Hi, this is Monica Packer from About Progress, and you're listening to The

Messy Middle. A monthly series where I share some of my own Messy Middle

so you can see what progress looks like for a real woman in real time.

Hello everyone and welcome to September. We always start with the What's Happening

segment where I share what's been happening in the Packer neck of the woods and I

just have to say I feel like August may have been the fastest month of the year but maybe ever like maybe ever I don't even know what happened August

when I sat down and I tried to think about what happened, I was a total blink because I feel like it just started, but then on, you know, for the reflection, I thought of more things that happened. So let's just start with, you know, we got back from

Idaho and hit the ground running with that reunion I told you about and then it was just like us doing

everything we could to take advantage of the last few weeks before school

started while also tried to prep for back to school. In the midst of all of that, my two youngest

started speech therapy, which has been really helpful actually.

And then my second oldest son was my first child to officially start public medical school.

And it's going really well.

I'm really proud of him, proud and my other kids started just the week later and they're actually all doing well so far

I haven't had a full day with them all gone yet, mostly because I did half days at the school where three of my kids go to, but that's mostly because the last week in August, we went somewhere really fun. We went back to California. Now normally

we are Northern California people because that's where we lived for 13 years and

where Brad lived the second half of his childhood,

but the first half of his childhood

was actually spent in LA.

So that's where we headed.

We went to Disneyland with Brad's parents

who are so kind to pay for that part. I was so happy to be in

...