It's been a long long time since I updated and my husband finally went through a lawyer to get things changed so thought I'd update what has been going on. 

After a couple of years of trying to make my life into something I am satisfied with and failing, I am finally getting close to biting the bullet and going to see a therapist. I have found one that specializes in anxiety (which I think I suffer from a mild form of) and some other issues in my life.

He says he also covers families of all configurations but does not specifically say he covers step families. I am not sure really where my main issues lie and it is probably a mixture of a number of things and certainly being a step mom contributes in a small way.

SD8 lives with us full time during the school year and visits her mother in the vacations. This has been the arrangement for about 18months. The first 12 months my husband agreed to pay BM money every month to help her 'get on her feet' and also to sweeten the deal as we moved away and SD came with us. BM agreed to all of this. So last summer BM was still receiving her money. This summer however all of a sudden a mere few weeks before SD is going to see BM, BM says that she cannot afford the summer camp she was relying on taking SD to so that she had some child care while she is at work.

SD7 is off to spend the summer with her BM in a few days so in theory (unless BM throws any spanners in the works) my husband and I will have 2 months child free.

We are thinking of starting to try to expand our family in the autumn with our own kids, so this potentially could be our last childless summer for a long while. What would you do with a child free summer?

Our thoughts are to get out and enjoy the city more, I want to do some art projects and maybe take a break away somewhere if we've the money. What would you do if you had two months of summer child free?