{"id":30,"date":"2013-09-16T21:16:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T21:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=30"},"modified":"2015-03-25T15:12:36","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T15:12:36","slug":"my-long-summer-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=30","title":{"rendered":"My Long Summer Break"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In May, I decided to take some time off from writing.&nbsp; I planned to take four to six weeks off so I could get through the crazy end of school tests and events.&nbsp; But on the last day of school, it happened&#8230;.My oldest daughter got in the van and said, &#8220;It&#8217;s official; I&#8217;m a senior!&#8221;&nbsp; My heart stopped.&nbsp; Of course I knew she was going to be a senior and things would begin to change, but hearing it made it all too&nbsp;real.&nbsp; Her words marked the beginning of a new season of parenting for me, preparing to launch my children.<\/p>\n<p>I knew this day would come and as excited as I am about the adventures that lay ahead for her and her siblings, I&#8217;m also a little anxious about what the future holds.&nbsp; For the last 18 years, I&#8217;ve been a mom.&nbsp; Even a few nights ago at a school function, I was introduced as &#8216;the mom with all the kids&#8217;.&nbsp; Soon&nbsp;&nbsp;my identity will no longer be tied so closely to my children. &nbsp;I will return to being Karen.&nbsp;&nbsp;Before that happens, I want to soak in&nbsp;the time I have left.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>So my short break turned into a much longer break.&nbsp;&nbsp;This summer&nbsp;we played.&nbsp; We went to a water park and the beach.&nbsp; We played games.&nbsp; We went swimming.&nbsp; We toured colleges.&nbsp; We watched movies and caught up on TV shows.&nbsp;We sat&nbsp;together and talked.&nbsp; And we laughed a lot. &nbsp;It was fabulous!&nbsp; I stored up memories that I will always cherish.&nbsp;&nbsp; Memories that make me smile and laugh out loud.&nbsp; Memories that comfort me when I think&nbsp;of what&#8217;s to come.&nbsp;&nbsp;Memories I can share with their children some day.&nbsp; Memories that make my heart full.&nbsp; It was time well spent&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In May, I decided to take some time off from writing.&nbsp; I planned to take four to six weeks off so I could get through the crazy end of school tests and events.&nbsp; But on the last day of school, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=30\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}