This has been a big mixed bag of a school year for us. We\u2019ve had tremendous fun\u2014lots of regular season hockey, the All-Star Game, and a deep playoff run with accompanying travel and tailgate parties. We had a lot of charitable projects we were thankful to be involved with. The kids all were on teams that provided new friends and activity. Academically, it all ended in resounding success. But we\u2019ve also had challenges. There\u2019s the typical school year drama that you swear you won\u2019t pay attention to, but it takes its toll nonetheless. My grandparents needed attention and made the move to assisted living. We lost Sean\u2019s dad this year, whom all of us miss daily. We are still only 10 days post-op from Matt\u2019s spinal fusion surgery, and that healing is going well, but will be slow.<\/p>\n
Throughout this long year, some Fridays felt like victories limping across a survival finish line, while others were euphoric for what was to come.<\/p>\n
This one is definitely one of those Fridays.<\/p>\n
The stacks of corrected papers that once meant so much came home yesterday wrinkled in meaninglessness in backpacks that had given up weeks ago. Uniforms were tossed and bathing suits thrown on. Even the drama dissolved into a cocktail of peace and unwitting forgiveness. We made baby steps but huge milestones in healing and the summer is lining up to be one of the best.<\/p>\n
They are sleeping in right now, and my victory lap for the 2015-2016 school year was less than a half cup of coffee long this morning. The rest tasted of campfires, book pages, Vitamin D and adventure.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s do this, Summer. We are ready.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This has been a big mixed bag of a school year for us. We\u2019ve had tremendous fun\u2014lots of regular season hockey, the All-Star Game, and a deep playoff run with accompanying travel and tailgate parties. We had a lot of charitable projects we were thankful to be involved with. The kids all were on teams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[2],"tags":[66],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3NIOM-summer","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":726,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2016\/08\/19\/goals\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":0},"title":"#Goals","date":"August 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I don\u2019t think that I\u2019m alone in my sincere intention of achieving my Mom Back to School Goals. The execution of these objectives is another story altogether. We\u2019ve just completed the first full week of school, and I\u2019m evaluating my progress. Goal: Buy all the uniforms in June during the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":219,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2013\/08\/21\/summers-not-over-baked-beans\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":1},"title":"Summer’s Not Over Baked Beans","date":"August 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We\u2019ve discussed how they are trying to pretend summer is over for us all by starting school so a-b-c-d-e-effing early, but as long as Labor Day is still weeks ahead, we all know the truth. Here\u2019s a great baked bean dish to eat every day until September. Slow-cooker BBQ Beans\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Recipe"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/IMG_2044-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":787,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2018\/06\/28\/not-the-best-travel-guide-in-the-world-but-itll-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":2},"title":"Not the best travel guide in the world, but it’ll do","date":"June 28, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Alright, enough messing around. We really have to get semi-serious for 6 minutes to pull this off. It's logistics day, and I'll take just a minute to provide some real details on the trip planning before we get back to our regularly scheduled nonsense just in case anyone was looking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/robes2-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":894,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2020\/09\/01\/happy-new-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":3},"title":"Happy New Year?","date":"September 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Like most parents and smaller human beings who attended some sort of school in their lifetimes, I have always considered the beginning of the school year the actual \"New Year\" rather than when the calendar turns to January. That used to be because it was a natural new beginning--new grade,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":920,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2020\/09\/22\/august\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":4},"title":"August","date":"September 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"School. Sort of. If you would have told me at the beginning of this mess that the start of the following school year would be in jeopardy after stopping in-person classes \u00a0on March 5th, I would have called you a cotton-headed ninnymuggins and taken your lunch just to teach you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"pandemic\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":607,"url":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/2014\/08\/05\/premature-education\/","url_meta":{"origin":667,"position":5},"title":"Premature Education","date":"August 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"As I sit here on the morning of the first day of school, which has crept earlier and earlier each August until it seems as though the 4th of July is closer than Labor Day, it occurs to me that the local School Boards may be suffering from an embarrassing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.suburbandiva.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}