A Scrap of Life

When I was a teenager, 35 seemed downright ancient. 35 year olds wore outdated clothes, drove boring family cars, worked stuffy grown-up jobs and had lost the luster of youth. And while this is somewhat true, 35 still isn't exactly what I envisioned. Sure, I'm older and the luster of youth is starting to tarnish a little. Yes, I drive a minivan. And no, I'm not trendy. But I do have a pretty great life. I have such an awesome family. I have good friends and a fulfilling job. I have a wonderful man that I look foward to getting old with. This is what 35 looks like - and it's pretty darned good!

On a whim we decided to make a day trip to the beach on Tuesday. We went to Long Beach for the Washington State International Kite Festival. We had never been to the kite festival before so this was all new to us. The weather was beautiful and it was the perfect day for kite flying. There were hundreds of kites in the sky - big twirling kites, huge animal kites, spinners and foils in every size and shape imaginable. They even had choreographed stunt kite teams flying to music. It was amazing to see so many kites in the sky at one time! By far our favorite display was this one: Hundreds and hundreds of kites lined up one after the other, streching as far as the eye could see (and then some). We were told there were 250 kites on this line, which is easy to believe. Just looking at it from the ground it seemed that they stretched all the way up to the sun. It was unbelievable! On our second time past this display the kite owner asked the kids if they wanted to try to pull the kite in a ...

As always, summer gets away from me. It has been hard to find much extra time between teaching summer camps, camping with the family and chaperoning Boy Scout camp. Thankfully this is my last week of summer camps this year and I get 3 full weeks off before returning to a new year of preschool. We're hoping to end the summer with a few more fun family activities and maybe a trip to see my brother, sister-in-law and adorable nephew. Boy Scout camp with Chase was good. We went to Camp Hahobas in Washington and it was a GREAT camp! The staff was amazing and the boys all had a great time. I only stayed a few days, just enough to help get the troop settled, get all the paperwork done and help organize the boys schedules. Then I took off and let Chase and the other boys enjoy some "non-Mom" time at camp. Chase earned another 3 merit badges there and brought home 4 partially finished merit badges. He also earned his star rank, one of only 4 (of the 20) boys in the troop to have a...