The Start of Summer!

Summer has started and I AM LOVING IT!!!

I had many dreams the first weekend that school was out where I dreamed that I was so overwhelmed with work and thought, "If I can only make it to summer..." - then I would awaken and realize I HAD MADE IT TO SUMMER!!!

As of the last day of school, I had NOTHING on my calendar for the summer -- and it was an AWESOME feeling. I seriously have not had a BLANK summer calendar - basically since birth. There have always been trips or camps or classes or jobs...

Now, my summer is filling in a little bit with both trips, projects and goals.

So far this summer I've been fishing, camping, shopping, running, cooking, working and reading! What a great start!

Chris is headed back to St. Louis for the summer to enjoy rent-free living and fun family summer events ... and I'm going with him for about a week leaving this afternoon. So St. Louis is the first stop on this summer's adventures!

I'll come back to Colorado for about a week to do some work, some organization projects and hopefully some hiking before I head home to Michigan with Lexie at the end of June.

Chris and I hope to do some baseball park traveling in early July and on this trip I intend to MAKE IT TO MAINE!!!! Maine is the only state I have not visited and I INTEND TO GET THERE THIS SUMMER!!!!

The later part of July and early August are still relatively open, but I hope to get up to Seattle to visit my brother, sister-in-law and their two boys.

Other summer goals of mine include:

• Cooking full meals several times each week (last night was oven fried chicken, sweet potato fries, chive biscuits and raspberry cheesecake; last week was Tuscan lemon chicken, confetti corn and herb bread; a few weeks ago was honey-balsamic lamb chops, asparagus and snap peas, and garlic bread... I'm makin progress)
• GOING TO MAINE!
• Running a few times each week
• Sewing something this summer on my sewing machine (which has never been used)
• Hiking five or more 14ers (mountains over 14,000 feet high)
  
• Taking time to read a little each day - or a lot if I can! (Some of my summer books include "Eat Pray Love", "My Bondage My Freedom", "If I Live To Be 100", "Mommywood", "David Copperfield", "Don Quiote" - I don't know that I will get through all of these - especially the long ones, but it will be a nice balance of serious reading and fun reading.)
  
• Decide what job I'm taking next year and then devote myself to on-going study this summer in preparation for that job (Please keep this job situation in prayer)

I wish I knew the cute blog ways to make that Summer Goal List all cute and official -- maybe I should add "Becoming more blog proficient" to that goal list...

All in all, I am VERY excited about summer and being off of work for awhile!!! I hope your summer is off to a great start!