This is it – the last busy weekend before the summer, and what a doozy it is. We’ve got a soccer tournament that involves at least three games, hopefully four, over two days at a site that is an hour from home. There is NO going home between games for this one. We have the final piano recital of the year, complete with a recital practice yesterday. We have the Warrior Dash, for which Jim has been growing out his beard since January 1, and for which Jim and I were to run it together.

Unfortunately, this last weekend broke us, and we cried uncle. I dropped out of the Warrior Dash because we didn’t have a babysitter for the kids, so Jim ran it alone this morning. Given the location of the piano recital and soccer tournament and the fact that Jim was three hours north for his run, for which we paid good money, there was no way I could shuttle the kids back and forth between the two events for two days, so we had the kids sit out the recital as well. Why did we choose soccer over piano and everything else? This is Connor’s only soccer tournament of the spring season and will be his last set of games with this team. With tryouts officially over, there is a good chance the team will be shaken up quite a bit for the fall season, and we wanted to make sure Connor was able to help celebrate a winning season with this group of kids. He has lots of opportunities for piano recitals. It isn’t every day he gets a chance to win one of the bigger soccer tournaments in the area. Yesterday, we watched them play their hearts out, even after sitting outside in 95-degree heat all day long, so I know we made the right decision.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to no more after-school activities for a while, no more weekend games or practices. Granted, Connor still has to take piano lessons over the summer, and Holly wanted to take one dance class. Yet, I feel much better about giving up 90 minutes of our free time a week versus the 90 minutes we have been giving up daily since March. Summer vacation is well-deserved this year.

After last week’s excess excitement for Armchair BEA, I kept it low-key this week by focusing on reviews. They happened to include two of my favorite reads for the year, so check them out if you missed them.

• Angel Burn by L.A. Weatherly
• This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer
• Don’t Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon
• Bitch? Please! by Megan Munroe
• Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson