Summer—almost gone for another year

Summer used to last from early June to the Wednesday after Labor Day.  Ready for back to school was a brief interruption to be drug downtown by Mom for a fitting of school clothes.  Best case, she’d check underwear tags and bring home a size larger.

Here at Cousin Camp, summer is over.  The girls are registered for school; we have appointments with counselors next week.  The first week of August!  Emily was fitted for a band uniform and has been marching three hours each evening since last week. New student orientations are in two weeks.

Aunt Jan has been shopping with the girls for school clothing.  There’s some cute stuff out there for fifth graders!, and Laura really scored at the Old Navy clearance racks.  Ninth grade clothing needs to be cool.   Emily has come home with some pretty shirts and no jeans.  She did select two belts.  She’s three sizes down since coming, through sensible eating and activity.  Old jeans and shorts are regularly consigned to the Goodwill bag.  She thinks we shouldn’t go shopping for her until after band camp.

And, band camp started today.  We filled a basket at a drugstore with bug repellant, multiple tubes of sun screen, band aids, and more things I can’t remember from the band camp list of essentials to bring.  We sent her off into the crowd, to get on a bus and go to Meadville, Pennsylvania.  This band has almost three hundred people, she told us.  The old school band was one hundred sixty.  We watched her walk straight in, to meet her new friends.

Not many days left to sit in the warm morning sun to read a book and work on friendship bracelets.  School starts in three weeks, and we still need to buy school clothes for Emily.