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The Summer that Wasn't

This was the summer that wasn't. I think that likely most families have had one or two summers like this scattered throughout their history. In the spring, you start making plans. You decide that you are going to do all of these wonderful things once the kids are done school and once vacation time rolls around.

And then, it doesn't.

Usually, I'm used to dealing with the kids being away. Their father and I have a pretty good visitation system set up. Because he is so far away, he tends to get them for longer chunks of time. While I am glad that they get to see their father, its difficult to plan things with them since he tends to have them most of the time when school is out. But I can work around that.

Youngest has cadets. In the summer, that means she is gone for weeks at a time. This year, she was gone three weeks which cut into her time with her dad.

But it was still workable, and as soon as the temperature started to stay above -40, my husband and I started trying to figure out what kinds of fun and exciting things we would get up to. Oh,we had plans, him and I. We were going to go kayaking. We were going to go camping. We were going to have a lot of fun.

Then, the military happened and he ended up going away for roughly four months. Oh, he got home periodically and for a few days at a time each time he was home. But unfortunately when you work retail like I do, you rarely find that your schedule marries up with his days off. I had booked off some time for a vacation in July.

I rescheduled said time off for August. So, after almost two weeks straight of work, I am getting 4 days off (save the cheers, folks, it's not as thrilling as it sounds).

By the time that that finishes it will be September and school will be barreling down on us like a drunken bull in Pamplona during the running of the bulls.

So basically, this is the summer that, well, wasn't. Maybe the fall will stay nice and warm for a while. Camping might not be so bad once all the bugs have died off.

If not, there's always next summer. Right?

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