The Best Five Years

"And the Sun took a step back, the Leaves lulled themselves to Sleep, and the Autumn awakened." - Raquel Franco It is true that I know that Fall is still a week away, but I am simply too excited to wait that long for a Fall quote.  Just picture it... Warm scarves... smores... Crackling bonfires... Books... (The last word was supposed to be Boots, but Books is even better...) Waking up on a frostbitten morning and watching your breath in the air as it freezes... Foggy car windows... Pumpkin Spice... Rosh Hashanah... Sukkot... Singing and Dancing... And all things fall... Am I excited? Yes, yes. I am excited.  The past weeks have been rhythmical, calm, and new.        School has once again taken hold of all our lives, and the workaday world seems but a step and a sigh away. And yet, the joy of order and reliability that these days afford is a treasure itself. A greater reward than that of a hectic, everywhere-at-once summer as I have just finished. No, to be sure, I am not

"True friends are always together in Spirit." L. M. Montgomery      The last few weeks were filled with the crazy. (It should have been "the busiest moments of life," but it had to be "The crazy.") The first week I did not write, I was at my Grandma's house. As I assume she will read this, I must add that I had an enjoyable time there, and I think Penka did too. We went to the lake, floated the river, and went on a rope swing, as well as many other fun things.     The next week we went to(Drumroll please!) TRI Family Camp, which I have long labeled as one of the very best weeks of summer. We made lots of fun memories, such as staying up until 1 am watching and Italian opera with subtitles, and staying up until 2 am watching The Phantom of the Opera another night. All this, not to mention playing capture the flag in the dark, being in puppet shows, having Italian sodas from the snack shack, and hearing some fascinating teaching. I made some pretty a