August/September

 Now that we're well into October, I suppose I should get to the last couple of months.

We've had some pretty quiet, uneventful months as far as the big stuff, thankfully. We've just been super busy with kid's school activities, Caleb's work schedule, and appointments.

August 14 Caleb and I celebrated 16 years.  Did we cancel our fancy steakhouse reservation to order takeout Chinese with the kids?  Sure did.

I'm extra thankful for the easy years we get now that we've been together this long. I hope I always have to pretend not to see the candy bar you sneak into my groceries at checkout. I'm the most thankful for 16 anniversaries with you.

This year I think he got me one of this best gifts ever.  We're usually really frugal with TV, it's just not something we prioritize.  And you know if you live in this area, football season means you get to see the Commanders, Steelers, Eagles, and Ravens.  This year he got me sunday ticket, so I am able to see every single Patriot's game and it has been amazing!

August 19 the kids started school.  This year they had 6th and 9th graders go on Monday to check out new to them buildings and get a feel for it all and then the not new kids got to join on Tuesday.  I loved how this worked out giving mine that extra day off and a little bit shorter of a first week.  Arya is now getting on the bus at 6:30 am so pictures were a little difficult in the dark...and Casen is now 7 inches taller than me, so I get to break out a chair to get a picture.

Casen got into a culinary class this year and has already brought home cookies and biscuits to share.  He's also somehow old enough to be in classes like physics and driver's ed.  Arya got into some really cool classes like digital design and medical detectives.  She's still excelling in all advanced courses and is part of the ACE team this year.  They do competitions against all the other schools in our region and they actually just placed first.  They move onto the championship in a couple of weeks.

And now we get to move on to the month of Halloween where the Geiger household thrives :) 

July

 July was our last month before school starts back up again.  

We did another little mini getaway to the Northern Neck.  It has been so awesome to take trips this summer to places we've never gone to before.

We got a house with the most beautiful views and the entire water facing side of the house was windows, so we got the view literally everywhere we went.

Caleb got started on his entire leg tattoo.  Next is adding all the color in.  You can peep our whole family in the characters.

And we worked to finish our full kid's summer bucket list.  I think we finished in record time this year and we're already looking forward to next.  It has been such an amazing summer and I can't believe it's already over.

Now onto 7th and 10th grade!

May/June

 May was a busy month for the kids wrapping up their school year.  It was lots of ceremonies, and state testing, and planning for their next year.

Arya had her chorus concert, which was amazing.  She also had some awards ceremonies.  Now that Casen is in high school, they have his during school and parents aren't invited, so I don't have the pictures from his stuff.

I, of course, got spoiled for Mother's Day and we also finished up the school year with a trip to Brusters.

For the past few summers now, we've made a summer bucket list as a family.  We really really enjoy it, so this year was no different.  The kids always surprise us with how simple their choices are.  This year is things like go to the beach, family lego night, and go fishing.  I think we knocked four things off the list right off the bat with our mini trip to a little beach town.

I forgot to get pics of our airbnb, but it ended up being our favorite one we've ever stayed at.  We got to make smores, play new games, enjoy empty beaches at night, and go to the cutest restaurants.

Once we were home we decided to cross the family lego night off the list.  The boys picked a set and us girls picked a set and we got to spend the evening working on those.  It ended up being one of the most fun nights we've ever had.  I highly recommend.

For my birthday this year, Caleb surprised me with tickets to go see Gavin Degraw at a winery in Williamsburg. He was playing an acoustic set and it happened to be the day after my birthday. Williamsburg is one of our favorite places to go to, so we hired the kids as dog sitters and got a little get away for the day.  We ended up getting to be so close at the concert, too.  

And then Casen somehow turned 15.  He's at the age where there isn't much he asks for anymore.  He wanted to spend the weekend fishing with his friends and have a game night with us, so that's what we did.

And we have honestly had one of the best summers as a family that I can remember.  Any night that Caleb is off, we are up way too late playing games and having the best time.  We've had so many fun adventures and in about a week we get to head to our next one.  I'm so thankful for this family and I'm already bummed for them having to go back to school.

March/April

 March was a pretty uneventful month.  We finally got some painting done and some furniture swapped out.

April ended up being our month of visitors.  We rarely get much company down here, maybe once a year, so this month was awesome.  We can't thank people enough for going out of their way to spend time here.

Caleb's parents made the long trip down.  We're so thankful they stayed late to play games and spend the extra time with our kiddos, (and extra patience with our smallest ;))  We always enjoy ice cream trips, good conversation, and lots of laughs while they're here.

Morgan and family made us a stop on their spring break, which was extra fun.  We got to celebrate Rae's birthday and have a crew for easter.  Having extra kids made all the holiday things even more fun.  I somehow ended up with zero pics from the egg hunt, but we got to enjoy that, as well as park visits, cookie making, game playing, and just lots of fun all around.  I'm not sure how you manage a long road trip with four kids, but i'm so glad they did.

And then we got a dinner date with Jonathan's whole family.  It was only for a couple of hours, but I think the kids squeezed in as much as they could into that time.  We're really happy it was able to happen.

And that about wraps up the most exciting month we've had in awhile.  

May is the last month of school for the kids so we're onto making our summer bucket lists and looking forward to sleeping in.