Blazing Baseball, Ana+Ata, and Sharkshooting.

We survived baseball camp.

And by "we," I mean that Seth Nieman, descendant of the sainted sportsMom Jayne, rather than dropping his children off and heading to the gym- or brunch- as yours truly would have done; spent half a day every day for a week handing out water and snacks in blazing heat, and shouting encouragement while F+F made lackadaisical attempts at running the bases before racing back to the dugout to hang out with their friends.

I showed up for the last day, in time to be truly flabbergasted by the searing sun, and to take these happy survivors to lunch. And for ice cream, because they more than deserved it.

Afterwards, we managed a little downtime for friends,

kid karaoke and sprinkler fun,

and trips to Home Depot

(before Ana & Ata arrived for a week of fun (and yard work) while Seth did his Global Residency.

The kids soaked up the snuggles,

Star Wars performance audiences,

and beach time

(not to mention one billion trips to the pool and kid sports while I was at work, of which I have no pictures but a lot of epic stories.)

We were very, very sad to see them go Saturday morning.

So we decamped to the Susquehanna River for some "glamping" and a Hobie BOS Tournament for Seth (he had a great one, minus a small capsizing incident),

and adventuring in one of my favorite River Towns for the kids and I.

Plus a stop at the ever-popular Little Round Top on the way home. We never forget how lucky we are to live somewhere we can just "swing by" spots of immense historic significance.

Side notes, 1) parents tell their kids some obscenely dumb things at Civil War sites ("it was just a misunderstanding about how to farm" ?!?!?!), and 2) Ford thinks the Confederate sharpshooters at Devil's Den were "sharkshooters" and I refuse to correct him.

If you thought to yourself, "it also appears that Ford is wearing a Disney princess sweatshirt and carrying a Dark Saber he is using as a rifle," you would be correct.

Believe it or not, it is officially August. Happy last month of summer!