Today was a busy day in our household!  Kirstyn started her 2nd year of Engineering Camp at Northern Illinois University and is looking forward to a great week.  She’s going to the camp with Ashley Smith, one of her best friends, so they should have a wonderful time.

Ben and Zach also started swimming lessons.  They were so excited yesterday when we were talking about it!  They absolutely LOVE water and are not quite to where they could live in it, but they sure want to!  🙂  They did a great job their first day and Zach is now talking about doing swimming on a team rather than football.  He seems pretty serious about it so he may not play this fall.  We’ll see.

Tonight, Angela and I went over to Chip Staley’s house (the fine arts chair at Neuqua Valley High School in our district) for an ARTSpeaks group BBQ and meeting.  We had a wrap-up discussion about the results of the Fine Arts Festival and what we heard and learned from attendees there.  It was great to hear what had happened at the other 2 schools as well.  We then had dinner and relaxed outside in their huge back yard.  They have cool planter boxes and Angela ribbed me for not building some for us.  🙂  It’s great to be involved in this group.  We are now building relationships with more and more people (including all three fine arts chairs at the high schools) and other community members.  Every time we meet, Angela and I come away feeling energized about our involvement in community and school efforts.