Astatine Abundance: Summer's End

Teachers enjoy the liberty of having 2 months off every work year. Activities like family trips, home improvements or an extra job are commonplace among us during this time, but one thing is certain: August 1st beckons us back to our classrooms and the teacher-like mentality most of us have put on hiatus for June and July. I've had a little longer mental break from teaching this summer than most, and while I had a few visual flashbacks at the city pool, most of my summer has been teacher-free. While I love my job and the people I work with and for, summer is a special time for family activities in our household. Here are a few captioned snapshots of what a teacher's summer might look like from our life.

Father's Abilene Tennis Super Open. Or as Mr. Manning like's to put it: FATSO tourney.

My reward for playing 4 hours of tennis in old shoes. As a side note, I would have tried putting the dead skin in a pop machine to see if it was worth anything, but then where would my souvenir gone?

Summer means "Fishing" which means "Worms" which means "Really cute faces on kids"

"Fishing" usually means catching fish. Unfortunately, this was about all that was catch-able that day.

I love taking the boys "fishing" which really should be called "Keep-away from the hooks!"

We found a dead dog this summer. He'd been dead a looooong time. Nothing sparks the interest and imagination of a little boy (and big ones?) like a dead, mummified thing in a barn.

Conveniently for Americans, the 4th of July happens over the summer. Wouldn't that stink if it had been during the winter? Those founding Father's new what they were doing waiting around until July.

Abilene allows the locals to discharge large quantities of grade A explosives giving you a new appreciation of what it might be like to live in a warzone. This pic may look like a terrorist attack, but it's all about context: Blowing up stuff near a pile of grain is just fun in Abilene.

My genius wife +Emily Engle had the idea of visiting as many state parks as possible this summer. We notched 5 on our belts this year and Milford is a great one that's close. We had a blast checking out a variety of parks.

You might see a pile of feces. Or you might see a swarm of feces loving flies. I see a magnificent green color created by God. It's all about perspective!

On one of those State Park visits, we "Buckled down" and paid a little extra for the comfort of a shack-abin. It was pretty tiny but awesome.

Summer means a lot of swimming. This beach was perfect for the whole family. Too bad the next morning it was covered in green/blue algae. It's been about a month since that swim and we haven't grown any new limbs yet.

Summer means staying up late. And fishing. And star-gazing. Truly "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." Psalm 19:1

Taking God's palette of nature and adding my own weird creativity.

Summer means seeing animals. Summer also apparently means being watched by crazy googly-eyed hawks!

Summer means frozen Popsicles!

This summer will be remembered for #Rain. Lots of rain. We were definitely blessed with rain after a very dry summer previous.

When there's rain, there's....Waterfights!

I don't know why but this picture makes me laugh. Maybe because it's the antithesis of these pictures; which seem so tough and manly. Watch out for the Mafia Cat Boys!

State Parks have a lot of geese! I may or may not have encouraged my son to chase them.

So many beautiful cool nights this summer.

Summer means riding on boats.

Summer means butterflies.

More rain! They're pretending to be ducks.

Puddle jumping has to be one of those activities kids love almost as much as their parents don't.

All the moisture made the ground think it was spring again. Weird seeing these things in July/August.

Summer means parades with friends!

Is the re-occurrence of water pictures getting annoying? Water was everywhere and we were thankful, but maybe a little ready for some sun and heat too.

Summer means the county fair and talent shows. +Emily Engle took 1st place in Abilene! She won a bucket of car-care products. I was so happy......for her I mean.

Summer means camping with family. Mom and the kids.

Summer means Thomas K.'s birthday! +Shannon Keltner

Camping and Birthday's are a good combo.

Summer means playing glow-in-the-dark-frisbee.

Summer means eating breakfast outside.

Summer means eating lunch outside.

I'm not exactly sure what +Lance Powell is doing but I'm pretty sure he's hailing a new era of awesome shirtless-ness and finding disc-golf discs at Tuttle.