I guess it is officially fall now, so those might be among the last pool trips. September can sometimes be a bonus summer month, with very pleasant days, albeit cooler mornings and nights. I’ve been trying to seize these lingering days.

It was a physically active weekend for me. On Saturday morning I went and ran loops at a local nature trail. I did three loops, which came out to 8.3 (maybe 8.4) miles. I did this in 88 minutes, so that is roughly a 10:40 pace or so, which is close to what I’m hoping to do in my upcoming race. Originally I planned to do 10-plus miles, but then I found out a local trail association was doing a guided hike on Saturday that I wanted to do with them. So, after running the 8.3 miles I quick went home, got a little more coffee and food, then met the group and hiked about 4 miles on some fairly substantial hills.

It all felt pretty decent — this, my 12-plus mile morning — which is…welcome. I’m sending a reassuring message back to January Laura (who couldn’t walk) that this would be possible in September. Here’s hoping this trajectory continues. There’s also just the reality of training for a long race that as you run progressively longer long runs, the earlier long runs don’t feel quite so long. Having run 10.7 miles the previous weekend, 8.3 felt short!

On Sunday evening I went to a performance of Bach’s Musical Offering (BWV 1079) by Filament, an early music group. I enjoyed this, as I also enjoyed listening to several violin pieces as part of my daily Bach listening. As I near the end of that project, I’m pondering what my 2025 year-long project will be. We shall see.

In the meantime, here’s a sonnet called Monday Night:

The asters by the porch have bloomed, a leaf
or two falls in the blue, confetti, gold.
The dusk descends, and with it, disbelief
that summer ends. The smaller boys behold

the driveway, fading, almost hard to see.
Two little bikes go hurtling, racing time
they’ve got a favorite gnarled cherry tree
and so the older one begins to climb.

I help the younger up — their branches part,
and there, in the September sky, the moon
is full, is orange, the evening clouds just start
to tiptoe in, to genuflect, and soon

we all are silent, spellbound by the sheen
and that, what could be hidden, we have seen.

I love living somewhere with four seasons. Winter is an acquired taste, and spring feels like winter for quite a while, but fall is often lovely. There are summery days but cooler mornings and nights. Then, in late October, all the overgrown greenery turns bright yellow, orange, and red and the world is just extravagantly colorful. I’m also a big fan of fall flowers: Sunflowers, asters, zinnias, mums. There’s something so unexpectedly beautiful about blue asters or violet zinnias against the red/orange/yellow scheme of fall.

Of course, while fall is beautiful it is also fleeting. By mid-November, the leaves will be on the ground, leaving just the silhouettes of trees — visible for vanishingly few hours of the day as the sun sets by 5 p.m.

So…with that somewhat dreary thought in mind, here are a few things I want to do to really enjoy autumn while I can.

Visit New England…twice! I’ll go to Maine in early October for work. Then in later October my husband and I are going to a destination half-marathon. In both cases, the leaves should be about at peak. My running time may be atrocious if I’m constantly pausing to take photos of leaves! Of course, given the half marathon, I plan to…

Run long. Now is the time to be doing it, with the temperatures in a range that makes miles feel good. I hope to scope out a few new places to run (like within a 5-10 minute drive) as my neighborhood is non-ideal in some ways.

Bike. At least solo, but hopefully as a family at some point since we bought the extra bike.

Hike. Also, at least one longer walk in the fall leaves.

Visit a botanical garden. Possibly Chanticleer or Longwood, or both. People think of going to gardens in the spring, but professional gardeners can really make the fall flowers shine, and with the trees being colorful the visuals should be even more spectacular. I also want to do a picnic at Stoneleigh, given that it’s not that far from my house, and is free and open to the public during the day.

Go apple picking. We need to get on this as the kinds of apples I like (like Honeycrisp) tend to be best now, rather than during the usual October/Fall Fest times. I feel like apple cider donuts should also be involved.

Watch a football game. Probably just on TV, though other members of my family will be going to some live.

Take family photos. We’re actually doing this in a studio in late September, so it won’t be autumnal themed, but it’s something I like to do in fall so we have photos available for our Christmas cards. Doing this will not be “fun,” but I want to have done it. So, onto the fall fun list it goes.

Enjoy BLP Live! I’m headed to Ft. Lauderdale in November, and co-hosting this year as lots of us plan 2025 together. I’m looking forward to yoga on the beach.

Listen to Vivaldi’s “Autumn” part of the Four Seasons. Also, I will write some autumn-themed sonnets.

In other news: A little content round-up for the week….Over at Vanderhacks (my Substack newsletter) my piece behind the paywall was “Laura’s list of easy thrills” — 31 quick, cheap ways to add joy to your life. One of the freebies was to “Build a time emergency fund.” If you enjoy this blog you’ll probably enjoy the newsletter as well, so please consider a (free or paid) subscription.

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community we’ve been discussing managing household employees’ time, how we’ve spent anniversaries (I celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary this week), and task management tools. Membership is $9/month, which gets you access to the discussion forum and monthly Zoom meet-ups (always recorded for folks who can’t make it).

The Before Breakfast podcast covered “How to keep your summer spirit,” and I recommended that you “Don’t decorate with cereal boxes.” Basically, anything someone can see is part of the decor, even if you don’t always see it!

Anyway, here’s what I said we’d do, and here’s how it went.

Go to a baseball game. Yep. My husband, 14-year-old, and I went to a Phillies game in June. I enjoyed this and would be willing to go more often though I’m not sure it was anyone else’s favorite. I did not order a beer there (we had a long trip coming up the next day) but I did go to beer gardens twice — once at a local place, and once at Longwood Gardens. The beer garden in Asbury Park is closed so we were not able to go there, alas.

Bike. I went biking solo a fair amount. My bike fits into the back of my car (or what was my car…I guess it’s mostly my son’s now but I still haven’t managed to get a new one…) so I’ve been driving it to a local trail. I can be done with the whole thing in about 90 minutes for a 50-minute bike ride, so that certainly fit on some slower afternoons. We did one family bike ride with 6 out of 7 of us. We did buy another adult bike so now we could do all 7 and may try over the fall.

Do some early AM runs. I have been running more seriously this summer now that I’m signed up for an October half marathon. I definitely did some morning runs (heck, I ran on the treadmill this morning), though my favorites were on the boardwalk over the beach trip. And in Central Park! I took the 17-year-old to NYC for several days (definitely a summer highlight too — though that June trip seems like ages ago now) and I had a lovely 5 mile run around the reservoir.

Go in the hot tub at night. We wound up doing a lot of evening pool trips, which tended to end in the hot tub. This was a great way to get in some TOAD time (time outside after dinner) when it was getting dark late. Now that dark is descending earlier I’m happy we got the pool lights fixed. It feels like something always needs to be fixed on the pool but so it goes. I’m not sure how often I’ll go in the pool with cooler temperatures, but the hot tub should be good for another few weeks (we’ll close it in October).

Go to the beach. Yep, we had a lovely two weeks there in August, same house as usual. I have rebooked for 2025! We did all the usual traditions, including pinball, ice cream, and lobster rolls.

Go to a farmers market. I went to the local one once (maybe twice? trying to remember). This is an item that I’d like to have be more of a summer thing but our local market isn’t that big. Maybe some summer when we’re traveling somewhere…

Do all my research for Big Time. Well, I did my Evening Hours Challenge and have the (significant!) results from that. I’ve got everything set up to run for the Better Workday Challenge in the fall. I did a lot of interviews and I am excited to start writing. I have not done ALL my research but I feel like I have ideas and hooks for most of the chapters. I could write a book with what I have now and I’ll have more material by April 1.

Write summer sonnets. I’ve been writing one a week all summer and, as you might imagine, several are summer related. My favorites are probably the ones I’ve posted here, on tiger lilies, Paris (well, that was more spring), peaches, the beach house, etc. I did listen to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons summer section (and a lot of Bach, but that wasn’t summer related).

Do something one-on-one with each kid. I did not do official Mommy Days but each kid got a fair amount of one-on-one time for something or other. I took the 17-year-old to NYC for three days, which was a major undertaking. The 12-year-old and I went to the Olivia Rodrigo concert, which was a summer highlight I didn’t know would happen at the start of the summer, but was amazing nonetheless.

Try some nice restaurants with the older kids. My husband and I took the 14-year-old to Morimoto. We took the 17-year-old to an Indian place. I took both boys to Morton’s steakhouse after the Scotland screw-up. The 17-year-old and I went to some nice places in NYC. My husband and I took the older three out for Mexican a few weeks ago and that was fun.

Look at the stars. Well, I looked up. And time in the hot tub at night counts! There was no camping. I’ve realized that camping is something I like in the abstract but am not so keen on in the execution.

Buy some alternatives to shorts. I’ve been pretty happy with my summer wardrobe — particularly my cropped/frayed Nic + Zoe jeans. Now I just have to figure out winter (though I can probably keep wearing these jeans probably for a while…they’re not that cropped because I’m not that tall…).

In terms of other cool stuff, I’m happy that my four older children all had the opportunity to experience a week or more away from home. My older two boys each went to academic camps for three weeks, and the 9-year-old went to sleep-away camp for two weeks. My daughter went to visit cousins for a week. I love hanging out with my older kids when they’re home and I also think it’s important for kids to have some time to develop their independence, where they are figuring out who they are apart from family dynamics. Time off on their own helps build a lot of skills. They all handled it pretty well.

I’ve already got some fun stuff in the works for Summer 2025! So stay tuned for that list next May…

On Friday, we planned to see Edinburgh Castle. Then, we had booked a private “Potter Trail” tour to see the places that inspired J.K. Rowling. On Saturday I had booked a tour for the three of us to get driven around to several castles within a few hours’ drive of the city (my boys are very into castles!). On Sunday we were going to do a fancy afternoon tea (the Georgian Tea Room at The Dome).

I’d gotten home at 1 a.m. from Newark Airport on Thursday morning. After a too short night, I did a little work, got repacked, and took off with the boys shortly before 4 p.m. for our 8:15 p.m. United Airlines flight from Newark.

Things went badly from the start. Theoretically it takes 90 minutes to get to Newark Airport, but we got stuck behind a big accident on the PA turnpike (right before you get to the NJ Turnpike extension). The other side was completely closed, and we inched along for a full hour before we got to the site (about the time it was cleared). So all the extra time had evaporated, meaning we got to the parking lot at 6:45 p.m. for the 8:15 p.m. flight. This wasn’t terrible (though it had been nerve-wracking during the hour!) as we have TSA pre-check and weren’t checking bags. We got to the gate about 10 minutes before boarding. Phew, right?

But, once on the plane, things continued to go awry. We sat there for quite a while as they were waiting on a fuel truck. Apparently we had a different plane than planned, so they had to put more fuel in to get across the ocean. Fair enough, but I guess they didn’t have enough maintenance people working because it took forever. Then, once they started putting fuel on, it turned out something was wrong with the fuel.

So they got us off the airplane. We sat at the gate for a bit, at which point I learned that half the people on my flight were from the late flight the night before (around 11:30 p.m. — there are 2 flights per night) — it had been canceled, and they were rebooked to this. So they were not happy. Around 10:30 p.m. the gate agent announced that there was a new plane for us at a different gate, so we all went there.

There was no plane there. There wasn’t even an agent much of the time. The cynic in me believes they moved us because the later Edinburgh flight was about to board nearby and they didn’t want us all asking about it and getting agitated. We waited at the new gate for an hour, and then they announced that there was a plane for us at a different gate (pretty close to the old one).

It was already 11:30 p.m. so I was getting quite weary, given my lack of sleep the night before (and also knowing I wasn’t going to sleep that well on the plane…). The situation looked more promising, though, as there was actually a plane there. A crew boarded around 11:45 p.m. Even better! But then we kept waiting. There were vague announcements about needing catering to show up, and other such things, and they were waiting for that, but no one seemed to be working in that capacity after midnight…

Then, at 12:45 a.m., the agent came on the intercom and announced that they were canceling the flight for weather reasons. You should have heard the cry from the folks who’d been on the canceled flight the night before. I looked into rebooking and was offered the late flight on Saturday night (two days later — this is what happens when you cancel two nights’ flights in a row) — which wouldn’t have gotten us to Edinburgh until noon on Sunday. Given that we were leaving Monday, that wasn’t going to work. I might have gone for 2 days, but not for less than 24 hours. Also, at 12:45 a.m. on little sleep I wasn’t in a headspace to figure out other options (like trying to fly to London as early as possible the next day and then to Edinburgh or something, though that would have eaten up a lot of time too).

My boys and I drove home (in the rain — I will give that there was finally weather, though that wouldn’t have been a problem 4.5 hours earlier) from 1:15 a.m. to 2:45 a.m. That was a hard drive. In a bit of dark humor, I realized that 2:45 a.m. Eastern time is 7:45 a.m. in Edinburgh. It was just about when we would be landing. We had traveled long enough to get to Scotland but we hadn’t gotten anywhere.

So…no trip. My boys were pretty good sports about it. We regrouped on Friday (I spent a lot of the day half asleep — I never want to drive on the NJ Turnpike after midnight again!). My husband had been planning to take the younger 3 to visit family. I offered the boys the option of doing that but they didn’t want to get back in the car for a 6-hour trip. So the three of us hatched a plan to go out for a steak dinner on Friday, and I made us a booking for afternoon tea on Sunday at A Taste of Britain. We weren’t in the UK…but at least it was a taste?

That left the question of what to do Saturday. The boys talked and eventually agreed on the Bronx Zoo. Yes, really. So I got tickets, and we got back on the NJ Turnpike, went over the GWB, and arrived. We had a really nice time — the boys enjoyed the animals and I did too. I particularly liked the gorillas and a tree kangaroo had just had a baby and we got some adorable pictures.

Occasionally this weekend I’ve had moments of being upset but we did manage to have a good weekend. I did some reading, started a puzzle, went in the hot tub, and did a long run (8.2 miles). I do hope to retry the trip sometime because it was a really good itinerary. Like I was really proud of my travel planning skills! Sigh. Now, onward to start the school year…

Photos: Tree kangaroo plus baby, and then this is the closest I got to the UK this weekend….

It was a good two weeks. I’m feeling reasonably relaxed before the whirlwind of the next two weeks! A few highlights:

Boardwalk runs. I did some very speedy runs (for me) with my little brother (who came to visit with his wife during the middle weekend) and with my 14-year-old, who is going to be running with the high school cross-country team this fall. I did two long runs, which were complete opposites from each other. On the first Friday, I struggled through 8 miles. It never felt good — I just ground it out. Then a week later I did another run that felt marvelous. Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even notice mile 6.5-7.5, until I saw where I was. That’s saying something! I went 9.5 miles, and I could have gone farther for sure. Like I still had a pep in my step at 9.5 miles. I don’t know why the runs felt so different, but I hope all future long runs will resemble the second one!

Town walks. I decided to explore a little more of the town, which has incredibly cute Victorian architecture (and unlike my neighborhood at home, sidewalks). I’d take off with my phone and one ear plug in, listening to my daily Bach (St. Matthew’s Passion, and the Magnificat, among other masterpieces), and see the sights. Because the lots are so small, none of the houses are huge, but it’s such a mix of homes that have been renovated and extensively landscaped and those that are a bit more worn. I also find it fascinating that there are homes two blocks from the beach, less than two hours from NYC (really, more like 90 minutes), that have not been bid up/gentrified. A little different from the Hamptons! I also went on several boardwalk walks at night with my 17-year-old.

Days Ice Cream. Of course. I decided to just go for it and get the smallest possible scoop of real ice cream (chocolate peanut butter). I had some reactions to it but by limiting it to every few days I minimized that as much as possible and truly enjoyed this treat.

Other culinary adventures. We had brunch at Toast twice (my big kids are definitely getting into brunch), had lobster rolls from Cousins Maine Lobster twice, and my husband and I did a date night at Klein’s Fish Market on the water, which was lovely and summery. We liked it so much we took our big kids back the next night (while our nanny was visiting to watch the little kids). So I guess we did all of those places twice!

Reading on the porch. The house we rent has a lovely, huge porch. So we ate most of our meals out there and I took advantage of it to sit and read. I made it through several books (though nothing as ambitious as 2017, when I finished Kristin Lavransdatter in the same house).

A Vanderkam family reunion. As mentioned, my little brother and his wife came down from upstate NY to visit. My parents and my other brother and sister-in-law came to visit for the day, as did their three adult children, two with significant others. We grilled steak and lobster. My husband always tries to have way more than enough food and we barely made it with this crew.

The beach with mostly big kids. The 4-year-old can watch videos and be entertained for a while, which means that it is possible to relax even with him around and no other adults. We had this situation in 2019 (the youngest being 4.5), but the older kids weren’t old enough to leave home alone then, and now they are, which means they can choose to go to the beach or not on any given excursion so there’s just less arguing. We take other more adventurous vacations, but the beach is my relaxing one, with a lot of flexibility (my husband and the older two boys wound up going back and forth a couple times since it’s only 90 minutes from home). I really enjoyed it this year! I’m planning to be back in August 2025.

Of course, I kept writing sonnets while at the beach, so here’s one I’m calling “Beach House.”

Some seven years ago I watched the flash
of lightning from this porch, the slant of rain
a gust of wind and, drifting, someone’s trash
turned cartwheels and we tried to entertain

each other — well-worn tales of summers past,
unsure of all the summers yet to come.
But here I sit and feel the wind blow, fast —
another storm. The sand is biting from

the beach — the same — and yet it cannot be
the same for we are changed, the children grow,
the sand and waves change over and we see
that new things catch the eye, and others go,

not sudden, like the lightning, but a drift.
The old reborn as even oceans shift.

The upside of that is that the other boy could babysit on his “off” night and thus I got to go out too. We took the 14-year-old out on Friday and the 17-year-old on Saturday. This was a lot of fun and I know the food was great except I’m feeling very blah even thinking about food at the moment because, Sunday night, I started feeling queasy and sure enough, was up at 2 a.m. very sick.

No idea if it was food poisoning (though given the timing I’d blame food eaten at home on Sunday then) or norovirus or what. Mercifully, no one else has gotten sick! But Monday was painful. I stayed in bed, mostly, until noon, and then did a bit of work off and on.

Tuesday was slightly better but still my stomach was not happy. Sigh. So the first part of the week has been a bit of a wash…

Anyway, I’ve been sending a lot of mail to the 9-year-old at camp though I imagine today should be the last letter as after that they’ll get there after he leaves. It has been strange not having him home! I’m looking forward to hearing about how things went. As of yesterday, I had received only one letter from him, which was a request to send gum in a care package. Incidentally, gum is on the forbidden list at the camp, so I can’t send that but…

Speaking of care packages — I have sent a few, mostly with stickers, acceptable snacks, little games/toys/etc. I was thinking about what I would like to get in a care package…and then one of our Best of Both Worlds advertisers sent a little package with mascara and lipstick and an eye brightener pencil and I thought hey, that was a pretty good care package! I also took myself to Target last week and bought some notebooks and pens. That would probably wind up in a care package I’d hope to receive too.

(What would you like to get in a care package?)

I’ve been getting results from the Evening Hours Challenge I ran recently and those have been fun to see. In September/October I’ll be running what I’m calling my Better Workday Challenge. This will be a 3-week project where people will learn strategies for, well, making any workday better. I’ll start sign-ups for that at the end of August so watch for that!

In the meantime, I’ve been watching when the passport appointment schedule dates open to make one at our local post office in September on a convenient date to renew the 4-year-old’s passport. Family travel is great, but the logistics of passports and passport renewals with five kids is…something. Kid passports are only valid for 5 years, and a lot of places require you to have six months of eligibility so you really need to renew them every 4.5 years (or a little less). Unfortunately the kids are not all on the same cycle. So my husband and I wind up at our local post offices a lot.

This isn’t urgent as we don’t have any immediate international travel plans involving him but just a PSA here — we always expedite. I’ve seen some folks wait 4 months for passports in the regular line. The expediting fee is a small $ amount compared to the overall cost of international travel, so this is not the place to be frugal.

Now on to see whether a swim lesson happens given all the rain this week…

My monthly “Just a Minute” newsletter went out yesterday with an essay about getting the right vacation balance. Some are relaxing, some are adventurous. It’s good to have both! My weekly “Week’s worth” newsletter goes out tomorrow morning, and I have to say, I really enjoyed this week’s topic. You can sign up for my newsletters by filling in your email on my home page (for the free time makeover guide).

Over at Vanderhacks I did a kitchen + food theme for the week. I suggested “Don’t store produce in your produce drawers,” and that you can save time, money, and mental space when you “Pack a snack (and water).” The post behind the paywall was “Laura’s little list of kitchen hacks.”

The Before Breakfast podcast covered that you should “Make complete plans, even if they’re tentative,” and that it might be fun to “Run into people.”

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community page we had an 80-comment discussion on the idea that “Kids need time and money.” I feel like a lot of the discussion of mothers working for pay centers on potentially “losing” time with kids, but there are a lot of upsides to what gaining extra income can afford a family — as many people who grew up in more tight circumstances have commented on. Please come join us!

We are doing celebratory dinners this weekend for good grades in the spring (sometimes it takes a while to schedule things…) and there may be peach picking. Stay tuned…

I think I succeeded. July was fun and relaxed and I wasn’t even on vacation! I did a lot of work — running a survey for my next book and doing several interviews for it, doubling up on a lot of podcasting so I don’t have to record much in August, giving speeches, etc.

But there were also a lot of family and personal life highlights. July opened with that epic long weekend (basically July 2-7 for me…) during which we helped set off a lot of (safe and sane!) fireworks at a friend’s house, went to the beach, went on a family bike ride (almost all of us) and SHU and her family came over for recordings, swimming, and an adults-only dinner out featuring margaritas.

After that we sent various older boys off to camp at various points. My husband and I went to Longwood Gardens for the beer garden and the flowers. My daughter and I went to see Olivia Rodrigo, which was definitely a summer highlight. I enjoyed getting to know her music and the show was great! (My daughter was an excellent concert companion — I’m so glad she’s willing to hang out with me.) That weekend also featured the York State Fair where, among other things, I got to see the Flying Cortes act, with Commander Alexander getting shot out of a cannon. I was so fascinated that I reached out and was able to do a short phone interview with him this week. I have interviewed a lot of people about their careers and how they spend their time over the years, but never someone who works as a human cannonball. So look for that in my upcoming content.

There have been solo several bike rides, and lots of swims. As I wrote yesterday, we’ve gone in the pool most nights. I went in last night by myself for a while, then chatted with my 17-year-old in the hot tub until it was pitch black dark. (Theoretically the pool lights have been fixed, finally, but I don’t have the app to turn them on yet…) There have been a lot of strawberry acai lemonade refreshers from Starbucks, and evenings where I open the windows.

So there’s been a lot of summer already, and now it’s on to August, which is a full summer month for us (the kids don’t start school until after Labor Day). I just got an ad from Scandic Hotels this morning informing me that summer isn’t over yet. And it’s true! Just like on Sunday the weekend isn’t over yet. Unlike with July there actually will be vacations this month — both a more relaxing one and a more adventurous one. I’m hoping to use the fact that I’m ahead on some of the day-to-day work to open space for thinking deep thoughts. But we shall see.

I hope you have much to look forward to this August!

So instead my general philosophy has been to set some limits on when the screens are available (they go away at night, at least for younger kids — and for everyone during the school year) and then just keep the kids busy doing a lot of non-screen things during the day. This naturally limits the time available.

This is easier said than done in winter, but this summer we’ve finally gotten the pool + hot tub combo working out in the yard. On any given “nice” (not raining) night we are often out there around 7:45/8 p.m. and aren’t back in the house until close to 9. As these are precisely the hours the kids would be zoned out watching YouTube videos, it’s kept at least some of that in check.

Of course, now that the Olympics are on I’m actually *trying* to find more screen time to watch it. Last night the 4-year-old had announced that he didn’t want to go in the pool because he’d had a swim lesson earlier. But around 8:00 it suddenly became urgent that we go, so I relented. He wasn’t the world’s best pool companion (he had a scrape on his foot, so after all that rigamarole to get out there he then didn’t want to have his foot in the water…) but the 12-year-old and 17-year-old sat in the hot tub and talked with me for a while. So that was still nice. I finally managed to watch some gymnastics from 9:45-10:45 p.m. after the little guy was down.

As for the 9-year-old…he’s now at sleep-away camp where he’ll have no screens for two weeks! I’m pretty sure they keep them busy enough that he might not even notice — but I’ll report back when I see him again.

In other news: We got a Polaroid-type camera for a party two years ago, and I hauled it back out to send printed photos to the 9-year-old at camp. He wanted me to hug his stuffed animals at night as though I were hugging him. So each day I take a photo of me hugging a different stuffy and send that in the mail. I sent him with addressed, stamped envelopes, so we’ll see if anything comes back to me…

In the meantime, this was a good summer weekend in my household (and my 12-year-old daughter may have had her best weekend ever). On Friday night, she and I went downtown to the Wells Fargo Center to see Olivia Rodrigo perform!

Over the past few weeks I have been on a crash course of learning Olivia Rodrigo’s music, since concerts are a lot more fun when you know all the songs. I’m happy to report that by Friday I was able to sing along with almost everything, and we had a grand time. I’d gotten seats with a very clear view of the stage (having learned from the Taylor Swift floor seats experience — which while definitely an experience was not great for actually seeing). Since we had real seats I was also able to sit down when needed. This is good for middle-aged people attending these sorts of shows.

Some highlights: Seeing Olivia ride a “moon” over the crowd, watching her baby/little kid videos during Teenage Dream, and the fact that she had an all-female band.

On Saturday I went for a run and we went for a quick walk in a local nature preserve where they have an art installation up — we were counting how many of the pictures we could find. My daughter went to a sleepover to celebrate a friend’s birthday (see: best weekend ever) so we were down to two kids overnight. We went in the pool/hot tub and got everyone down at a relatively reasonable time.

Sunday after we picked up the 12-year-old at the birthday party (she said they were up until 2 a.m….) we drove to the York State Fair.

On the downside, it was ridiculously hot, so the kids didn’t last as long as my husband and I would have liked (what can I say, we are into these things, and it turns out Lainey Wilson was performing that night so in an ideal world we would have stuck around). But in the time we were there, we managed to see a lot. For instance, we saw the Flying Cortes family perform! They did a number of trapeze related stunts, which then ended with “Commander Alexander” being shot out of a cannon. This is quite the stunt to watch if you ever get a chance. My husband filmed it in slow-mo so we’ve been able to watch it again and again. We also saw a giant butter sculpture (inside, in a refrigerated space), and a giant model train display. The 4-year-old went on a number of kiddie rides while my husband took the 9-year-old over to see the animals. We walked past an axe-throwing contest at one point. Good times.

This week will feature a lot of prep to get the 9-year-old off to sleep-away camp. I guess everything has to be labeled. I’ve never sent a kid to a traditional camp like this before (my older boys went to academic ones) so I welcome any advice!