Not that life wasn't busy before, but now it is a very structured and scheduled busy. Everyone has been posting their back-to-school pictures, and I'm a little late with mine. My girls actually missed their first week of school to go to Hawaii with their Nana and Papa. Lucky ducks! They are starting their year well-tanned.

This year: • Abby starts 6th grade • Sarah starts 3rd • They have both shot up a few inches since last year! • Abby is playing middle school Volleyball this year. The 6th-8th graders are split into 2 squads and Abby was asked to play on both teams. She practices with both which means she has practice 3 hours of practice every night until 6:30. It is intense but she loves it. She has out-of-town games also so we are adjusting to a new level of busy and will be putting a ton of miles on our vehicle. • Sarah is playing soccer again this year. It's pretty low key and fun and she is enjoying playing with the bigger kids this year.

Eva starts preschool tomorrow, so her first-day picture is coming. Hopefully I can capture a happy face. There is much apprehension this year because she is going through a heavy attachment phase. She agrees to go if I stay there with her the entire time. Obviously this isn't something we can maintain. Wish us luck.

On another note: I have backed off on personal posts on this blog. Mostly because posting is time-consuming, but also because as my blog traffic has increased, I've wondered how much people I don't know on a personal basis would be interested in my personal life. In the end though, this is my blog and I want to continue posting genuine content from me, not for what I think people want to see. Does that make sense to you? Okay, good. Onward. You might see more frequent posts for a few days while I catch up on our summer happenings.

The blogosphere is buzzing about back to school and I must to my part. Here are the girls, excited and ready for their first day. They woke themselves up at 6 AM this morning and were ready by 6:30, even though we don't have to leave our house until 7:20.

Aw, don't they look cute? School shopping was a bit of a challenge to fit in this year but we had time for a couple of new outfits. I tried not to interfere with their choices but smiled a little when Sarah chose her cowboy boots. Abby has new cowboy boots too and is looking forward to getting a few western outfits to go with them. Oh boy.

And this is my little Kindergartner. (Only don't call her "little" to her face. She is a BIG girl now.)

Kindergarten is serious stuff here. All day, every day. She seemed very unruffled and not at all nervous.

She even gets to ride the bus with her big sister now. It would have been WAY to embarrassing to pose for a photo by the bus, so I had to sneak this one on the fly.

We took this next picture in front of the combine to show that we are still harvesting. Most years these machines are parked away before school starts. Not this year—we still have at least a week left!

The girls have their first soccer practice tomorrow night. I'm not sure if we are quite ready for summer to be over and for our lives to be structured again, but ready or not, here we go! Happy back to school, everyone!