WHERE IN THE WORLD DID THE SUMMER GO?

I can't believe I haven't blogged since June!  What in the world!  SO much happened over the summer this year, and as always, it went by way too fast.

Where do I start... Brittani's Birthday?  Sounds good!

The Newest 20 Year Old!

Brittani had almost every minute planned out for the whole week surrounding her birthday.  She wanted dinner (Kalushka? - who knows about the spelling and I'm to lazy to go and look it up!) and Glaus cake the Sunday before her birthday, and then on her birthday she wanted lunch at Dear Lizzy, boating, and dinner at Los Hermanos.  Oh, did I mention that she wanted Cody to take her shopping the Saturday before the big day, AND she wanted presents when she woke up!  She is not like me at all!!!  But Cody didn't disappoint, and I think her birthday, and the whole week before was perfect.

One of our family's very favorite activities has always been boating.  It was a sad day at the Finlayson home when we needed to sell our boat, so it works out perfectly that Cody's family owns a great boat!  We had a ton of fun and it seemed like old times!  Connor was pretty young when we sold our boat, so he never really had the chance to learn how to wake board or anything.  I was so proud of him for trying everything.  He did such a great job.  I, on the other hand, tried surfing for the first time, and screamed the whole time.  Thank goodness our kids got Rick's athletic jeans!

FRANCE

Yep...I did say France!  

Almost a year ago, my mom found out that a really close friend that she and my dad met on their mission was getting married...in France.  My mom really wanted to go, but definitely not alone.  She asked if I would go with her, and when Rick found out that it was going to be over the Tour de France, he decided to tag along too.  

We ended up leaving the day after my 40th birthday, and we were able to stay for about 10 days.  We saw so many amazing things, but my very favorite was the Tour.  It was AMAZING!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

So, I'm not quite sure when this happened, but I have a child starting her 3rd year of college, a senior in high school, and a 7th grader.  My kids are getting so big!  

I really don't like junior high, and I hate that my kids have to endure it, but Connor seems to be doing great!  I think he was a little nervous the first day, but now it's no big deal.  He loves that his teachers don't "treat him like a baby like they did in elementary school". and he loves the class changes.  His favorite class is band and CTE.  Although he looks like a 9th grader, he is still my little baby, growing up much too fast!

Nathan's senior year is a dream.  He wants to be a professional pilot so he will need a four year degree and lots of time in an airplane.  He takes an aviation class at another high school, and then only has a 2 more classes one day, and 3 classes the other day.  He is happy and funny and easy going.  It is starting to hit him that high school is almost over, and soon he will have to be a grown up, and sometimes I can see that that stresses him out.  I told him the other day that the best is yet to come - and he just said "I hope so".