Cali and Cheyenne left us this week! Cali flew out Wednesday morning and Chey left Thursday morning. Monday and Tuesday saw us going to the store for last minute items, getting Cali COVID tested, and checking and double-checking packing lists. Also, the twins had to fit in tennis hours and farewell moments with their friends and favorite dinners with us, their family. It was a crazy, busy, stressful first half of the week! The most stressful thing for all of us, I think, was that Cali and Chey had never flown before and now they were both navigating airports and security and deadlines completely alone--with high stakes. If they didn't make it, their whole, exciting trip wouldn't happen. Also, they didn't have each other. They've always had each other! It was pretty emotionally terrifying.

They can't contact us now that they are with their groups. (No phones! They want the kids totally present in their experience.) But we did hear from them while they were navigating their way to their separate airports to meet their groups. They did great (even though that wasn't without it's stress, either)! Now we are getting updates about them on their group's Instagram account and it is fun to pick them out in the pictures. We saw Cali sleeping on the floor of an airport and then with giant Galapagos tortoises and later playing in the ocean of a tropical beach! We saw Cheyenne playing games in an airport and then playing chicken in the waves off of Mexico and then standing in water shin-deep in the road because of a tropical storm. They are both safe and having incredible, mind-expanding experiences, and . . . all that stress was worth it!

Deep breath. So! Back at the ranch (otherwise known as home), I've been trying to get Beth and Ben to do more reading and they did well this week! Both of them finished a book. They also still have karate in the summer so its nice they can keep working on that. Our present screen-time rules are "No screens until 3:00." It seems to be working out pretty well. Beth has gotten together with friends a few times and is also content to play by herself often.

Beth and Annaliese bought fake nails
at the new Five Below store!

Ben and I are taking an online engineering class! Ben heard one of his favorite YouTubers talking about it and asked me if he could take it. Like I'm going to say no to that??? So, we are taking it together! Our first project was in the field of mechanical engineering and was supposed to have something to do with food. After the brainstorming process, Ben decided to make an automatic Ramen noodle maker. It is pretty awesome! We are still running into problems with our latch, but we have to set the project aside for now since we are going on to electrical engineering and our Arduino kit. It has actually been really fun and I am learning alot. Oh, and so is Ben!

It has been 100 degrees or more all week, so Savannah needed to check on her bees. They are "bearding" which is when they sort of hold on to each other outside of the hive since it's too hot inside! They should be fine, though, and Savannah gave them fresh water since that's preferable over sugar water in hot weather. Also, we learned that sugar water ferments! We have to throw a bunch away! We did not know that.

The hot weather has not stopped Kevin from playing tennis in the evenings. He comes home completely soaked in sweat! But he is having a great time and I'm glad he's found some fellas to play with.

In addition to getting Cali and Cheyenne off, I had Circles on Tuesday night, YW on Wednesday night, and bookclub on Thursday night. Plus, of course, I'm learning to be an engineer. What a week!