Summer So Far

Summer is the time of year when Robert is gone the most.  I remember the first summer as being the summer where I went to most things but was very hot and very pregnant, the second summer was the summer of Sarah teething molars and crying, the third summer was the summer of potty training, and this fourth summer is the summer of taking forever to fall asleep.  Interesting what major themes stick out to you.

Before summer stuff really got kicked off for Robert, I was in my second wedding of the summer!  Congrats, Tiffani and Matt!

Robert had Serve Springfield at the start of June.  Although he's technically home at night, he had 14 hour days Sunday-Wednesday.  It was an exceptionally hot week so Sarah and I really didn't join him for much.  I think we stopped by to say hi two or three times, but that was it.  Each morning the students worked at a senior adult's house scraping off chipping paint, power washing the exterior, washing his RV, and doing some yard work.  After they finished Sherwin Williams was going to send a crew to paint it for him.  In the early afternoon they worked doing landscaping for a new community of tiny houses for homeless men.  Super cool!  In the late afternoon they went door to door near our church asking if they could pray for people.  Talk about courage!  I don't know many adults who would be up for that, but the Holy Spirit always enables our students to get out of their comfort zones.  Then they'd meet up with other local student ministries for dinner and a worship service.

Sarah had her first lemonade and loved every second of it!

We celebrated Robert's 28th birthday early before he left for summer camp. 

And we got to celebrate Father's Day the day before Robert left for camp.

Camp was a week after Serve Springfield, and they returned to Camp Revo at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, AR for the fourth time.  We're hoping/thinking maybe Sarah will be able to handle going next year.  I really hope so!  The students had a great time, and I know God did big things in their lives.  Monday we went to Jump Mania with friends, Tuesday I went to visit my parents for the day, Wednesday morning was preschool, and then Wednesday afternoon hit and there was nothing left to do for the week.  I had an hour or two of panic and a pity party, but I managed to pull it together.  We went and used a gift card at Starbucks and played outside to end the day.  On Thursday we had dinner at Chick Fil A and stayed at the play place for a long time.  Thursday and Friday mornings I had other mom friends over for play dates.  Sarah has been taking an hour to an hour and a half to fall asleep at night for the last nine months.  It wouldn't be so awful if she'd just stay in her room, but she comes out several times.  She prefers Robert to do the majority of her nightly routine, and it's always worse when he's gone.  That was the case this week, but I am glad that once she went to sleep she stayed asleep.

Last day without Robert

 Robert's birthday is during camp every year, and the students always make a huge deal of it!  This year they all had cutouts of Robert's head on a stick to carry around. :)

We've been able to tag along for some small student activities like a game day and a pool party next week.  We've had lots of trips to Bolivar and have met up with Robert's mom and sister and their families.  We aren't taking any trips this summer, but it's just so hard with Robert's job, so that's how it has to be, and that's okay. :)  We'll have a fall trip to Alabama.

I donated 10" of hair to Locks of Love, and am enjoying being a bit cooler!

Sarah got more in to fireworks this year and really enjoyed throwing down the snappers.

Can't believe there's just one more month until a new school year and Sarah switches to going to preschool twice a week!

The End of Summer

Summer 2017 was a great one!  We got to go on an anniversary trip, Robert had a very busy summer with work, we went to Alabama, and Sarah turned two.  Like a lot of you, I'm sad to see that the summer is over, but unlike school aged children or people who are parents of school aged children, I'm sad because it means that I'm about to return to a more slow-paced schedule.  For a lot of people the school year feels rushed and overly packed, but I love that the summer allows our students, several of my friends, and my mom to be more available.  During the summer Robert has a lot of week-long activities, and it's hard to have him gone so much, but I like that he has some activities that Sarah and I can attend like evenings at people's houses and trips to Sonic.  I know that a lot of stay at home moms can't visit their husbands at work, but I'm thankful that Sarah and I can.  I also love that in the summer our students are willing to linger after church and events and can talk and relax and aren't always in a hurry to rush off to do homework.  In the summer it seems like we can see my parents all the time, especially my mom since she's off from school.  It's been sad when Sarah says stuff like, "I want to go outside and wait for Grandma and Grandpa."  I'm very thankful that they live as close to us as they do.

During the summer MOPS and BSF take a break, and they don't start up until September, so I've had about three weeks where the summer is over but my normal school year activities haven't started up, so my days have felt pretty unplanned.

One day this week I took Sarah to the Discovery Center, and we had the place to ourselves!  It was great!  Sarah enjoyed playing for about an hour and a half.  The pretend house area is definitely her favorite.  I will say that one of the best parts about this time of year is that we are finally getting some relief from the heat.  It's been nice to be able to take a stroller ride late morning.  I'm also looking forward to planting grass this weekend so we can hopefully have some grass in our backyard in about a month.  That'll make playing back there more enjoyable.

I feel like the mornings go fairly quickly.  We eat breakfast, take a bath, get ready, go for a walk, and run errands or have a play date.  Obviously lunch and nap time are enjoyable, but then from about 3:00-5:30 it's, "When is daddy coming home?!?!"  What do other SAHM's do in the afternoon?  I don't really like to get out again due to after school and after work traffic, so we usually just pop around from activity to activity every five minutes - Play-Doh, dolls, puzzles, etc.  I know that's a hard time of day for most SAHM's.

Sarah is currently in her bed shouting, "I'm going night night!!!"  I'm not sure she understands that one usually doesn't shout while trying to go to sleep.  Hmm...okay, thanks for reading my little post here.  I hope your school year is off to a good start!

Life Lately - The start of summer

We've started the summer off with a bang!  May ended with a youth pool party, graduation parties, and more church league softball games for Robert.  My work assignment has basically finished, so I've been finding new ways to fill my time.  One thing that is a daily must is an afternoon nap!  I spent one morning filling out some pages from this adorable baby book from Bethany and Jason.

I've been enjoying teaching the middle school girls' Sunday School class since our second week at South Gate.  Aren't they great artists?

Robert randomly found this old SG jersey when he moved into his office.  This was the last week it fit me...

 We went to Oklahoma in mid-May for Robert's former roommate and dear friend Josh's wedding.  On this trip we learned that the Oklahoma Department of Transportation will indeed accept checks when you don't have enough cash to pay for the toll.

It was such a treat to go to Bolivar for the day and see Michael!  We calculated that we'd only seen him twice since our wedding, and one time was for just a couple of minutes, so it was great to spend several hours catching up on life, going to the park, and playing Frisbee golf.

Robert and I decided that it was totally acceptable for us to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day this year even though Baby V is still on the inside.  Robert treated me to some delicious cheesecake, a nice note, and these pretty flowers.

Robert had the opportunity to preach at South Gate for the second time, and it's so cool to see God give Robert the words to say to speak to His people.

We celebrated our third wedding anniversary on May 20, and Robert took a day off from work so we could spend the whole day together.

Three years!

Mom came for a day trip to spend the morning with me, and it was so great!  We ran lots of errands together, made a Starbucks and Panera trip, and officially talked each other's ears off.

The car seat and stroller are ready for Baby V!

Mittens turned three on June 1.  It can't be scientifically proven that this is indeed her day of birth, but it's the first time we ever saw her and she was a tiny kitten so I think that's official enough.  She celebrated with some of her favorite things: her toys, lots of brushing, and her dry food - sister just won't eat fancy wet food.  Robert made her some climbing blocks for her present.  These will allow her to survey her kingdom from above.

June has gotten off to an incredibly busy start.  Our youth participated in Serve Springfield which is a local mission trip in which several area churches join forces.  Our youth had a service project each morning: working in a neighborhood garden, painting at Victory Mission, and performing random acts of kindness.  In the afternoon they would go door to door in neighborhoods near South Gate to ask for food and clothing donations and to ask if we could pray for them.  Each evening ended with dinner and worship at a local church.  It was a great experience and a cool way to show love to our community.  The very next night we took the youth to 417 Youth Night at the Springfield Cardinals.  We had front row seats on the third base line, and it was a lot of fun!

I had my eighth prenatal appointment on Friday, June 5.  It was kind of frustrating because I had to wait for about 45 minutes and then spent about 10 minutes actually being seen.  Everything is progressing well - healthy blood pressure for mom and healthy heart rate (150 bpm) for baby.

We had a bonfire for the youth on Saturday night, and we enjoy s'mores and lawn games.

And then on Sunday we had the joy of waking up to a broken refrigerator.  When I opened it up the inside was already room temperature, so we're thinking it had been out pretty much all night.  The maintenance worker was on vacation this week and really doesn't work on the weekend anyway, so it's been 60 hours and counting without a refrigerator.

The Month of June

How did it get so late so soon?  It's night before it's afternoon.  December is here before it's June.  My goodness how the time as flewn.  How did it get so late so soon? ~ Dr. Seuss

I guess it being June 20 means the year is about half over.  Hard to believe, I suppose.

We just passed the 6 month mark til Robert graduates.  It's interesting because when we moved here I hadn't moved since I was just a few months old.  I honestly had no idea what to expect.  Would we find kindred spirits immediately?  How long would it take to find jobs?  What would we look for in a church?  How do you learn where everything is in a new town - grocery store, doctor, gas stations?  On top of all of that I was learning how to be a wife and how to be an adult outside of school.  I guess a positive part about not knowing is that you aren't cynical yet, but a good thing about knowing what is like to move now is that I know that it will be difficult, but that it does get better.  I think we all know that it takes me a long time to adjust, so I'm not going to try and pretend otherwise, but for some reason I just feel more ready for this next move.  We have no idea where we will move, but I just feel peaceful about it.  We might move somewhere that we absolutely love and we'll live there forever, we might dislike living there so much that we move quickly, or it might be a place that we love but still don't stay for long.  It doesn't really even matter what it's going to be like because God already knows what's going to happen, He has cooler things planned than I could ever imagine.  It's also kind of nice not knowing everything because it would be awfully overwhelming to know everything that's going to happen in the rest of my life.

At the start of this month Robert took an intensive summer school class for one week that was Monday-Friday, 8:00-5:00.  He finished that class, and then headed to Baltimore 2 days later.  It's interesting to see how different my days are when Robert is out of town.  My days consist of way less talking, less laughing, much more sleep, boring meals, and frantic mornings making breakfast and lunch.  He had a great time Baltimore, and we're very glad he got to go.  The main bummer was a huge storm that made the 4 hour drive home turn into 7.5 hours and left me at home without power, a dead cell phone, and nothing to do for 6 hours.

This week was Vacation Bible School, and it was great!  Last year I was in charge of preschool music, and it was super fun but very time-consuming.  It was difficult to get home at 5:50 and need to be at church at 6:15.  This year I helped with preschool snack.  I guess I'd just like to encourage you to not let lack of time be an excuse for not serving others.  Sure, if you have tons of extra time and the desire then go for it and pursue a leadership position, but just because you work full-time doesn't mean you can't do anything.  

Another Week Passes

Another eventful week. :)  Robert started getting the ball rolling for his summer job.  Did I mention this before?  He'll be working at the church 30 hours a week doing janitorial projects (cleaning the carpet, painting, mowing), living in the dorm as the summer RA (this will only include two weeks of work because that's the only time his dorm will have campers, but the rest of the time he gets to live there and eat for free), and about 10 hours a week at the school cafeteria.  Hopefully he'll be doing some yard work for neighbors.  If you need any yard work done or have random projects let us know!
I'll be babysitting and taking classes this summer.  I'll be babysitting Cooper and Miles for my dear friend Carey three days a week.  Getting to hang with their family is such a treat!  I'll continue to watch them three days a week during the fall semester.  And in the fall I'll be babysitting for some SBU professors three days a week.  They have a very precious 14 month old little boy who will be fun to be around too.
Robert schedule his wisdom teeth extraction time this week.  Eek!  It'll be at the beginning of June that way he can get all healed up before he goes to South Africa.  He's going on a mission trip with our school and will be gone July 10-23.  He still needs about $1000.  I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this, but if you're able to donate and would like more information just write a comment or send me a message.
Bummer news: Wednesday the Ford dealer called which got me totally excited.  He said that Ford orders are really backed up, and my car won't be here til the first week of July.  It's a bummer because it was supposed to be here within three weeks from now.  The biggest deal is that I'll be driving to Springfield (60-70 miles round trip) to go to school six days a week for the month of June.  That's about 1500 miles ish.  It would be awesome to have my car then because it'll get 40-48 mpg while my current car gets 22 mpg.  Boo!
Also, it's been a total debacle with my Drury email stuff this week.  As I suspected might be the case I'm already out of the loop since the other nine people in my cohort already go to Drury.  I'm the only one without a Drury email, and the professor has been sending up important emails apparently.  Sweet.
I'm the RA on call this weekend so I'm working in the dorm office for seven hours.  Then I get to babysit my dear friend Elise's little sister Christi.  Should be fun!  Robert and I are leading music at the Encounter tomorrow at church.  You should come!