Sadness, summer plans and dog dreams

Not much blogging going on, because not much has been going here on to be honest. It's been a really, really long and sad week.
Kids have been back to school of course. We have 12 weeks to go for the rest of this school year. I have been covering a lot of Zumba, some weeks are busier than others and this week I've had seven classes; plus the ECP Zumba class I do at school with the kids.

Other than that, it's been a weird week of course. One of my suitcases from Scotland was full of dog snacks and other dog stuff, toys, a new bed etc, and having to unpack all that, and also pack away and take care of all Oakley’s things was really rough.

I must admit I was already dreading this return, as we are now going into my least favourite period of the year. It’s getting hotter and hotter each day, and I just can’t stand those really hot summer months. Quite unusual for us, we hadn't made any plans yet for the summer holidays, because we hadn’t finalized the plans around where the dog was going to be. I'm the type of person that like things to look forward to - so now I was really feeling down.
But now I can at least finally say, we have made the first summer plans:
I have signed the kids up for a weeks Sports Camp in Sweden! Super exciting!

It’s the biggest camp in Sweden for kids 11-14 years. It runs for four weeks and over 6,000 kids have signed up for that whole period. I'm sure the kids will have an absolute blast! The kids will be there on their own for a whole week, Lucas will do rugby and Linnea dancing as their main sports but there are also a lot of other activities.
I’m really happy with this, because our summers started to turn into a bit of same-same; even though I’ve been really good at making different things happen each year. Last years trip to Greece was very different to our normal summer activities and such a success for us all, and I believe this camp will be fab for the kids in so many ways!
Me? Well, I will probably spend that week doing something not so kid-friendly with my friends! :)

Finally with these first plans in place, we can now start booking things up around them; and finally I feel a little bit lighter.

Obviously Nathan and I have already talked about whether or not to get another dog, but it feels a bit too early just yet. We’ll discuss it again when we come back after the summer break, and see what we’ll do. We are not sure whether we would like a puppy again, or if we will maybe look at adopting an older dog - or any dog at all.
The house is very empty without Oakley, it feels just like a house and not like a home anymore; and I keep thinking of what Lucas said back when we got him: "Now it feels like we are a real family"!
I think we need to be a real family again.