Is summer over already?

I can't believe how this summer has flown.  I've been really negligent on posting, partly because Christa wanted a Facebook account, so I started that, partly to get a glimpse of her life from that point of view, and I can only keep up with so many online posting things at a time.  Here's a brief update:  We moved Ryan into his new office.  He's been working out of our home for the past 5 years since starting his own practice.  Having him work at home has been a great thing for our family in many ways, but it was time to make the transition back to a regular office space.  One major reason being he needed to hire some additional support staff and I can't have a couple of administrative people working in my house.  We were able to hire my sister, who has worked for our billing office for quite awhile, and convince her to move to Boise, and we found another girl with some medical office experience who should be a good fit.  I have been working down at the office (about 12 minutes down the hill) trying to get the new people trained in and things running smoothly.  I have full time help at home with the girls for 10 more days, and then I get to really be a stay home mom again.  It will be strange to not be in the day to day of our practice, though.  Though I have plenty to do to keep me busy at home, I'll miss being more of a part of Ryan's world.

After putting out our For Sale By Owner on a whim, we had an offer on the house within 2 weeks, and closed a month later.  We were able to find a rental here in the neighborhood, since our new place won't be ready for move in until sometime mid October.  We put a lot in storage, and in many ways that has greatly simplified things.  It's a lot easier to pick up toys when the number that can get dumped out is limited.  

Meanwhile, Christa and Lexi went to Girl's Camp.  Then we took Christa over to Harrington State Park (Eastern Idaho, North of Rexburg) for an amazing two week music camp.  We took the whole family and spent an extra day in Yellowstone and checking out Bear World.  We were reminded that Paisley really does not like being in the car for longer than, say, 30 minutes at a stretch, and she doesn't sleep in the car for more than 30 minutes a day. 

July 22-25 Ryan had a conference in Cle Elum, Washington (an hour east of Seattle) so he and I took Lexi and Emma over to that, and enjoyed a couple of days relaxing and biking in the great outdoors.  We came back from that to a new hire at the office to train in, a record case load for the week, and a house to finish packing and moving.  We had some wonderful help with the move and getting the old house ready for the new owners, and it is great to have that behind us.  

I think I'm pretty much done with getting ready for school, except for finding shoes and a backpack for Lexi.  The girls are very excited about their new teachers and classes.  Christa just found out she made the varsity 9th grade volleyball team.  Lexi will be starting the junior high, and just got her very own cell phone.  Emma is going back to regular school after doing homeschool for last semester.  Sierra is always excited about everything and she'll be starting her new soccer season this week.  Anya is a bit sad that most of her good friends will be in kindergarten, and she gets another year of preschool.  It will be good to have the extra time with her, though.  Paisley is just a busy busy bee.  Her favorite words are Mommy, More and Shoes. And we added 4 more new kittens a month ago, but we lost 3 with the move.  They won't stay at the new place.  

One more week of summer freedom then back to the school routine!