on the light side this week. I packed a cooler with snacks, juice, and homemade cookies to take with us to the amusement park and I made double batches of banana bread with all six bananas that went brown at our house (all 6?! come on!)

Making turkey taco crunchwraps (!), pizza tostadas, bowtie spaghetti, three ingredient chocolate breakfast muffins, chocolate chip cake batter cookies, and banana bread.

Keto'ing and bumping up to 12% carbs from strict 5% carb keto. I was really running low on juice (fall activities/back to school prep) and after some research figured out that I should probably up my carbs a little bit. Now instead of under 20 net carbs, I'm getting under 55 net carbs - which is still officially 'low carb' but not as strict as keto. I'm still getting used to it, because it feels like cheating a little bit makes me want to cheat a lot (LOL). I made keto bagels and had my favorite breakfast: keto bagel, avocado, feta cheese, and sunflower seeds. We had salmon and green beans (and then leftover salmon over salad), keto 'bread' sticks, and church picnic chicken with cheesy brussel sprouts.