Last Day of My Summer..

August 31st.

School starts for teachers tomorrow. Most of us have already been back for weeks, preparing our classrooms for the kiddies to arrive on Thursday. Our two days of professional development begin tomorrow.

It was a busy, fun and productive summer. We celebrated my grandmother’s 100th birthday, (the “real” day is actually this Thursday.) Our cousins from all over the country came to New Jersey and we celebrated for nearly three weeks! I think I wound up seeing more of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York with my Western cousins than I would have ever done had they not been here!

We took a “historic” tour of Greenwich Village, visiting the places Grammy grew up, the apartment she and my grandfather lived when they were first married, the church my grandparents were married in and another church where my father and his brothers were baptized.

We went to the beach – so incredibly close, yet for some reason, a place we hadn’t gone in over a year, and to the Poconos with a trip to Bushkill Falls. We got to see another one of our cousins play in a performance of “Rock of Ages”. We went bowling, to a trampoline park, to the zoo and to the pool. We watched a Mandala be constructed in my own home town!

All of this happened in just those three weeks! The rest of the summer, I worked at Camp Maple, where I have worked for the last seven summers, so although we were outside and having fun with our campers….it wasn’t quite “my summer” yet.

On Friday, we take DJ to college. He is one of the last of his friends to leave for school and he is ready to go.  Dave and I….maybe not quite so ready to have him leave, but we are excited for his new adventure.  That might officially end summer for me. A new batch of Kindergarten parents, leaving their babies with me as I leave my “baby” in Massachusetts. It is going to be a week filled with bittersweet tears for all of us!

Celebrating in the Rain

This has quite possible been one of nicest summers I can remember in New Jersey. We have had very little rain, and those few times were in the evening. There has been very little humidity – which NJ is famous for! There was only one week where there were more than three days in a row that were over 90 degrees!  The definition of perfect summer weather in my opinion!

We couldn’t have asked for better weather and having a summer job that is mostly outdoors, I couldn’t have been happier! Truthfully, we only needed ONE day to be perfect. Tuesday, August 11th. Today. The day we are celebrating Grammy’s 100th birthday. Outside.

All week long, the weather channels have been predicting rain for today.  We kept hoping that it would change, summer is so unpredictable, but it only seemed to get worse. If you looked at the 7 day forecasts, it displayed cute little suns on everyday EXCEPT Tuesday, where wind, clouds and rain icons replaced that sun! A day with no breaks of sun. “Higher than average gusts of wind expected….”

There is nothing we can do. The tents are already set up in her yard. The relatives have arrived from all over the US  and, although there is some disappointment that the party will have to move indoors, no one really cares so much anymore now that everyone is together.  Our family has been arriving all week long. Despite being thousands of miles away, stretching all the way to Alaska, these kids get along like they’ve been together forever. Having the party stretch out over nearly two weeks has made it so that the big event today isn’t really ruined because of a little rain!

If there isn’t any thunder and lightening, it just might be outside for the kids! The rain isn’t going to stop them! They were together until after 9pm last night running through the tents in the dark playing old games like “Ghost in the Graveyard” not caring that no one could see a thing, so I doubt rain will stop them!

Gram’s actual birthday is not until September 3rd but in order to get everyone here with school and sport schedules, we had to do it a little early. The party is going on, rain or shine. If it has to move indoors, it will. It isn’t very often that someone turns 100 and we cannot wait to celebrate her today!