Summer is already slipping away. The kids are back to school and it is time to do my annual summer recap.

You can read all about last summer here. Last summer I was pregnant with baby girl and this summer was our first with 4 kids AND in our new home and city! So many beautiful changes a year can bring.

I always like being honest on here. And honestly, this summer felt harder for me. It had so many beautiful moments and changes and CLEAR answers to years of praying; yet I found the change still hard. I didn’t realize how weird it would feel to be out of my comfortable little bubble. It has been a starting over in a lot of ways. New routines, new neighbors/friends, new town. In all this newness and change, I also struggled to feel like myself. It started with super red and irritated eyes (I had to live in glasses for a while), and then it was my lip (T jumped up and hit me and I had a huge sore on my lip for weeks), and my current issue is peeling/dry skin on my palms and feet. All small annoyances in the grand scheme of things, but little battles I have had to face on top of feeling anxiety over so much newness. And to top it all off, just a little over a week ago we very suddenly lost our dog Nala, who we had for 9 years and was our first baby. It was awful and sudden and she collapsed right in front of me. All this to say, this summer, even though God has been SO faithful to plant us in the perfect house and neighborhood and community; has felt like a harder patch personally.

I don’t want these little battles to distract me from all the amazing things God has been doing this summer. So here is a list of all the beautiful moments our summer still held:

• A move! Summer really kicked off with our move to San Clemente. This has been a dream and desire of our hearts for years and this summer God gave a clear yes. It’s beautiful when you spend years praying for a particular thing and then you get to live in that answered prayer. He handpicked the most perfect home in an amazing neighborhood with tons of kids and families that we have genuinely been able to connect with and already can call friends. Such a gift!
• Spending time at the beach was really the heartbeat of our summer. I don’t think we have ever spent this much time at the beach. It’s been a real gift to live so close. The beach became a daily routine for us, some days even held multiple times down. H loved learning to surf too and got out a good amount this summer.
• I enjoyed learning new things too and picked up making sourdough. I was inspired by our neighbor who gave us a loaf when we moved in. She was so kind to invite me over to a bread class at her house. It became a fun thing for me to figure out. Now that I have been doing it consistently for the past couple months, it is beginning to become a weekly ritual that I don’t need to think about as much. In such a chaotic, changing season, it seems odd to pick up a new thing to learn, but I have actually found a steadiness from the precise method and steps it takes to make a good loaf. I even made a loaf the day Nala died. There is something therapeutic about measuring out the exact grams of starter, water, flour and salt. Mixing it all together, stretching and folding, waiting, repeating, preheating the Dutch oven, and finally baking and eating delicious sourdough. It is such a process, but the waiting is worth it in the end.
• Experienced our first San Clemente 4th of July. All our neighbors have been so kind to quickly include us on things and the boys started their day early on the beach with pancakes and ended the day back on that same beach watching the fireworks.
• Baby K is growing too fast! She started crawling this summer and the beach is also her happy place. She has spent the majority of her summer happily sitting on the sand. She also got dedicated at our new church!
• We slowly fell into some good rhythms around our new town- we spent lots of time at the San Clemente pump track, the library, T-Street beach days, and adventure days at local parks and farmer’s markets. At the start of summer, every outing felt hard and disorienting for me, but I’m ending summer feeling more at home and not needing to check my maps for every single outing.
• We hosted a housewarming and celebrated Lance’s 32nd birthday at the house!
• D and I enjoyed finding beautiful shells and sea glass. We have a pretty, little, growing collection on our mantle. Kind of like sourdough making, shell collecting is forcing me to slow down and notice the small details.
• We got a family e-bike and even though I was more hesitant, it has been so fun for all of us. The boys love riding with Lance to the beach, pool, and around town. This is how we do school drop off and pick ups too. It also has opened up the door for easy access to amazing surf spots, like Trestles. These surf racks from Moved by Bikes have been an awesome addition to the bike and makes carrying kids + boards easy!
• H did a soccer/faith camp. It was awesome and will definitely repeat this camp next summer! Boys also did a VBS at our new church and had a blast! Feels like forever ago but at the start of summer, boys did a Lego camp together and H did a fun football camp at the local high school.
• Celebrated 11 years of marriage and went to the Angel’s game as a family. We were right behind home plate which was very special to be so close. We literally just missed getting the SpongeBob jersey freebie and I had a moment where I just wanted to quickly fix the disappointment and buy jerseys similar online, but I didn’t. It was a parenting reminder to me that sometimes it’s okay for our kids to just experience the disappointment and to not automatically erase it. Right now it’s missing out on a SpongeBob jersey, later in life, it will feel bigger and more painful, and I won’t always be able to fix it, but I can be there. So no jerseys, but we had a fun time at the game together!
• Fun to have so many visitors. My mom stayed a night, and we have had a variety of friends from back home stop by and visit. Each of these visits always seemed to help with my homesickness.
• D had his first little swim class at a local pool and he got very comfortable jumping and splashing into the water.
• We went to Salty Turf (new miniature golf place in SC) with my mom, sister and nephew and it was so cute/fun.
• Golf lessons at the local golf course (a hit for H)
• Acai bowls
• Trolley rides
• And tons and tons of biking and playing on the street with neighbors. This has brought me SO much joy because it reminds me of my childhood and what we wanted for our kids, but also has brought some anxiety and overwhelm, and we have spent the summer figuring out rules and boundaries with how to do this well.
• Boys started school (H is in 3rd grade and T is in kindergarten). The boys either bike or walk to school and it has been so amazing to live close to school!
• Lance and I got to squeeze in some dates and ate at few good local spots: South of Nick’s, The Cellar, Drift, Zov’s
• Last weekend, did a little day trip to Encinitas. It was the first rainy day in a while, but still very hot and humid. We got tacos/burritos at The Taco Stand and walked around and spontaneously got a couple surfboards from a guy’s yard sale. Felt like a core memory for the boys- they were pumped.
• Beautiful sunsets at T-Street and playing smash ball

This was the heart of our summer. A LOT of changes. Some loss (we love you, Nala) and hard adjustments, but we know this is where we are supposed to be and feel so much gratitude for being able to live out what has been years and year of praying and asking.

I am literally sweating as I type this out and it really feels like summer is not nearly over, but this weekend starts fall sports for the kids and I’m slowly inching my way to be ready to fall into new fall rhythms.