It's August 13th? Already?

Really? Wow! The summer is almost gone... and I've been busy busy busy...
We've driven to Annapolis 3 times, Farmville (yes, it's a real place) twice, VMI three times, New London twice, Orkney Springs 3 times, Montreal, the Thousand Islands, and West Virginia. If I keep this up, Dad's car might actually hit 20k miles this year!
My LLB has been home a total of 9 days since June 2. She has had a great summer - it wasn't easy sometimes, but it is the stuff of which memories are made.  She did 7 camps - each one very different from the rest. She will look back on this summer as one of the best -- once her muscles stop hurting and she gets some serious sleep.
#1 spent most of the summer at VMI working on Calculus 3 and a Leadership class -- his 4.0 made it worth his time.  From there he went right to St. Elizabeth's camp to be a buddy and got his Shrine Mont fix. LLB was up there with him, so he did get some time with her.  He was home for one week and we weren't. Of course he was kinda happy about that! We were at Band Camp with LLB. She was marching her butt off and we were cooking 4 meals a day for 75 hungry souls. He, on the other hand was ensconced on the couch with his laptop, his TV, and his dog. He was supposed to be packing to go back to VMI... ahem.  That said, he did pick up the house and it was relatively spotless when we got home. I got less than 24 hours to spend with him - but we moms take what we can get, you know.  We spent a good 35 minutes packing his trunk -- why did that chore take all afternoon last year? He is back at VMI. He is Cadre and has a job: Company Clerk.  I miss him, but we have email and phone, so he isn't really all that far away.
Today my baby starts her "Behind The Wheel" driving lessons and in approximately one week, she will have her driver's license. This means that if I get her a parking spot at school, she will be driving my sweet CRV, and I will be left with the Civic or the Camry for wheels. Do I like this? Ummm... not so much.  I'd honestly prefer that she learn how to drive the Camry and take that. But it is a stick and we are out of time until she is home longer than it takes for her to do homework and crawl into bed at an unreasonably late hour. So - I have two choices.  I can either suck it up or make her take the bus... And since I really don't feel like driving to school every day at 6pm to pick her up from band practice, I'll be sucking it up - a lot.
If you need me this week, check the Uniform Room. I'll be stuffing kids into band uniforms and telling them not to grow until the season is over in November.