I honestly thought I missed a couple posts this summer thanks to a dead laptop I had to restore. One look at my list of posts and oops, I haven’t posted since the end of June!

With back to school weeks away for us, I thought I’d take today’s post to share what I’ve been up to. It’s been a different summer for me.

First, I finished the Surrendering Time Series with the release of ENGAGED. I really enjoyed this book and the feedback I have received has been strong. At the end I included a series prologue for my next series, Surrendering Opinions. That also received high praise, so I’m ready to dive in September.

My husband holding our first grandson.

We traveled a lot this summer. Our older children, adults who are both married and live in Wisconsin, both kids had their first sons. It was surreal and amazing watching the “kids” interact with their own babies. I met the older kids when they were around 9 and 11, so it was a blessing to see them come full circle. Our younger children, 19 and 14, looked super proud to be holding their new nephew. No one beamed more than my husband. He stares at the pictures and just says how beautiful they are. It’s a wonderful season of life.

Our travels took us the PA/NY border where we returned to Bucktail Camping, our first time in a decade. We camped with my sister and nephew, and what a difference for us. Instead of our kids being young, they were the ones helping their cousin and showing him all the fun things to do. If you’re ever near Mansfield, PA, Bucktail has putt-putt, a train ride around the campground, ball pit, batting cage, tower slide, merry-go-round, arcade, frisbee golf and more.

Closer to home, I took the kids to Ashtabula for the day. Our son is a sophomore at Kent State with hopes to be a history teacher, so we relished our time at the Hubbard House, the last stop for slaves in their journey to freedom. We also did some shopping and visited the beaches.

We had times at home, too. When it was rainy, we binge watched West Wing, a show I’d forgotten how well done it was. We painted rocks, part of a huge hobby in NE Ohio where you paint the rocks and hide them to brighten someone’s day. It’s so big around here the group was featured on CBS This Morning earlier this year.

Writing? I did a little of that, although I confess not a lot of it. Our youngest is a tremendous asset when it comes to plotting and she came up with a great idea for a tween series. The first book is about surrendering lies girls believe. The series revolves around a ministry that grows friendships between girls of all ages through mentoring. We believe we have three books to write in total that will encourage tween girls and the women in their lives. Stay tuned on the Surrendering Stinkin’ Thinkin’ Series.

How about you? Did you travel this summer? What fun things have you enjoyed? I’d love to read your comments.