The End of an Era

In less than 3 weeks, I will have a child in school. No more doing whatever we want, whenever we want.  From now on our schedule will revolve around the public school calendar!

We're trying to live it up the last few weeks, but it is so oppressively hot that everything must revolve around pools, beach or air conditioned spaces! A couple of weeks back, we tried to go to a waterpark in Orlando but it was full to capacity, so we went to Seaworld instead- I just about died, it was so hot and muggy. I nearly cried when we didn't get splashed during the shamu show. We have been bowling, going to the library, the movies and the mall a lot. We get to buy Natalie's school uniform this week- I'm going to just get her 2 pairs and hope that they have a used uniform sale soon, because it's almost $30 for a top and bottom and they have to be purchased through this one supplier because they are embroidered with the school logo. I also tried to order all of Natalie's school supplies through walmart grocery pickup to avoid the crowds, but ended up with a few issues- mostly things not being the correct size because the descriptions of the products aren't always very detailed.

Work has been busy, with recent new staff members and lots of returning customers, which is good! I'm trying to take a step back and work a bit less while I get used to Natalie being in school. Hopefully we'll get to enjoy a couple of Saturdays at the beach or doing some other fun family trips. Not sure how free we'll really be, though- even on the Saturdays when I don't work, we still have kittens to take to petco in the afternoon! We've got 3 little boys right now who we've been 'growing'- should be neutered shortly and then put up for adoption. This one like to tease Sammy.

I've been going crazy lately, bouncing between frenzied eagerness to do things, to stay busy and active and entertain my kids; and hopeless exhaustion, discouragement over the constant messes, the interruptions, the perpetual lack of time or space for private relaxation. Maybe the start of school will ease the tension, maybe not. We're trying to decide what, if any, activities we should let the kids do outside of Kindergarten for Natalie- more swimming lessons, gymnastics, dance, etc. Our evenings would fill up quickly. I'm also concerned with how I'm going to keep Angela entertained- she has always had Natalie to play with, so I'm worried that she will demand my attention even more while Natalie's at school. 

Photos

Here are a few photos from Micah's phone capturing the past few months, including last week's trip to the Orlando Science Center, some disneyworld visits in May, our trip to NC for spring break, our visit in SC with Jenkins cousins, Memorial day trip to Bathtub Reef with friends and Natalie's preschool graduation.

Micah performing with his homeskillet, Belle

Don't tell the IRS, buuuuuuut I think there are 2 pots of gold in our back yard.

This is why I have not felt well-rested in 5 years

Fourth of July

We had a way-too-fun Fourth of July. Unfortunately, I took ZERO pictures during the excitement, so you'll just have to trust that I'm not fabricating any of this.

In the morning, we went to the Melbourne town parade- not that exciting, but fortunately quite short. By 11am in July, it's waaaaaaay too hot for crowds of people to be gathered outdoors, so it was perfect. Kids got a few lollipops but were disappointed that there wasn't as much candy as last year. In Natalie's mind, candy being thrown at parades is the very *essence* of America.

We had a few friends over for lunch- families from church and our neighbors with the 6-acre property whose barn is adjacent to the back of our property. We advertised the event as "12-2" but it was a little past 6:30 as we saw the last two families out. I'm happy they were enjoying themselves, but it was a little exhausting and I was eager to clean up. Every room in our house was covered in cookie crumbs and every toy was dumped out and scattered in rooms other than the ones in which they began. If I succeed at ANYHTING as a parent, I want my kids to know how to respectfully behave at other people's houses, including but not limited to making huge messes with food and toys.

We bought some fireworks to do at home instead of facing the traffic after the city fireworks. Our neighbors ended up inviting us over to set ours off together with them. It was very fun! People here looooove their fireworks. As a kid, I remember it being very, very rare to see someone setting off fireworks- even smaller ones- at their homes. Sparklers were as fancy as it got. Here, every few houses someone was setting off fireworks- big ones, not just the ones that shower sparks on the ground. Our neighborhood has thick trees, so we couldn't see everyone else's fireworks very clearly, but we could still see a LOT of colored explosives in the sky! We got home around 11pm and the kids were super exhausted by the end, but it was fun. Very different from what I'm used to. And we only did one of the 2 packs of fireworks that we bought, so maybe we'll save the rest for New Year's Eve! Fireworks were going off all night long, so we slept pretty poorly. I asked Micah this monring, "Weren't you supposed to leave for work an hour ago?" and he said, "It's a new fiscal year. I don't have to go to work."

Aaaaaaaand, in unrelated news, I am SO GLAD that we have this humungous 4-bedroom house just so that our two children can try to claim our bedroom closet as their room.

Took these photos today on my sister's old smartphone that she gave me- don't use it as my phone, but am determined to use it more for photos and apps! Now, if only I could remember to ever charge it. As a spoiled non-smart-phone user, I only charge once a week...

In other news, we're fostering a kitten- started with three, two got adopted and now the lone one is super sad and bored and is kind of an attention hog. Geez, I've already got enough of those under this roof! But he is super sweet, so hopefully he will be adopted soon.