We’re watching summer wind down here on Labor Day weekend, and enjoying the last days of summer beachiness with our friends.

After this weekend, though, we can bring the dogs back to the beach, and there will be less competition for prime spots!

Here’s a mosaic of a recent beach trip with our friends B & Z and their mom. Moms are never in the pictures, of course!

LG’s birthday came with a dead hard drive, so I’m a few days late with the update.  But she had a wonderful day with plenty of Hello Kitty and Barbie.  Then she got to go shopping with gift cards for books, toys, shoes (of course!), and a computer game.  What more can you want?

Do you remember reading the Phantom Tollbooth as a kid? If I remember right, the kid gets stuck in the doldrums, as a real place.

Right now, between the vacation, my trip to CT to help grandmothers, and then coming back to 4 cases of chicken pox, I am stuck in the doldrums. I’m totally wiped out, and I know I’m dropping balls I should be juggling.

Thoughtful posts will resume soon. Really. I promise.

In the mean time, here’s a picture of LG in the pool on our vacation. Isn’t she adorable? Can you believe she will be 5 on Monday? wow.

I’ve got a lot going on here with the girls and B recovering from chicken pox and me trying to catch up on things from being gone for 2 weeks. I feel so unsettled!

I’ve got a quick beg today - if you have ever bought anything at woot.com, you can vote in their weekly contest. I’ve put up my designs here to beg for a vote or 3.

But now my friend has a chance of winning. This is the friend who helped make the shirt pictured below of the family tree for my father’s side. So, please vote for the tin man with the wind-up mouse! And the 6th place is also a good friend - so please also vote for the mercury mad hatter

And now a quick shot from the Big Family Vacation it’s missing my younger brother, but this is dad, step-mom, step-brothers, and me:

So….

I left on Wednesday night, stayed with my friend K in CT. Then went over to my Nana’s house. Helped out and visited Thurs. I helped Nana and Bob in the morning, then my other Nana in the afternoon on Friday. Saturday I helped garden, and hung out laundry on the clothesline. I stayed with my friend K Saturday night, and really enjoyed the 1:1 adult time.

The trip was a lot of work, and exhausting, but I’m very, very glad I did it, and I look forward to going down and helping again relatively soon.

Sunday I let to come home. What did I find upon my return? Children ecstatic to have me back, but itchy and fussy. A grouchy husband.

And as a bonus? 3 children with the chicken pox. Yippee!

This is my Nana M. 10 weeks ago she had a stroke, and couldn’t stand up unassisted for a minute. Now she is walking in her garden without a walker or cane. (some of the time, sometimes she needs help)

10 weeks ago she was only released from the hospital because I was at her house to help out. Now she still needs some help, but she was cutting up the onions, and making the salad for dinner.

My heart is full. My life is busy running errands, too

jiggity jig.

I have a lot of pics to upload and sort, but here’s a fun one from vacation: Rachel (in a phoenix shirt from tee jones) and the gaggle of girls in shirt.woot shirts, ready to go to the pool. It was a great pool complex with indoor, outdoor, and kiddie pools. only thing it was lacking was a diving board. We’ve gone for 3 years and always gone to the same pool, I think there are 2 others tho.

Well, things got crazy before we left for our Big Family Vacation, and I never wrote that we were leaving!

We’re out of town for a week at a resort (with crummy internet), with the giant family. Below is the chili & cornbread & cake party for LG’s early-birthday, with 8 of the 11 cousins:

For the first time in my life I ran out of food at the end of the party!

lots more fun coming up! and a ton more pictures!