We had a kind of crazy end to August. After the kids got back from Middle School camp with church, Lyla got VERY sick. She was so sick with strange symptoms that the pediatrician had me take her to the ER. Mark and I were there most of the day with her on the Friday of the week they got home, and after getting lots of tests done and on medicine, she finally started to improve about 48 hours later. To our dismay, on Tuesday morning that followed (literally just as Lyla was coming into the land of the living), Nina came down with the same symptoms Lyla had. Thankfully the pediatrician saw her immediately and prescribed the same medicine that the hospital gave Lyla, and after a couple days she rebounded. That is about the shortest version of the story I can manage, but suffice to say, this was, by far, the sickest we’ve seen the girls ever. It was a very scary several days for Mark and I, but we were so thankful that they both fully recovered with some time.
Thankfully, this all took place before the start of school. When the 6th graders had their orientation, Nina was feeling pretty well but wasn’t fully recovered, but thankfully Lyla was mostly back to her old self. She had I sat out at the dog park the evening before orientation and just talked about the transition to middle school. It was just so hard to believe that our little Ly was going to be a middle schooler. However, she felt prepared and excited, and she had a great day at 6th grade orientation and locker set up! We were very proud of her.
Just two days after orientation, the girls had their first day of school on August 23rd. Since Loudoun County has grades 6-8 in middle school, Nina and Lyla are together this year at Brambleton Middle.
Cayenne was also going to have a transition this year. She is so used to her school routine. Lyla’s alarm would go off early, she’d go into Lyla’s room to help “wake her up” then go over to Nina’s. Then, she was always waiting to go to the bus stop. Both in the morning and afternoon, Cayenne loved walking up to the bus. Even when the weather wasn’t good, she wanted to come. Specifically in the afternoon, she would hear the bus coming down the street and would run to get me if I wasn’t ready. Due to my teaching schedule, I often would be just getting finished with a shower, getting dressed, etc. right before the elementary bus arrived in the afternoon. She would be waiting with me upstairs in our room or bathroom where I was getting ready, and as soon as she’d hear the bus coming, she’d run to me and start whining.
As you might expect, the middle school bus stop doesn’t have parents walking their kids to it in the morning or waiting there in the afternoon for them to get off the bus, so Cayenne has had some adjustments to make as well. :( However, we’ve been waiting for the girls on the front porch in the afternoon, and she loves hearing them coming down the street then greeting them in our yard. It’s a bit of an adjustment for her going from them being around all day to the busy schedule of school, homework, and sports.
In addition to school starting relatively soon after the girls started to get better, Lyla had a soccer tournament locally. Her doctor said she was free to participate in activity, so we let her play in her tournament. The weather was terribly hot and humid, and in retrospect, it was way too much for her after just coming off being as sick as she was. She made it through two games on Saturday, but her body just kind of gave out Sunday afternoon after we finished our second games that day. We realized she definitely needed a lot more time to get her strength back than times when she was “normal sick” in the past.
Additionally in late August, we had the fun opporunity to gather as a family at La Grange Winery to meet Brittany’s family who had come down from the Philadelphia area. It was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, and we all had such a great time hanging out together.
Both sets of families went back to my parents’ house after La Grange and hung out some more and had a great Mexican dinner. While the adults were hanging out, the kids built this amazing teepee. Sadly, the area where my parents live was attacked by an Ash Borer who destroyed lots of big, beautiful trees on their property and that of their neighbors. A tree company was working to take down all the affected trees, and before they had a chance to haul away a lot of the branches and bark, the girls worked together to build this. We were all very impressed!
The very next day after the winery, Lyla’s soccer team had a social/team bonding event at AR Workshop. They created really cute soccer themed wood signs. Lyla’s is a holder for her medals. The medal ribbons secure around the white rod for display. All their projects turned out really cute!
Our last fun event in August was our annual summer bike ride to Firework’s Pizza. The schools all had off the Friday before Labor Day Weekend, so we took the opportunity to get in our bike to pizza and back. This time was especially nice because Mousey and Poppy came with us. While it certainly wasn’t their first time biking the W&OD, they hadn’t biked to pizza lunch at Fireworks before, so that was a lot of fun to do it together. As always, we stuff ourselves with pizza, and thanks to Poppy’s stash of mini bungees he carries with him, we were able to get the leftover pizza back to the car in good condition! :)
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