Good morning all! It is super early for us over here. Well, early for Billy and me. Wyatt is an early early bird and gets us up when it is still dark out, which it is now. Thank goodness I have coffee to sustain me, because today is also the first day of school for Wyatt!

I spent all last week getting caught up from vacation – laundry, groceries, cleaning, scheduling vaccines and appointments – and preparing for this morning, the first day! I am super excited to start learning with Wyatt again. We are going to ease on in sort of gently, with the basics, with art, and by finishing up a few states from last year. The state study ties in with our language arts. We are reading Paddle-to-the-Sea as soon as my hold comes in.

We did do some relaxing over the weekend!

Thursday I took Wyatt to Greenfield Village to ride the train a million times. It was a gorgeous day, a proper fall day, not this heat wave nonsense we have going on right now. He loves riding the train and I find it super relaxing as well, honestly. So that was a nice start to our weekend.

We didn’t do anything huge or amazing. We stuck pretty close to home, but took things slow, which was much needed as I am always rushing, rushing, rushing around. Friday we got pizza from our favorite pizza place, and walked around the city a bit while we waited for it to be done (we were getting it to take home).

Saturday was more of the same, just hanging around the house, a few excursions out to a few shops, a bike ride for Wyatt – and cheeseburgers and Jimmy Buffett music in honor of the musician’s passing.

Sunday we had a big day – we drove to my dad’s house for a visit. He lives about an hour or so away but the drive isn’t bad and the sun was shining. My stepmom had cold foods ready since the day was already melting hot, cool drinks in the fridge, and we just hung out for hours talking and the kids were playing and it was just a very relaxing day. My stepmom hadn’t been able to make our trip up north so it was nice to see her and catch up.

She had totes of books she told me I could look through, and I jumped on it. I love to look through boxes of books! I actually only took one home with me although there were so many good ones. I borrowed I Wish I Could Give My Son a Wild Raccoon; I had never heard of it and flipping through it, it looked so interesting! This is the synopsis:

One of the Foxfire books, this volume has a collection of narrative interviews done as part of a national student project on the occasion of the US Bicentennial. Here are stories of a Cajun trapper from Louisiana, and Eskimo teacher from Alaska, a banjo maker from North Carolina, a fireman from Illinois, and those of over 35 others. Their lives reflect the diversity of the American experience as well as shared American values.

Shellie received this book as a gift in 1978 from her mother. I love books like that, that were gifts and that were cherished and held on to through the decades.

On the way home, we made sure to stop for flowers, one of my favorite things to do!

I have so many cut flowers in the house right now – it makes going back to school a little easier.

And then yesterday, we just took a long drive. It was too darn hot to do anything outdoors, so we took a drive. We did make a stop at the nursery and fruit market, where I bought the sunflowers that are shown in the first picture as well as some produce.

And that was that! Our very simple but fun weekend!

And now I need to get moving! I have a new schedule to adjust to and I need to add some more coffee to this mug! I hope you all have a wonderful day!