“The Camp of Ryan”

We’ve been home for two weeks. It has been a strange sort of “limbo” time — with work really gearing up for me (classes started at Lehigh last week), and work going at full tilt for Braydon, but school still not begun for Kyle, Owen, and Meera. We pieced the two weeks together, Braydon and I took turns covering the home-front, and we had some help from student babysitters at Lehigh, but what really made these past two weeks a wonderful ending to our summer (as opposed to would could have easily been an absolutely terribly disastrous and miserable ending to the summer) was Ryan.

Ryan has been a huge person in our family life for the past two years. She was the bambinos’ full-time babysitter for Summer 2011 (click here), and she’s been helping us raise our kids ever since. Somehow she always seems to breeze right in, take control, and make everything seem manageable at precisely the times when our life is most out of control (mainly, summers and school vacation weeks). Ryan is more than a “babysitter” for us– she’s like an extension of our family; more like a trusted auntie than a childcare provider. We could not be more grateful.

These past two weeks Ryan took over a few large chunks of days for us, coming up with fabulous stuff to do with the kids. It was just enough to make the whole two-week-period feel like a breezy end to summer (when it could have easily been, as I said, a nightmare). We J-Ms fondly referred to these past two weeks as “The Camp of Ryan.” Ryan took them hiking, she took them to parks, she took them to the zoo. She took them bowling. She baked cupcakes with them. She even did some school-prep (math) with the boys to get them ready for 3rd grade. It was like a wonderful bookend to the best summer ever. Thanks to Ryan.