My kids go back to school tomorrow (B'Spa district), and the feeling in my house when I left this morning was quite melancholy.

Between the two of them and the baby sitter, who's getting ready to start her senior year of high school, they all looked depressed as I passed by them all sitting on the couch this morning. The party's over.

They've had a heck of a summer, though. They spend nearly three busy weeks in Kansas with relatives (lots of spoiling going on there.

They returned to go to Lake George for several days for our annual family campout.

Then it was VBS the next week, for which their cousins stayed the week with us. We even attended a Philadelphia Orchestra at SPAC that week.

They've spent many summer days with fun baby sitters who take them to cool places like Moreau State Park and play fun games with them like water balloon wars at the house. They've slept in and stayed in their pjs late into the day.

We went to a Yankees game.

We even spent last weekend in the Thousand Islands region on the boat and camping.

I definitely get affected by the close of summer and the start of school, too. On Monday when I woke up at the campground, the twinge of depression hit me. Everyone was packing up and leaving the park -- even the lifeguards were shutting everything down for the season. It manifested itself in being a bit cranky as I started packing up. And taking the boat out of water at the end of that long weekend always feels weird, especially on a beautiful sunny day. There's that uncertainty of whether you'll actually make it out again this year. Once school starts -- and sports -- it's just too busy.

 

So that's it. So long, summer. Tonight, the kids will go to bed early, and we'll be up at 6 to start back into the routine. It's that strange feeling of letting go and grabbing ahold of what lies ahead.