Summer days

It's amazing how quickly a couple of months can pass and suddenly I'll realize that I haven't written anything here for ages. We're having a rather uneventful summer - no travel or exciting plans, but I figure anyone reading this might want to hear about our unexciting activities anyway :-)

Megan's having a quiet summer. She took two one-week half day camps, where she had fun learning about animation and playing her flute in a small wind ensemble. She's had two very busy school years and is facing the big unknown world of high school in September, so my hope for her was a really slow lazy summer and I think she's had plenty of lazy days. She's read books, played video games and stayed up late hanging out with Lysa in their room. I think it's been a successful summer for her, and she's hoping to top it off with a fun birthday celebration next weekend; she will be turning 13! We're all wondering how high school will work out for Megan. That plus weekly flute lessons and skating lessons will keep her very busy this fall.

This weekend, Megan and Lysa are off at the local anime convention. Longtime readers of this blog will remember that the whole family attended this convention last year, but this summer Megan's the only one going. This is mostly due to costume fatigue on Jeff's and my part - spending the first four months of this year working feverishly on the Naruto costumes kind of made us want to take a LOOONG break before starting on the next set. Hopefully we'll have those ready in time for the Seattle convention in spring '09, which we will definitely not want to miss.

Calum has had a summer full of busy fun at various day camps. He got completely covered in mosquito bites during the first day at his very first camp, which made lots of people ask me what was wrong with my son. He looked like he had some kind of infectious disease! Aside from the bugs, he had a great time learning archery and canoeing at this outdoor camp. He also attended a sports camp and some "little bit of everything" day camps which included swimming, games, crafts, sports and general silliness. He's had some challenges learning to manage his behaviour around kids who push his buttons and we're proud of him for learning some self-control so that he could have a successful time at camp. This week he was very excited to welcome his Grandad for a visit from Toronto, so we worked on getting his room into shape. Calum's bed doubles as our guest bed as we don't have a spare bedroom. Calum has resumed his crack-of-dawn swimming lessons after a very welcome break over the summer; in the fall he's signed up for more swimming, diving, taekwondo and gymnastics. If I'm not too exhausted from driving the kids all over the place, I will write more here about how school and activities go for Calum and his sister.

Jeff's been working hard this summer, with more overtime than he'd like, but has managed to find time to post lots of new drawings on his new deviant art website. If you have time, please check out his artwork over at http://thaellin.deviantart.com. Jeff started a collection of Copic brand sketching/watercolour art markers in the spring, which has spurred this sudden reawakening of his artistic side. It's fun to watch his drawings take shape.

As for me, I've been taking it easy, relatively speaking - no classes this summer or fall, as I was suffering from student burnout and really needed some time to get my head together and my life organized. I've spent my summer decluttering and organizing our home, trying to help Lysa get a job, and getting myself in shape. I was getting more and more dismayed by my total lack of fitness and spreading waistline which were a result of being way too busy with school work to find time for exercise or cooking healthy food. So, I took up swimming, after twenty years of being afraid of the water - and I was quite shocked to discover that I like it! I've also been dragging Jeff into the gym at his office twice a week and attending lots and lots of taekwondo classes. My goal was to test for my red belt by the end of September, and I'm very pleased to report that I will be doing so on August 29th, alongside Jeff, who has waited very very patiently for months and kept his purple belt while I caught up. Lest anyone reading this might be fooled into thinking I've become a fitness fanatic, I should also mention that I've spent hours every day this summer sitting at my laptop -- anyone who checks my facebook profile can see the hundreds of jigsaw puzzles that I've completed over the past few months while I watched various anime series and television shows. I've worked my way through quite a few excellent series recently, including Six Feet Under, Weeds, Pushing Daisies and the Aussie version of the reality series The Biggest Loser (which is a great source of inspiration for anyone wishing to get in shape and lose some weight). If you're into anime, I've very much enjoyed and can recommend Trinity Blood, Kurau Phantom Memory and One Piece (which I watched in one big long 300+ episode marathon, this took several weeks and was interrupted by our visit to Japan!).

All right! Time to get this post out. I am hoping to get back into blogging more frequently this fall, especially as I'm well aware I owe you guys some more posts about Japan, not to mention the long-overdue pictures. Sorry for being so boring and quiet lately.