You can tell its fall . . .

The summer is definitely over for the kids. Cailin has been working hard all summer long on her tumbling and constantly continues to amaze me. To say that she lives for cheerleading it a bit of a understatement. I am so glad she found something that she loves.

Ashley's summer ended this week upon the beginning of a new level of soccer for her. Earlier in the summer she tried out for Bay United's Travel Soccer club. She was trilled to make it on a U-14 travel team. They started "boot camp" this week. And I say boot-camp because it is definitely the correct term for her 2hr practices every night this week. This isn't recreational soccer - it is competitive, work your butt off, skills, drills and learning the things she will need to succeed as she gets older. It will be a new experience for us as we haven't had the pleasure of playing travel ball before. Ashley's schedule takes her to Navarre the weekend before school starts, New Orleans, Pensacola, Destin and here at the beach. The schedule also depends on how well they play and if they get invited to play in other tournaments. She will be in the middle of her season when tryouts for JV soccer at school occur. She is going to be very busy. Cailin's cheerleading season kicks off at the end of the year, with trips planned to Mobile, Orlando and more.

Tommy will be playing soccer with Bay United in the Academy, which doesn't travel (thank heavens). It will give him a season to work on his skills and for him to figure out if he wants to play soccer on a competitive level or if he wants to play for fun. He is excited to be playing with boys older than him. I think the exercise will be good for him and I am proud of him for going out there and giving it a try.

With the end of the summer also brings the first semester down for me at UWF. It was a demanding semester with 15 credits but I managed two A's and three B's. Not too bad. This is the hard part - to figure out where to go once I get my degree. I am thinking of a few different things - MSN/NP at UAB, a few other schools with a MSN/NP or PA program (not sure where yet). So in the meantime, I have to make sure that no matter what program I go into I have to make sure I have 8-16 credits of Chemistry and I am still missing my damn foreign language. The fall semester beginning the 22nd and I will be taking 21 credit hours. Crazy, yes! But I don't want to be in school forever.

All for now . . .