Blue Chips Football Camp!!

What a week!

Well, summer is in full swing here at the Smith residence! Can I say again how much I love summers!?!?! As busy as we are all year long, it is SOOOO much more calm and relaxing with them being out of school! For a mom who works night-shift and a dad who works ALL shifts, it feels ten times less chaotic in the summer when our hardest decision is "how late do we let them sleep in?"!! :)

They are keeping up with some "school skills" a few days a week, thanks to some cool work books I found at the book store, and Rea is neck-deep in a book series she's hooked on, so that's pretty awesome! Ni'ke and Ya'shar are counting the days till we fly to Ohio for some family time there in August. They're so excited with the thought of finally getting to go fishing with their cousin Levi!! And somehow Ya'shar has gotten into his head that we are going to "meet the Buckeyes"... I'm not real sure what transpired in his mind after our many conversations about going to Ohio, but I guess he just associates Ohio with the Buckeyes! We probably won't be meeting any, however. :)

And then of course, sports are a big part of our family in the summer!

Every summer we've tried something new with them - some of our ventures have been successful and others not so much.... Let's see, there was gymnastics (Rea hated it), then ballet for both the girls (Ni'ke couldn't hold still and Rea cried almost everyday, got a great video of her sobbing at their recital AND in the group photo) then soccer (Ya'shar was terrified of the giant L'il Kickers Bunny and Ma-lak just stood there) and then Tae Kwando... They all had their moments with that... Ma-lak hated it at first, and then loved it, and Rea seemed to find her niche right away. Ni'ke was just still too young, so she'll try it again later. And Ya'shar, well he tackles everything with a lot of "exuberance" but isn't officially involved in anything at the moment! He cheers really loud from the sidelines though.

So here we are with FOOTBALL! Ma-lak and Rea will be playing this fall with the Central City Phantoms in the Mighty Mites League, and the coaches have been so kind as to let Ni'ke and Ya'shar run around on the field a few times when the big kids were practicing. (Ni'ke is a fierce tackler. More on that later.)

This week was football camp, and I'm very grateful that the heat wave died down a little for the occasion! I had to work nearly every day this past week, so Daryle was on his own with getting everyone up and around and fed and over to camp by 8:30 every morning - he even managed to take pictures for me since I couldn't be there. :) Many of the coaches and guys who do the camp are retired NFL players or coaches or have played college ball, etc, so of course dad was having a good time too!

We were so looking forward to me being off for a 3-day weekend this past week, but late Friday night three of the kids came down with a GI bug of some sort. So instead of road-tripping to the beach, hanging at the pool and visiting the aquarium like we'd planned (and me running my 5K today - boo hoo), we instead did a LOT of laundry, house sanitizing, visits to Target for Pepto, Immodium AD and ginger-ale, and quietly watched movies while eating saltines, not popcorn! (I'll spare you all the gory details, you're welcome!)

Thankfully we have a few weeks of downtime before practices officially begin! Praying for a quick and speedy recovery for these little guys, and for fewer trips to the bathroom...