It’s been a crazy summer around here. I know I’ve been missing around here for about two months now and I wanted to give you a quick update to let you know why.

So, every May for the last 11 years I teach/ lead the Primary children at our annual church campmeeting. It’s something I’m passionate about and absolutely love doing. I’m always gone 14 – 15 days with my family and we all work together, along with my amazing team to set up the first week and teach around 80 kids for 9 days, 21 lessons. It’s one of the things we look forward to every year and even my grown children come back every year just to work with me and it’s like a family reunion.

This year my kids convinced me to change things up – I have always had a four year rotation of my programs and I was getting a little bored with this years particular theme. So, three days before we left, I rewrote a new program, redesigned the set and when we arrived we got to work building, painting, planning, and making everything happen. It was amazing!

However, it’s an exhausting two weeks! So, tear down day was Sunday, June 2 and I spent the night. On Monday afternoon, we packed our stuff and headed home.

My son James and his wife had recently made the decision to move to Florida. Hannah Claire got a great job doing what she went to school for {librarian}. So, they were packing up that week to move. James had told me they would probably leave in the U-haul truck on Wednesday, but as I made the five hour drive home on Monday afternoon he called to tell me that the packing was going faster than they had expected and they planned to leave Tuesday morning.

So, they had been living the last year in Chattanooga which is about a four hour drive from my home in Kentucky. Florida is a much longer drive and I so wanted to see them before they left! I cried and cried and cried. I was exhausted but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t make it down there to tell them goodbye.

I arrived home about 10:00 Monday night and we unloaded the car, repacked, and by 11:00 we were back on the road to make the four hour drive to Chattanooga.

My daughter Sarah and her husband had just moved to Chattanooga in April so when we arrived at their house around 3 am, we crashed into bed to grab a few hours of sleep.

Tuesday morning around 10:00 we headed over to James and Hannah Claire’s apartment. Unfortunately, my daughter Hannah woke up with a stomach bug and she stayed behind at Sarah’s house while we went to grab lunch – all of us together. My husband and I, Sarah and Ethan, James and Hannah Claire, Emily, Laura, and Hannah Claire’s brother, Carl.

Hannah was feeling a little better by the time lunch was over so we picked her up and we all went over to James and Hannah Claire’s house to help them get the last of their stuff on the truck and say goodbye.

We spent the night again at Sarah’s house and we left about 5:00 in the morning because I had my scheduled breast lumpectomy at 7:00 am in Knoxville.

After the surgery, we spent the night in a hotel and then I took Hannah ice skating and we headed home.

You guys, I was exhausted.

The surgery went really well. The surgeon did a great job sewing me up and the path report came back completely negative of cancer. I’m so thankful.

A week later my husband had a prostate biopsy. We had been very concerned he had cancer and thankfully, the path report also showed no cancer.

I thought I would have time to get back writing by the end of June, but every day has been on the road for the last month. I finally had two hours this morning – and enough mental energy to sit down and write something.

The last week of June we took Laura to summer camp. She had such a great time. My kids have all grown up going to this summer camp and my daughter, Sarah, has worked there for years. Laura took Archery, Kayaking, and Nature as her main classes and she did so great! She was the only girl in the Archery class and she won second place!

I love that my kids have always had a place to go, make new friends, and grow closer to Christ. Summer camp is just so special!

Not to mention, three weeks ago we decided to tear out my kitchen and remodel it. This is something I’ve been dreaming of for over 10 years. Probably closer to 15 years. I’ll share more updates about that later.

We’ve also had company multiple times over the last month, and our normal schedule of ice skating and horses hasn’t changed. I’ve just really needed to take time for my family and for myself the last few weeks. I’ve learned that sometimes it’s really not possible to do it all. And sometimes we have to make choices. Thanks for sticking with me!

I’ll share more updates later… in the mean time, I plan to pick up where I left off with the 30 days of Intentional Homemaking series I was doing. There are currently 10 posts in the series – 20 more to go!

I hope you are having a great summer. Let me know what you’ve been up to in the comments below!