The silence is deafening. There’s no sound of a soccer ball being kicked around the kitchen, banging into cabinets, making me cringe every time I hear it hit the dishwasher or the oven. I don’t hear YouTube videos about some soccer game or how to solve a Rubik’s cube or how to bake the perfect snickerdoodles. I don’t hear FIFA ’19 being played while an 11 year-old commentates in a bad British accent.

All I hear is the air conditioner, sometimes a car driving by, maybe Ziggy barking at a UPS truck.

It’s blissful, and it’s the only week of the summer I’m going to get this peace. The boys are at camp at Jean Lafitte National Park, and the best part is, it’s not far from George’s work, so he’s even driving them! Heaven.

The quiet is especially welcome because it’s been a busy week. Terry’s daughter’s quinceañera was Saturday night, and I was feverishly sewing shirts for the males in the house, and finished them just in time.

Here is a pic of the boys in their shirts:

And a family pic at the quinceañera, but you can’t see that the colors in their shirts perfectly coordinate with the Upton dress I made last summer. That was not even on purpose! A happy coincidence.

A few more pics from that night:

And then on Monday, Oliver and Miles were in the background of a tv show that’s coming up. We had to be at the zoo at 5:30am, which was not fun. Linus went to camp by himself that day.

Meanwhile, I can’t even really work out much because I have tendonitis in my right shoulder, which suuuucks. It means I can’t do more than half of the exercises at Orangetheory – no rowing, no upper body anything, nothing that requires a plank position, nothing that uses my shoulder. Blah. At least it’s not something worse. Shoulders scare me. But it means my arms are going to turn from fierce guns to blobs of goo.

On a happier note, in just two weeks, Kiki gets here and we start our road trip to Virginia! So exciting!