What the?? Where did my summer go???

*sigh* That was the fastest, busiest, shortest summer yet. Girls camp took up June, and work started up full time for me on August 2nd... I just didn't get enough slow time. Oh well, here we are anyway!  Here are some pictures from everyone's first week of school.

So weird to move Kayden out.  That's about the best way for me to describe it.  Weird.  We moved him down to Prove on August 21st.  He paid an extra $15 to move down a day early, and it was worth every penny.  There were no crowds anywhere, and we sped right through the whole process.  People keep asking me how I'm doing, and as long as I don't think about it that hard, I'm ok.  The other day after moving Kayden down to Provo, I was mowing the lawn, and thinking through the last couple months.  So many big changes.  Working full time (and it's been SO busy), preparing to send the kids off to school, trying to outfit Kayden with everything he might need (that kept me awake most nights), being first time "college kid parents," painting and rearranging the house after Kayden left, and dealing with the emotions of moving him out, along with everything else made for an emotional, stressful couple of months for me.  As I was mowing the lawn and letting my mind wander, and friend from our last ward that I hadn't seen in years was driving by and flagged my down.  I turned off the lawn mower, she said "Hi, how are things going?"  and I burst into tears.  That's awesome.  I walked into the chapel on the first Sunday Kayden was gone, took one look at the Sacrament table and the nice high priest that had taken Kayden's place, and cried the rest of the meeting.  And I've been a little grumpy about this whole thing, especially with Rik, because obviously, it's his fault that everyone is growing up.... ya, it didn't make sense to him either.  Now that we're on week two, I'm doing a lot better, and when I talk to Kayden, he is in HEAVEN.  He loves the campus, loves the classes, loves the independence, and is loving the experience.  And I remember feeling the same way.  It doesn't even seem like it's been that long since I was doing the same thing.  My new goal is to try not to let my mind wander too far.  I'm not going to think about a mission (people keep telling me that all these changes are good.... I just don't know about that), and I'm not going to think about how I'm going to be doing this again in a quick two years with Malia.  Instead I'm going to drink more Sonic banana milk shakes.  I love them.  They make me happy.  They are my comfort food of choice right now.  I almost took a picture of the Sonic straw wrappers that are in my van.  There are lots.  It's been that kind of summer.