Summer ending

This is the last week of our summer before everyone goes back to school.  Today, I taught the last of my summer voice and piano lessons.  It's been so great having them all on one day for the summer!  Now I'm working on getting a schedule put together for fall, and it's so much less flexible with the RHS fall play coming up and subbing in there too.  

After I was done teaching, we went over to Joyce's house for a sweet send-off party for Ryan.  He leaves in the morning to move in at SIUE!  Sylvia and Caeden and I left early, and Jeremy just stopped by for a minute to wish Ryan well, but later the party moved to Ryan's dad's house and ended with one last summer fire.  

Sylvia wanted to host a sleepover, and decided to have a campout in the backyard!  Her friends Lexie, Sophia, Bailey, and Isabella were able to come.  Sylvia had games and snacks, and it was so sweet seeing their grins and hearing their giggles as they enjoyed their time together!

Cakes and Camping

Sylvia baked a banana cake completely by herself today!  We read through the recipe card together and I gave her some pointers, but she did all the work by herself.  I think she felt pretty accomplished, I was very impressed and proud of her, and the cake is delicious!

It's another beautiful evening, and Sylvia said she'd like to sleep in the tent with Annah and Caeden.  So, we put it up again.  It's easy-peasy and only takes about 10 minutes.

They're even cute with their faces smooshed up against the netting.

All cozied up...

The four of us played a game of Skip-Bo (using the Candyland box as our table) in the tent as it got dark.

I went inside for a while and came back out to tell them it was time to sleep.  Sylvia decided she wasn't up for sleeping in the tent, so she came inside to her bed and Annah and Caeden stayed out.

Backyard Camp-Out

My parents gave the kids a tent for Christmas last year.  Upon their opening it, Jeremy promised them we would camp out at the state park nearby at least once this summer.  I suppose summer is not officially over, but that promised camp-out hasn't happened yet.  We realized a little too late that you must reserve a camp-site at least 7 days in advance.  So, although we planned to be at the park last night, we did at least get the tent up in our backyard...

To put it mildly, Jeremy was not excited about the tent, the camping out, the sleeping on the ground, the whole thing.  But, he pitched the tent and inflated the air mattress and slept out there with the rest of us.

It was 10:15 by the time we played a game of Skip-Bo and I read some from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and we quieted down to sleep.

The kids had sleeping bags on top of blankets and none complained about the hard ground.  We let Daddy have the mattress.  I did not sleep well with neither mattress nor sleeping bag, and I think my body will be recovering for days.  After Jeremy and I had both gotten up to go inside around 4:30 a.m. to go to the bathroom, he let me have the air mattress and he took the spot on the hard ground....ugh.

We didn't get any fun activities planned for the tent-time, but the kids all said it was pretty fun.  It was a perfectly gorgeous night to be outside.  Anyone know what those ridiculously loud clicking bugs are?

Maybe next time we'll actually get to a real campground, but I was thankful our first attempt was in our own backyard!