How Do You Lose an Entire Season?

I feel like Rip Van Winkle. Except for the part about getting a lot of sleep.  I far from get a lot of sleep.  But nonetheless, I feel like I blinked and missed summer.  Remember all the things I talked about doing over the summer back in May?  I was going to go on all these hikes.  I was planning on spending lots of time at the pool.  We were going to go boating at the lake once a week.  I was going to practice school work with the kids every day to keep them in "school mode".  I did none of those things.  And summer's
almost over.  This week is it.  Next week Caden and Ellie have zoo camp and the following week school starts.  Last summer didn't seem to go so fast and I was waiting to have a baby.  I'm not really sure where this summer went.  Maybe it was washed away with all the rain or frozen with all the cool weather.  Wherever it went, it's dwindling.

I asked the kids what they wanted to do before school starts.  Ellie wants to spend the night at Meema's (Corrin, if you're reading this, please come get that kid!  She's driving me nuts talking about spending the night at your house!  She asks at least every few hours if I will call you and ask when she can come over!) Caden wants to go hunting (I think this is from all the Nerf guns he's been getting?) and Vince and Olivia didn't answer.  So basically nothing.  It seems that they don't feel the end of summer like I do.  Odd, since the end of summer means less work for me and more work for them.  If I care about "doing stuff" this summer I need to get my act together and DO it.

With the back to school vibe in the air, I thought I'd post a quick video I got in an email today from Weelicious.  It's a nut-free bar to take to school.   We've been fortunate for the last few years and the kids haven't been in a nut-free school.  It really frustrated me when Caden was in kindergarten and his building was nut free and he told me he wanted to be a vegetarian.  It was hard to pack a kid-friendly, meat-free lunch and avoid all nuts.  That's not true.  It was hard to pack a HEALTHY, WHOLE-FOOD lunch that was nut-free.  And shelf-stable.  My kids' schools aren't air conditioned and it kind of grossed me out to pack anything that needed to be refrigerated when they ate lunch at 1:00, even with an ice pack.  So I'm hoping that we'll be nut friendly again this year.  Either way, these sound like something I'd like to try!