Life as It Is

A lot going on lately. We've been finishing up the projects I talked about previously. Unfortunately Rick has been battling some infections so hasn't been up to par.

River gets around really well now, so it can be exhausting (in a good way of course) to keep up with her. She's been hanging out while Mama works and even stayed overnight Sunday night.

I think I totally missed sharing about the beginning of the new year. I started a new tradition--our own polar bear plunge with breakfast cooked at the beach and hot chocolate afterward. Of course it's not as cold here as up north where they have true polar bear plunges.

Before

Hamming it up after
Looking at the video taken on my new Go Pro and Jessica's, we discovered that the three "littles" cheated by not going all the way under. Next year we are thinking of going to the springs where there's a ledge to jump from and all jumping at once.

We all made our goals/wish list/ to do list for 2017, read them aloud and toasted them with sparkling blueberry/grape juice.

Afterward three of us went to a combination birthday celebration. When Jessica was dating Hunter and Adam was dating Deja, we had four late December/early January birthdays. So we started going out for them. Deja dropped out of the picture, and River joined the team December 30, 2016. So we still have a four way celebration. Anyone can go, but everyone pays for his/her own meal.

I have more to post about, but this is already getting long. So, next time.

Doing it All at Once

I haven't been on my blog as much as usual. The reason is that we have had several projects going on. A couple of months ago we looked at a waterfront house. We were really interested, but it didn't seem like the right house for us because it was a duplex, and I have a drummer and two trombone players. The location was great though. We also realized we need to get our house paid down more and also make some repairs.

The list of repairs was long, but mostly things like new flooring in the kitchen, new decks on both sides, replacing woodwork that is water damaged and so on. So I decided to use my birthday money (today is actually my birthday, but we bought the tile three weeks ago.) We also sold our wooden swingset and bought boards for one of the decks.

About this time, an adoption caseworker from the state called to say he was coming on January 6. Yikes! That gave us less than three weeks to do the decks and flooring. We jumped right in with the flooring and the first part went pretty well, but cutting the tile to fit around door frames and the little pieces around the edge got crazy.

When we pulled the old linoleum, we wrote our favorite verses on the wooden floor before we laid the tile.

First tile laid.

Replacing water damaged bottom piece.

We also started pulling apart both decks thinking it would just as easy to do both at once. They are both very small. One deck was built under Jessica's direction a few years ago. The other was here when we bought the house. It has steps up both sides, so we left one side so we'd have a way to get into the house. The problem was, it turned out the risers were rotted on those steps. Risers were $200 each so Rick made a pattern and cut the risers himself. We also decided to have just a single set of steps on that side.

So the past couple of weeks we've been laying tile, cutting wood, building steps and so on. Also during this I've been dealing with an injured elbow, so didn't get to do much of the building. So I did a lot of waterproofing boards and painting woodwork. We didn't get everything quite done, but did a good job of hiding it!

I don't have pictures of everything finished, but I do have a few of the inside of  the house in general.

My office that I share with everyone.

I will get some of the finished projects next time and also share the cool part of the adoption home study visit.

Life Now that School has Started

Now that school has started, we are kind of into a routine, and life is pretty ordinary. We still try to get to the pool or beach on the weekends, but it's not the same. Sigh.

Two of the kids have an insane schedule.

Our days go like this:

On school days, Rick and Kayla are out the door at 6:10 to drop Kayla at her charter school bus stop, and then Rick goes on to work. Jasmine, Kaleb and I get up when they leave. Previous years we all had devos and family meeting at 5:40. So it feels different not doing that. We try to read a devotion at supper because despite the crazy schedules, we try to all eat together even if it's at 4:30.

Kaleb does his afternoon jobs at 6:30 a.m. because his afternoons are crazy. He also does his homework before school. Jasmine does her homework in the morning, too.

Either Ty or I leave with those two at 7:45 and drive them to two schools in two very different districts. Jasmine's school starts at 8:30 and Kaleb's at 9:00. She is in kind of a poor school, and Kaleb goes to the rich middle school. It's laughable how different the school are. Sometimes they have club before school. Both twins plan to join Fellowship of Christian Students/Athletes.

In the afternoon, we pick Jasmine up at 3:10. We were going on to Kaleb's school (he gets out at 3:30), but the car line is so long that it was a two hour round trip. So Rick is picking Kaleb up at 4:00 after he gets off. That is about what time we actual got through car pick up anyway. His doing that really helps because we can get Jasmine home at 3:30 instead of 4:45. Kayla's bus gets here about 3:45.

On Monday evenings starting after Labor Day, Jasmine will have County Christian Choir from 6-8:15. This includes a Bible study each year. They will be going on tour to Michigan next summer.
The twins were going to be in the Middle School choir, but the director was just selected to sing with the USAF choir and tour the world. So middle school choir was cancelled. There has been a bit of a fuss over that, so they may come up with something for them.

Jasmine has percussion at 5 and full band at 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was no way to get her home, fed and back in the days before Rick took over picking up Kaleb.

Kaleb has swim team every night at the college which is about 45 minutes away, a little less if there is no traffic. Thankfully it starts at 6:45 so he has a short time to get home, eat, change and head back out.

We are going to take Wednesdays off from team and all three go to youth group at church. We may take some Fridays off too. Jasmine has football games many Fridays. I would like them to have some unscheduled time too, although the twins need the structure of schedule even if it's scheduled outdoor free play or Wii (electronics are rare around here with the exception of Ty which is pretty much all the time he isn't at work or driving).

Kayla was supposed to start city soccer, but she violated some counseling goals/rules/boundaries, so she will start with either school soccer or city basketball in a couple of months. She will do youth group with the others but is disappointed there is no middle school choir.

So life is a bit crazy around here. If grades fall or kids get too stressed, something will have to go. The problem is that band really stresses Jasmine out, but if you skip a practice, you can't play at the game plus you get an F AND have to write a research paper. That goes for excused absences too, so don't dare get sick! She is going to drop band either after first semester or after the year because of the stress. It also takes the whole summer. This summer we went on a family vacation at the only time we could, and she missed percussion camp. It wasn't pretty. She also missed an evening practice the week of her surgery and couldn't carry her drum during full band camp because of the weight and her recovery. I think kids need the summer off. We do our summer math and reading packs, but also family time and free play.

While the kids are at school, Jessica, Tyler, River and I get time together. Jessica, River and I went to the beach last week.

My Nikon is damaged, and my water camera's battery went dead after these two photos, so no cute water pictures.

Ty is always talking about how I do things with the girls, but that he and I don't share any major activities (our advanced scuba fell through--money and instructor changes), so he and I went to comic con in Pensacola for a day.

This morning before going to the pool, the girls went to Lowes to the free kid's workshop. Technically Jasmine is too old, but that's one advantage of being small. Even though her age is on the registration form, they have never told her she's too old.

They made the last of the Avengers characters they've been making each time. There were six total.

We've been also working on using the jigsaw at home.

So that's kind of how life has been here lately.