Rain, Cool Breezes, Butterfly and Ice Cream - School is Done!!!!!

Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Noelle came flying off the bus this afternoon shouting that it was over - no more school till late August!  The summer vacation has begun! Noelle is now an 8th grader.

Almost immediately after Noelle entered the house rain fell yet again.  We have had rain almost every day for the past 7 days.  There have been long and hard storms and then gentle ones. Several times we'e had rainbows behind the houses across the street.  But it has remained quite warm - in the 80s and humid - but today it has brought in some sunshine in the afternoon and cooler temperatures.  It is now just about 70 degrees.  This seems far more normal for an early June day.

Rachel and Abbi were in the house already enjoying their summer vacation as they finished all of their classes and exams in late May.  Abbi is now a high school grad and planning for a year off while she works hard at recovering from both of her autoimmune diseases that have left her exhausted and unable to do much of anything.  She has actually been told not to do any physical activity of any length and is following a very stringent diet.  Rachel will return to school as a sophomore though she has already taken most of the high school classes she needs for graduation including calculus.  Her parents are looking for some college classes she can attend (possibly on line) once she turns 16 in November.

To celebrate, we went to Mazzanti's for ice cream with Noelle's friend, Audrey joining us

Earlier in the season, Mazzanti's solicited suggestions for some new ice creams that they might create and sell during the season.  Rachel was one of the four winners.  She had suggested coffee dough

and ended up winning a quart of that ice cream along with a $10 gift certificate.  So what was her cone?  Coffee dough of course

The winning ice creams are posted along with the names of the people who suggested them in the window.  It is a little hard to see in this picture because of the light reflections but you'll note three of them involve coffee and the other one is tea and lavender

Unfortunately Abbi can't have the ice cream but her "treat" today was finding butterfly by the road that she was able to "rescue" and bring back to her front garden.

 It seemed to really love having her take an interest in it as it made no attempt to fly away.  Eventually she was able to get it to settle on a rock by the flowers in the garden but only with some effort.  It didn't want to part with her.