School starts back next week. 7 days to be exact. I could tell you the hours and minutes but that might sound like I'm counting down. Wouldn't want to give that impression! (wink wink!)Jeff is on vacation this week so we had the opportunity to take one last mini-vacation before school starts. We spent 4 days at the New River. It was wonderful and relaxing and we didn't want to leave. The first night there was all stayed up late to watch a meteor shower. Wasn't much of a "shower". More like a drizzle. But we saw some impressive ones. And it was just fun to sit out under the stars and wonder at God's amazing handiwork. We don't do that often enough. This pic was taken at some point over the weekend, not the night of the meteors.
The next day, some friends came up for the day. We played in the river and went fishing and had dinner. Then they had to head back home. Hopefully they will be able to come back and stay longer next time. The boys all had so much fun playing in the river.
We all went fishing the next day. No one caught anything but river weeds but we still had fun. Jeff probably spent more time fishing than anyone. He never used to be into fishing but this year he even bought us fishing licenses'. I have enjoyed it as well. It's actually very relaxing and something we can all do together. The boys like to switch between fishing and throwing rocks in the river. What is it about water and rocks that boys just can't resist? Drew and Gabe spent a long time just throwing rocks, sometimes at each other, mostly at the reeds and grass growing out of the river, sometimes at the rapids. I'm sure the splashing wasn't helping Jeff catch any fish but they were having fun so no one seemed to mind. 
We also went on a quick float trip down the river. Wendy drove Drew and the floats a short distance down the road and dropped them off, then came back for me, Jeff and Gabe. It was only about a 10 minute float trip down the river back to Wendy's house but it was fun. We went over some little rapids, got stuck on some rocks and saw some wildlife. Wendy and David are going to investigate a longer trip soon so we hope to do that next time. This was more of a "trial run" for the boys. Gabe was very nervous about it at first but after about 2 minutes he was loving it. Here is the blue heron we saw all weekend long.
Hope you have had a wonderful, fun-filled summer.
