It is with a heavy sigh that I face the end of summer.  My all-time favorite time of the year.   I wasn’t one to count down the days til the kids returned to school…. I knew that day would come soon enough.  Tomorrow.   But I have a tremendous store of memories to draw on when the weather turns cold and turns dark by 5:00 p.m. (shudder to think!).  Our summer by the shore was one I’ll treasure.

I created a bracelet for myself, my own souvenir of the summer.   I adored these ocean-inspired beads when I first found them in Shannon Westmeyer’s Etsy shop.  She has more listed if you’d like some for yourself.  This gal is talented…if you look at the beads closely, you’ll see such amazing detail (the waves, the starfish…)  And a nice surprise, she sent some sweet freebies along with the set!  I added a soldered crab link…I’m going crazy with the soldering technique I’m learning from Stephanie Lee….I’ll show more in a future post. 

On our last night at the beach, we celebrated a special birthday.  Our little guy turned 6!  When we asked him what type of cake he’d like, he was torn between “spy gear” and bunnies.  He still loves rabbits….do you remember this costume from 2 years ago?  We did what we could with what we had on hand and my 9 year old son (the budding chef) baked the cake from scratch!  We’ll have a tennis-themed party for him in a few weeks with his classmates. 

The uniforms are set out and the new shoes are lined up by the door…. tomorrow is a fresh start, a new beginning.  I’m excited about things to come…it’s going to be a busy Fall.  Full of great things!