Because I knew most of our summer would be occupied with baseball and swimming, I didn’t set myself that many goals.  But, here’s what I did set out to do.  And, the mid-summer update.  So, let’s see how that last month went.

On the schedule this summer:

• Swimming lessons for the middle four will run most of the summer.  This also results in our spending lots of time at the pool.  We missed two swimming lessons: one because it rained and one because it was painfully hot so I decided to leave for our 4th of July trip a bit early.
• Our oldest has one week of baseball camp.
• The oldest three have one week of track camp.
• Kids B-D have one week of tech camp.

Somehow I never did list the baseball team.  We made all the baseball games and practices, as well as a few lessons.

We have a list of day activities for days in between.  And, hopefully we’ll get some movies in on rainy days. (Thus far we’ve had only one.) We did get in some movies: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, all the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, Avengers Infinity War, and Skyfall, among others.

We traveled to DC.  We went for mini golf and bumper boats.

I need/want to accomplish the following:

• Finish up school/spring sports:
  • Dry all soccer cleats and put away
  • Clean all sports water bottles (3)
  • Empty back packs
  • Clean lunch boxes
  • Clean all school water bottles (8)
  • Check status of all items in preparation for next year
• Keep the woods from encroaching on our yard
  • On one side we have a five leaf vine thing and the plant in these pictures.  This second plant looks sort of like ferns when kept trimmed, but it puts out creepers that wrap around trees, thicken, and eventually kill the trees.  I think I did a pretty good job keeping this side in check.  I may need to beat it back some more next year though. 
  • On the other side we have the same five leaf vine, raspberry plants, and a different sort of climber.  This one doesn’t strangle the trees, it just creates a net over them that doesn’t look very good.  There’s also poison ivy on this side, which I am very allergic to, so I’m less brave about tackling things.  I had someone come in and remove the bulk of this as my only option was to bag it for the yard waste truck.  They removed the volume of an entire commercial truck!  I sprayed the poison ivy a few times and did make some progress.  There’s much more to be done.  Unfortunately after their work was done, first we traveled, then it rained, then it was very hot.  Maybe next week I can get back to it. 
• Throw out/donate/sell/etc. another 465 items.  This counting thing has been working well for me.  I had planned to do this again in the late fall, but there’s enough kicking around now that I’d just assume move it along.  I made it!  I went in chunks as shown.  I missed one item in these pictures, but clearly got most of them.  Clearly there’s a bunch for paper recycling.  The bottom picture is all fabric recycling.  The “5” will go to Goodwill.  The other two did hit the trash.  The lower picture is a mongrel collection that completed the 465 items.  I added my Pampers points so I can get rid of the packaging.  Everything else is broken in some fashion.

• Tag 465 items for the fall tag sale.  My rules for above were that it has to get out of the house within the time period.  Since the tag sale isn’t until the end of September these items don’t meet that criteria.  As a result there are many things that should be leaving our house that aren’t going anywhere yet.  But, tagging needs to happen sooner rather than later.  I’ve set aside a number of things, but haven’t actually tagged them yet.  I need to get moving though because the sale is at the end of September.
• Prep for the 2018-2019 school year.
  • Purchase a new lunch box and water bottle (I actually found one in our collection of freebies that he’s happy with.) for the incoming kindergartner.
  • Complete preschool paperwork for the youngest.
  • Pay bus fee.
  • Purchase school supplies after the lists come out in mid-August.
  • Check fit of soccer cleats for four kids.  Upgrade as needed.
  • Check fit of baseball cleats for oldest.  Upgrade as needed.