Family, Family, so glad you're here!

Let Freedom Ring!

I will get to the 4th after just a little catch up.

Wyatt and friends ready to embark on a beach trip

They had a great time - at least Wyatt did.  He also failed to bring home his blankets, pillow and swim trunks.  I had admonished him to mark everything with his name before leaving.  He claimed he did, but I found very little marked in his laundry.  I hope his stuff shows up in the lost and found but am not holding out much hope since he left it in the hotel room.  UGH!  I am glad he had a good experience with his buddies though.  

Who doesn't love a hammock?  Julia has wanted one for a couple of years and finally found a good enough deal to get one. Now we are going to have to bathe that thing in bug spray or get one of those net covers.

Andy has a birthday this month.  In order to include Savannah and Julia, we celebrated on Monday.  Poor guy - that ended up being one sucky birthday.  A strong storm blew through delivering the real news that we do indeed have a serious roof leak that goes behind a wall - no telling how much damage is behind that wall.  On top of that, our cable box was fried by a power surge - hence the reason I didn't divide this post and post it in separate entries. That was the day that we learned that our vision insurance has changed and had quite the sticker shock for Wyatt's and Julia's eye appointments.  I should not have been surprised as Andy's benefits keep landing on the chopping block, and I can't really complain on this one because we still have vision insurance, and I still paid less than a lot of people do to correct their vision.  However, it went well beyond what I had budgeted even with the possibility of an increase in mind, and I have since learned that we owe even more than we were charged that day as they made a mistake in calculating our total. We also learned that Savannah was dealing with a really unsafe situation right outside of her door.  That situation has since been resolved and much precaution was taken during the waiting.  So that was fun - as Savannah would say about bad stuff (insert sarcasm font).  Anyway, as all adults know, birthdays aren't all fun, games and celebrations.  Sometimes they just suck.We are still doing better than we deserve.

How did we celebrate our nation's independence and freedom?  We started with one of my favorite church services of the year where we honored our military service personnel and celebrated our freedom to worship.

During our weekend group, this verse showed up.  It showed up lots after Mom died and now sometimes shows up around anniversaries regarding my parents.  So last Friday would have been my Dad's 75th birthday, and July 3rd would have been my parents' 49th anniversary.  I used to think that this verse came up so much because God was going to blow my mind.  Now I think it's just reassurance that my parents are doing just fine - better than I can ask or imagine.

Because a big family vacation (meaning one with my siblings and their families) is off the table this year, we did decide to try and get two family amusement park visits in as a group.  As we tried to work out dates, one of my sisters suggested just going on the 4th.  The park has a fireworks show, and everyone was off work anyway, so we decided to spend a day in the blistering heat at an amusement park (seriously heat index of 105- highly unusual in these parts).

For Kallie and Kinsley, this was a first, and they really enjoyed their day.  

Isaac (pictured above with Kallie) is in the unfortunate position of being the youngest and shortest of his siblings, and they are all so close in age.  Regan and Ira both passed the threshold of getting to ride some serious, big coasters this year leaving their younger brother behind.  They all know how many inches they are.  Isaac reads all the ride signs, and will say "if you are 48 inches tall, you can ride this. For me, it just says SORRY."  It's so funny. Jonathan said Isaac spent the entire day after our visit recounting how tall you had to be for each ride.  The kids had wristbands to make it easier on park employees to indicate how tall they were.  Every time I mentioned that Ira was 48 inches (the minimum height for most rides), he corrected me and said he's actually 49 inches, but his bracelet says 48.  

I have such pretty nieces.

Wyatt is not a fan of amusement parks.  There is an adjacent water park, so he and I opted to get out of the heat and into the wave pool and lazy river.  We spent about 2.5 hours there.  

For my kids I am sharing a little family history about this park.  When Tiffany and I were really little, our cousins (as in Susie's parents) took us to this park.  For some reason my dad did not go.  We returned so thrilled and talked so much about all that we did, my dad took us back.  Thus a family tradition was born.  We started going every year when we visited my grandparents.  We started our day with the same ride a boat ride called  Hanna Barbera land or something to that effect.  You rode through an indoor scene with so much going on, depicting every Hanna Barbera cartoon you can imagine, that you could truly find something new every time you road that ride.  It was always a great way to cool off on a hot day as it was nicely air conditioned. Eventually, they replaced it with Boo Blasters, and we stopped making it our first ride - still a nice air conditioned way to cool off, but the ride is not nearly so amazing.

I remember thinking this was the best place on earth and distinctly remember a conversation with my Dad where he expressed how wonderful Heaven will be, and I asked if it would be better than Kings Island.  I think I was in disbelief at the possibility.

Ultimately, we moved closer, and my parents would buy the family season passes to the park, so that became our family vacation - making several trips there per year.  I think we eventually made Hanna Barbera Land the first ride of the season rather than the first ride of our days there.

Here are some of my memories of doing this park with my parents. 

Ira laughs on even the scariest of rides. Julia used to always laugh too.  I don't ride coasters, so I can't say whether she still does that or not.  Mom always laughed on coasters.  I remember this because one of her friends commented that Mom's laughter made her willing to ride. 

Both Mom and Dad hated heights but were okay with coasters.  Dad, especially, hated the Farris wheel - thought it was the most terrifying ride in the park.

When I ride the Dodge Cars (or bumper cars), I love trying to go after my people and get them.  Dad always tried to see how many times he could get around without being hit or hitting anyone.

Dad kept track of how many rides were ridden, and what the price per ride was on any given day. Austin texted the family GroupMe to say he rode 20 rides yesterday.  I told him that Grandpa would have counted too and then would have divided out the price to know how much he spent on each ride.

Of course not all memories are good ones.  I think my kids already know about the time that I rode the smallest coaster in the park with my younger brother. I was ten years old and had my hands locked on the handle, and my eyes squeezed shut while my mom watched in horror from below as Jonathan tried to climb out of the car at the summit of the first hill.  The lady behind us reached over and yanked him into his seat and held him there.  I was clueless to all of this until I got off the ride. Jonathan would have been two at the time.  That kind of thing would be harder now as the coasters have seatbelt.  I learned that I can ride with little passengers and squeeze my eyes shut if my arms are locked around them.

There are some sweet sibling memories too.  Some of the most priceless pictures ever taken of Jonathan and Tessa were at Kings Island when he held her hand walking through the park and telling her about all the fun they were about to have on the next ride.  They were probably four and two at the time.

We sometimes camped in the adjoining campground.  I don't miss that - okay maybe I miss it a little.

Needless to say, my family has so many memories in this park.  I think I went every summer until I went to college after that first visit.  I intended to pass that tradition along to my kids, but we have not done so.

One thing different about spending the 4th in an amusement park is that not everyone attended.  Logan chose not to go, and we missed Zach and Savannah too (more on them later).  Normally, all of us would gather in the late afternoon or early evening and hang out eating too much until it gets dark enough to do fireworks.  

The fireworks show did not disappoint, but boy we were so tired.

Zach was already scheduled to work his second job when we decided to make this happen, so he could not go.  Savannah was not able to leave her summer internship for this.  It's so different this summer that Wyatt and Julia are the only ones taking summer adventures with us.  I knew this would come but figured that they wouldn't necessarily stop this at the same time.  It is just strange.  The reality though is that Wyatt likely would not have spent the day with us yesterday if Zach and Savannah had gone.  We usually left him with a friend or at home when visiting amusement parks in the past.  I don't know what we would have done on a holiday.

Leaving the park I asked everyone about their favorite part of the day.

Julia loved riding Diamondback.

Wyatt loved the fireworks.

Andy loved riding the White Water Canyon (a raft ride where you are almost guaranteed to get wet) with Ira.  Ira got soaked, but he kept talking about how his hair was "soaking,"  Andy thought it hilarious that Ira kept talking about his wet hair when he was drenched from head to toe.  

That Ira is a fun one.  Really, they all are.

After wearing ourselves out, Julia headed out for camp on five hours of sleep.  Yikes! I told her not to be salty with her sweet friend. She said it's not a problem, they've been friends long enough and are strong enough to be salty around each other and maintain that friendship.  Love that!  In all honesty Julia is not that difficult when she's in a bad mood.  I may be eating those words in a few years -lol

That's all here in this abode.  Hoping that the rest of summer brings more family time and fewer surprise expenses :)

Grateful for the brave who gave and continue to give us the freedom to celebrate independence and so much more. Freedom is never free!

A Day in My Life

So what does summer break look like without swim team?

It has rained the last two days.  Otherwise, I would have been at the pool for at least an hour.  However, the rain has been a good thing.  I spend Mondays (when the pool is closed) taking care of routine appointments - sports physicals, eye exams, etc.  I can't see the dentist on Monday because he's not in the office, but I have a tiny window to get all the appointments in before I am back at school, so they are scattered throughout the next month.

Yesterday,  I took care of a doctor's appointment then had lunch with former colleagues.  I then decided to really get serious about purging around my house.  It started with a bag of clothes that Julia set outside of her room a few weeks ago.  I went piece by piece though the bag and tossed the stuff not good enough to donate and donated most of the rest of it.  I then followed suit with some bags of clothing stored in the basement. I found a bag of red, uniform shirts.  I think somebody gave them to us, so I am washing them and getting them ready for the used uniform sale.

Last night and today, I went after my kitchen.  I have emptied three cabinets, replaced or washed the shelf lining and discarded everything that was expired.  For years I have been telling myself that I would buy space saving canisters to store powdered sugar, brown sugar and the various types of flour that Andy uses for baking.  After my workout this morning, I hit Walmart and started buying the containers.  I bought four to gauge what I really need and to figure some things out.  I stopped by the Dollar Tree for more containers knowing that they may not hold up.    All medicine is now in a bin for easy access from the cabinet.  The gazillion cake sprinkles have a box in which they don't quite fit, and my cupcake holders are in clear, round containers that are just big enough to hold their shape and allow me to clearly see that yes, I do already have Valentine's cupcake holders and need not buy more next year. My only issue with the Dollar Tree containers is that they don't stack so nicely with the Rubbermaid ones, so in the cabinets where I used Rubbermaid containers, I will have to get more Rubbermaid containers. My list of containers left to buy includes one for popcorn and one for rice, and one for chocolate chips (yes, they are a staple around here and cleaning out the cabinet revealed how the bags spill without notice), but those will need to await another payday.

My brother has dropped off several boxes of pictures from my parents house, and to be honest I dread going through them.  It's just such a daunting task to think about digitizing them and organizing and distributing them.  I am procrastinating on that one.

Then there is the reading.  As a librarian I typically have a list of ten books that I need to read and be prepared to promote in the fall.  Then there is the school-wide summer read. I am working through them faster than usual - usually I only get through half of them.  I could not get my hands on two of the books, so I will read the others in order of the ones I expect to be my least favorites to the ones I expect to really enjoy.  I did not actually start out that way.

So far I have finished "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green.  I had heard that it was dark, and I did not expect to like it as much as I did.

I really enjoyed reading "The Girl with Seven Names" (our school-wide summer read).  What an eye-opening look at life beyond the border of North Korea!

"Night Witches" (Historical fiction) was an interesting look at female, Russian pilots during WWII.  I am not convinced that my kids will love it.

I just started "Warcross." It's okay but not really a genre that I love, so I think I may find myself fighting my way through this one, but the protagonist is likable so far, and the reviews are fantastic. Marie Lu is really an exceptional writer.

In addition to reading for work, I hope to catch up on my magazines that are literally still in their plastic dating through the entire school year.  I plan to catch up at the pool.

I have also joined a sweet group of ladies for an inductive study of Revelation chapters 1-3.  I am piggybacking this with a study of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, so I am at both ends of the Bible this summer.  The Revelation study will end in three weeks (I only have a week and a half of lessons left to complete), and the Genesis study is a ten week study that just started today.  It is done online through Lifeway.  They've been offering studies with free access to the video teaching.  This one is "God of Creation" by Jen Wilken.  I am really excited about it.  I love the format, and she has literally changed the way I read the Bible with her "Women of the Word" book, so I am looking forward to going through these chapters with her perspective.  Anyone can join this study.  I was faithful to women's studies at church for years.  When Zach and Savannah hit high school,  a couple of things changed.  1.  I realized how short the time I had left to pour into them was.  2. Andy went through a study that took him away from home for one night a week, and I realized just how challenging it was to be that parent making sure everyone got to where they needed and had what they needed solo.  I backed off for a while, and the introvert in me is winning in regard to study right now, so this online option works for me. I am not locked into a specific time and place to watch the video, and they usually offer a little wiggle room for missed weeks or those who start behind.

Check out the link below if you are interested in the Lifeway study.

God of Creation
 (A little hint: the book is much cheaper at a Lifeway store or online with them than it is with Amazon).

So this is what I've been doing. Now to update on the kids.

Zach is out of state right now at a conference to learn more about loving others well and ministering to them.  He was shoulder tapped for this after attending a class at church, and the church covered the trip for him.  However, he missed his flight and had to pay to get on the next one, and that's all I am going to say about that.  He has not been in touch much, but he is loving it.

Savannah is really enjoying her work with LTN.  She popped in briefly for Father's Day and was back again today because her work is near home, and she dropped off her work partner who was intimidated by driving in a city foreign to her.  Savannah is allowed a three day vacation this summer, and she started that today and headed to St. Louis to visit her college roommate.

Wyatt is pumped!  He and his closest friends are leaving for Bible and Beach tomorrow night.  He's been packing for days, and part of my last few days has included picking up last minute items for the trip.  After our Smoky Mountain trip, both he and Julia wanted water-proof disposable cameras for their summer activities.  A little research online revealed that with processing and the cost of disposable cameras, we were better off to get a cheap, waterproof digital camera, so it will be interesting to see how this works out.

Julia is bummed that we insisted that she finish her freshman year before she joins the rest of the high school youth at Bible and Beach.  Many of her friends are going.  She's excited though that we did okay her participation in FCA leadership camp, so she's counting the days until that starts.  Julia has also been working with a college soccer player to get ready for soccer tryouts.  Yes, she gave up swim and cheer and is hoping to make the soccer team.

Recharge

In His hands are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are His also.  Psalm 95:4 (ESV)

Andy secured a few days off and said, "Let's get out of here!"  I've had just a couple of days off since finishing the school year.  We thought this would be an early anniversary trip, but Julia caught wind of the plans, and we couldn't resist the opportunity to share the mountains with our not-so-little people who were too small to remember our last trip to the mountains.  We really only had one full day there, but we sure packed in a lot. 

On the drive Wyatt and Julia entertained themselves with sibling trivia.  They decided that they are terrible siblings.  Among the things they didn't know - how to spell each other's middle names.

Some of our first lovely views on the drive.

I can't even... the road to the little cabin Andy rented was straight uphill and curvy.  YIKES!! Even Andy said, "absolutely not!" when asked by Julia if we would be willing to buy such a cabin for our retirement.

The next few pictures depict the same view from our cabin at various times of the day.

I had forgotten how beautiful the mountains are.  After our arrival - late afternoon

start of sunset

after sunset

sunset

morning

Julia and Wyatt take a selfie at the golden hour

Our full day

We started our day by tubing down the Little Pigeon River.  I didn't even know there was such a thing as a real lazy river until last year and did not realize the mountains had them.  The consensus was that this was the best part of the trip, and we want to return and include Zach and Savannah in this activity, possibly spending the whole day at it.  I don't have pictures --yet.  Yes, we did buy a waterproof, disposable camera and hope it took good pictures.  We still have a few shots left on it, and it does need to be processed the old fashioned way.  I am sure I will share when we get those pics.

After the tubing we drove into the national park for some hiking.

We had heard that Cave's Cove had seen much bear activity.  This was the best we could get of a bear playing in a field.  We just missed two adult bears coming out of the forest near our parking spot when we finished our hike.

Our hike was a five mile round trip.  While it ran along a river and was mostly shaded, it was still pretty hot even late in the day.  

We had several of these bridges to cross.  This one was the worst.

We hiked to see this.  It did not disappoint.

Wildlife

This butterfly was a nice treat to watch on our way back out of the trail.

Is this a coyote?

The drive on a one way loop out of the park was frustrating.  We had Floridians in front of us, and they drove at 10 MPH or less until we could get around them.  They stopped to watch deer frolicking in fields.  Kentuckians do not care about deer.  I have seen a doe enjoy snacking on my next door neighbor's landscaping.  The park where Andy and I walk regularly has plenty of deer.  However, I will snap pics of a young buck right on the roadside, and Julia's 'road rage' over the slow drivers in front of us with her commentary was certainly amusing.

As we were cleaning and packing for departure.  I found this uninvited guest.  Lesson learned - The Great Smoky Mountains are home to scorpions.  However, these scorpions have a sting no worse than a honey bee.  Thank you, but I would rather not be stung by either.

one of the last looks

We wrapped up the trip by letting the kids see Gatlinburg. We were on a mission to find a percussion shaker or rain stick.  It took a drive to the arts and crafts community, but we found the rain stick.  We also bought lots of fudge and replaced my sunglasses which I lost in the river while tubing.  I had to replace them before I did any driving because my eyes are very bothered by the bright sun.

Favorite trip quotes:

"One of those horses looks like it has malaria." -Wyatt

"What does malaria look like on a horse?" - Mom

"It just has lots of dots." -Wyatt

"I thought the higher you went the better the WIFI." - Julia (upon discovering that the cabin had no WIFI)

Final Thoughts:  It was a great recharge.  Andy returned home in time to play the Cajon at a small, local church.  He cannot take Tuesdays off.  He can, but he has to work remotely, and that did not go so well at the beach last year.  It also seems a little unfair to work remotely most of the day while also being charged a vacation day, so a full week vacation is not going to happen while he holds this position.  I am grateful that we could pull this mini-trip off, and we have not ruled out another one.  We know people who do not see the value of just getting away--not just being off work but getting away from the demands of life.  It really does recharge your batteries and remind you of just how big our God is when you can marvel at His creation.

Birthday, Gotcha, Gotcha

We had much to celebrate at our humble abode this week.

1st up - the Birthday Girl

On the eve of Julia's birthday, she spent the night at a sleepover.  She was home for her birthday and off to another sleepover the following day.  If summer continues like this, she's going to need a job and personal assistant ;)

This was a different sort of birthday.  Typically Julia counts down the days and has grand ideas for both her party and gift wish list.  Not this year.  She was noncommittal on everything.  Her Granny always makes her a dessert of her choice, and that was one area where Julia had an opinion, so red velvet cake it was.  She also wanted knock-off Birkenstock sandals, so we made that happen.

I just have to share my favorite Julia quotes of the year.

1. When Andy tried to talk with her friends at a football game, Julia quipped, "Don't you have some friends your own age that you can hang out with?"

2. She loves real estate and looks at it regularly.  She was looking at a house that she said could be our retirement home and stated, "Well this mortgage is tolerable."  She followed that by asking, "Is there such a thing as a child realtor?"

Just a few days after Julia's birthday, we observed her Gotcha day.  We've been parenting this girl for 13 years! We have really gotten out of the habit of celebrating Gotcha Days at all other than to just say, "Happy Gotcha Day!"  --sometimes with a shout out on social media.

Wyatt's Gotcha Day follows Julia's by just two days.  It is so very hard to believe that it was a full decade ago that we met an Ultra-man loving boy who was ready for adventure!  He's grown into a witty 15 year old who loves on little kids so well and with such patience.  After the family gathered to celebrate Julia's birthday yesterday, many of us took the party to the pool where Wyatt spent probably 45 minutes just working on learning how to dive while teaching Regan how to do it.  Both have lots of work to do on their dives, but they both made great progress last night.  

Hey, hey the gangs all here!  My smaller camera lens is not working, so I have few pictures of our celebration on both Julia's actual birthday and for the family gathering as I used my phone for most of the photos.  Instead of individual photos this year, I just took a full-group picture. We missed Savannah.  When going over the best day of the weekend to gather, she suggested August 13th - when she finishes her summer internship :) We had a fun, lively, and loud celebration as is usual with this group.  Wyatt stated over and over again how much fun it was, so hopefully, we will have another evening at the pool this summer with all the local cousins.

Thoughts on Savannah's internship

I am following the organization from which Savannah has secured this summer internship on social media.  They have podcasts sharing stories about their work and their people, and through the gift of a generous friend, I had the privilege of participating in the taping of their first live podcast.  The taping did not record, but that's another story.

My knowledge of the group is new, but at the kick off the other day, I saw in action what a top notch group this is.  The summer interns come from all over the country with a couple from Canada and one from England.  I thought this was this local thing, but really other than the staff and non-profits, there are few locals involved in this.

We are close enough to get to Savannah should she need anything, and she has one day off a week.  However, after the opening ceremony and visiting the house where she is living, I see where it might be best if she does her thing without any intervention from us.  My inclination is to drop off cookies for these girls and love on them.  However, the organization founder talked about how these interns will fight their pride this summer and their entitlement.  I think that it's best that I let them wrestle through those things because while they are there to change lives, their own growth will likely be significant.  The energy and personality in that room made me want to jump in and join them.   Savannah was beaming.  She's totally following God's leading in her heart for this.

It occurred to me this morning just how difficult this would have been for Dad.  He was a worrier.  He did not like it that I took the kids to China to adopt Julia.  I told him after the fact that we spent a weekend in St. Louis a few years ago. Last summer he suggested that I should never go to New York again.  I inherited that tendency to worry.  Savannah is not in a "safe" neighborhood.  I know the city well enough to know that she's not in a most dangerous area either.  However, Dad would have been very uncomfortable with this and would have stood up against us on it.  He would have worked to talk Savannah out of it.  He often tried to convince me to talk Zach out of his career choice. I think, however, that we were all made to do something, and even with the challenges, we will do what we were born to do if we let God lead.  I know my career choice is not an easy one right now. I just finished a year where a lot of junk bubbled to the surface and it became very clear how undervalued educators are especially by politicians but often by the very communities where we serve.  It's been trying, but I still love my job.  I still work alongside people who love what they do and make a very good impact on the future of our society because they teach students to think and to be responsible and to be good citizens.

All this to say that I will be encouraging young adults to pursue this opportunity.  It will grow them spiritually while providing impressive job and life experience.  They will learn to adult and love people.  I am so grateful to the many friends and family members who made this possible for Savannah.  The work is not finished. It's just beginning.  Your prayers are still needed and appreciated.