Endless Summer

Many license plates in Florida say "endless summer" on them. This is accurate for where we live. It is very hot outside for at least half of the year. When I first moved here, I thought this wouldn't bother me since I grew up outside of Atlanta. Lately, however, it's been getting to me. It feels like the sun is beating down on me, draining me of any excess energy.

This is Micah, by the way. This blog has been less frequently updated for a while now. I'm not making any promises to regularly update it from now on, but I feel like writing tonight, so here I am, and we'll see if I make a habit of updating in the future. 

Emily: Emily is very, very, cute. She is too cute. She is approaching an age of optimal cuteness, perhaps. Observe.

How our kids have had such cuteness is somewhat of a mystery to me. It certainly has nothing to do with me. It's as if there is some magical combination of Sarah and my genes that produces cuteness which exceeds our own. This is fortuitous since the girls can be a little oppressive and annoying from time to time. But anyways back to Emily. She can say: "dada", "mama", "baba", and "a-lala" (translation Angela). She can stand without support and cruises everywhere, but has not walked yet. She's very close though, she probably could but she chooses not to since she gets around fine with her gimpy crawl in which she favors one side heavily. She is both very happy and very sensitive, like Natalie and Angela have been. I think she will be very bright, though it's hard to say at this point whether she will be more like Natalie or Angela. 

Angela: Angela passed VPK with flying colors, and is now feeling pretty bored this summer. She loves playing games, playing more games, did I mention playing games? She can't wait for kindergarten to start and neither can we ; ). She will be going to the same charter school as Natalie, West Melbourne School for Science, and has a chance of having the same kindergarten teacher as Natalie had (she had the same VPK teacher that Natalie had, btw). It feels like there should be a picture of Angela here, here's one

Natalie: To me, it feels like Natalie has leveled up recently. She read's chapter books, such as diary of wimpy kid and the like, on her own and finds this relaxing. She was tested this year for the gifted program, and scored just below the score at which they recommend placement at her school, but they said to request testing next year, which we probably will. Natalie still enjoys playing and being silly with Angela, but recently it feels like she's taken on more and more pseudo-adultish characteristics, which is both refreshing and terrifying. It's fun for me to watch her grow and try to help where I can, because I feel like I understand her better than she knows, because we have some things in common. It's also hard for me to observe some of the negative behaviors associated with Natalie's personality, since many are just magnified expressions of my own negative tendencies. Here is a cameo.

Both girls are a little obsessed with TV shows, which is we try to limit to 2 hours of screen time daily. Natalie, especially, has been a little too obsessed, and can become very emotional at the suggestion that we do something else as a family that can take the place of TV time, e.g. As a parent, it's hard to compete for your child's attention, with Youtube and Netflix offering essentially endless entertainment which is way more captivating than anything associated with reality. Although this is a harsh reality, we have to stand firm in requiring that we do lots of things in the real world as a family, like going on bike rides, playing outside, and playing games together, etc.

As for me and Sarah, we are trying to move forward, but we have our ups and downs. All in all, though, it's hard not to accept the many blessings we have in our life. To not be grateful for the conveniences and relative ease of life which we regularly experience would mock the sacrifices and physical/emotional hardships of most of humanity since well, as long as we know about. We have a home and I have a steady job which pays our bills and enables us to live without worrying too much about finances. We have vehicles which work and can carry our family to where we need to be and we have friends nearby who we can relate with. We have a lot to be thankful for. 

I think for tonight I'll just leave it at that, but I hope in the future I can relate more on a personal level about things that fill my thoughts from day to day. E.g., I find it amazing that so many of us can feel so deeply about this thing or that or long for human connections which seem to elude us, no matter how hard we try. Though we live in a world of temporal well being and comfort, many of us are not entirely well or whole. I know that I need to turn to the Savior, and I know that He knows everything we go through, and I'm grateful for this and need to rely on the Atonement more than I do now. I just don't want to let my life go by and not find a way to connect with others or share with the world what I feel and see while I am here. 

Cheers,

Micah

End of an Era

The girls completed their first and possibly last year of dance! They had to stretch to stick with it even when they both got bored of classes in the last month or two. The final recital was great- both girls felt proud and did well at their routines.

Angela is on the far left

Girls finished up school. Yay! Last day for Angela was a fun program of singing followed by eating cupcakes. Natalie got a no-uniform day. Angela is already counting down the days until she gets to start kindergarten in the fall. Natalie is looking forward to a summer of going to the beach, reading, and mindless screen time.

It's been a rough year with kids on two different school schedules plus Emily. I look forward to next year- I feel like it will be incredibly easy having just one morning drop off and one afternoon pickup and one nice predictable afternoon nap for the baby. Right now we have no routine and it's making both me and Emily very tired and cranky. She takes between 1 and 5 naps daily, mostly in the car, often in my arms as we are out and about, and on rare occasions, at home in her crib. While I have a little more control over our schedule in the summer, I have a feeling that we will prioritize anything that gets Natalie and Angela active and engaged. We're planning lots of trips to pools, the beach, bowling, visits to the library, playdates with friends- at least one chance to get out of the house every day. It's hard when you live on the surface of the sun and going to the playground, riding bikes and visiting nature sites are out of the question between 8am and 8pm.

We kicked off summer vacation right by taking a trip to Legoland!

It was our first time, but we will be back! Looking forward to exploring more of the rides and experiences on a less hot, crowded day.

 We mostly came to enjoy the water park, which (in true Florida style) closed down because of lightning after only a few hours. At least we found a few air conditioned things to do!

This car was clean this morning. One drive through central FL resulted in all these lovebugs on the car!

Update

Both my brother and sister, within 24 hours of each other, independently told me that I should get back to blogging. I consider that 2 witnesses- that qualifies as divine revelation.

I can add more photos and details, but for now, lets keep it brief, so I don't get too discouraged....

Natalie is excitedly looking forward to summer. She loves school and learning, is super smart and easily excelling in all subject areas, but is struggling socially/emotionally. She likes to be silly and make people laugh and get attention, but I think it's starting to come across to her peers as just obnoxious. She has lots of meltdowns and outbursts, gets disciplinary write ups routinely and is peeing her pants all the time. At home, she is volatile and swings between frenzied excitement, untempered destructiveness, and solemn introversion. Her favorite things to do these days are read, get super-jumped by Dad on the trampoline and make up craft projects/trash the office room. She is losing more and more teeth, giving her smile a jack-o-lantern-like appearance.

Angela is pretty sure that the world is out to get her most days. She perceives everything as "not fair" and 97% of her communications to me are in a whine. She hates every single things that I make for dinner and consequently goes to bed hungry most nights and wakes us up all night complaining of a stomach ache. She loves preschool and is very social. She loves watching and playing Frozen, her friends and dessert. Her hair seems to be recovering finally from Natalie hacking it off over a year ago. She is five now and got to celebrate by ice skating with a few fellow Frozen enthusiasts.

Emily is crawling all over everything, pulling herself up, climbing stairs and falling over and hitting her head. Her love language is mouth contact. She wakes up on-and-off all night long and refuses to follow a predictable nap routine. She likes being held and climbing the dishwasher. She passionately seeks out electrical outlets and chords and chases the dog. She doesn't like her car seat or eating anything green.

Micah is very busy. He travels a lot. He works a lot. When he is home, kids are in his face until we go to sleep. He recently saw a doctor about prolonged back pain and got to pay for an x-ray and mri to discover that he has 2 herniated disks. Doctor wanted to refer him to a surgeon, but he isn't interested in that and met with his doctor to discuss other options which he hasn't had time to tell me about. He is pretty sure the injury is from carrying kids, NOT from falling on his back during crossfit doing some crazy pull-up maneuver a few months back.

We are now 6 months past our initial insurance claim about our roof and have finally hired an attorney. We have several leaks, drywall damage, possible frame deterioration from prolonged water exposure, broken window seals and haven't even begun to consider the potential of mold. We can't make any repairs because of the possibility of needing another professionals' opinion about the nature of the damage. Insurance is claiming it is natural wear and tear or poor construction, but it is obviously wind damage from the last hurricane. No end in sight to this nightmare.

I am angry and perpetually exhausted from having to worry about everyone in our family and everything around us. The only thing that keeps me going is my absolute certainty that nobody here cares and deciding that "I can't take it anymore" will only result in more work for me in the future as all the cleaning and maintenance and lapses in discipline and order build up. So I just keep going.

General Conference

Summaaaaa

The first half of summer vacation has been a whirlwind of adventure. The first two weeks of June, the kids both did a rigorous session of swim lessons every day to solidify their competence in the water and now I can trust them both at a swimming pool without a floaty. The following week we spent in NC with family at a beach house. When we returned, we had our Nephew visit us for a week and the kids got to enjoy two vacation bible school programs- one at a friend's Adventist church and one at the Baptist church where Angela is attending preschool in the fall. We then spent 2 weeks babysitting a friend's cat in exchange for the key to their community pool, which we visited many times. Mixed in all that, we've had the Fourth of July (cookout and sprinkler/slip and slide play with friends, watching/setting off fireworks. Micah nearly lost his hand.), a visit to the Orlando Science Center, a trip to the zoo, free slushie day at 7-11, Cow appreciation day at Chic fil A (our thirst for free food knows no bounds), trips to the beach, doctor and dentist visits, and a whole lot of eating peanut butter sandwiches.

I knew that it was time to finally graduate from the mattresses-on-the-floor setup that our children have endured for their entire lives thus far when Angela came up to our bed one evening, flung her arms around the foot of our cheap, broken Ikea bed frame and dreamily declared "Someday, I want a bed with these". We purchased a set of beds that could be oriented as singles or a bunk bed, intending them to be used side-by-side in the same positions as their current setup. Problems came when the kids, who were "helping" me put the beds together, looked in the instructions and saw the additional steps that could make it a bunk bed. They begged and begged and ultimately were so agreeably persuasive about how Natalie could sleep on top and Angela could sleep on the bottom that I caved and now they have bunk beds floating in the middle of their humongous room. If someone is going to break an arm, hopefully, they will get it out of their systems before the end of the calendar year, since we will be meeting our insurance deductible this year anyway.

 Everybody "helping". Even the dog, who contributed by providing extra motivation not to accidentally drop the top bed onto the bottom one as, with the help of the girls, I lifted and aligned the two beds.

The girls are so thrilled that they have not gone to sleep since the introduction of their new beds.

Cousin time thrills everyone. Except maybe Adam, he doesn't look so happy.

Grandpa educating Angela on the finer processes of modern civilization; namely, ordering McDonalds on a touchscreen

Me and Natalie and Brooklynn gettin' our toes did

Natalie was a little too small to sit back and enjoy the chair massager while putting her toes up on the ledge for the technician, but she still enjoyed it. Just ignore the scowl, they were both thrilled.

Oh, just the usual- Grandma LeAnn captivating crowds of grandchildren by telling stories

Silly ways of wearing headbands at vbs

I want to be able to lounge around in bed in my underware half the morning. No fair!

Brevard Zoo has this fun splash pond where, on Tuesdays, the drop a few giant chunks of ice for the kids to play with

Natalie pressing her head to the ice in an attempt to escape the oppressive heat

Cow decor at the Chicfila we visited on Cow Appreciation Day

Tongues on free slurpee day

North Aquatic Center, where they have diving boards and water slides. Woohoo!

 Natalie jumping:

 Angela's turn:

Natalie had one cavity to fill, but it necessitated a crown. So, now she has a silver tooth and we got to listen to this for about 2 hours after the procedure. She's a bit sensitive. I didn't capture her repeated insistence that she was going to die, but here she claims that it hurts more than a broken bone.