Preparing for Africa

In the two weeks leading up to our overseas trip, preparation became a full-time experience! I spent easily 40+ hours each week ordering supplies, collecting supplies, figuring out how many I needed for each school and age level, sorting, pre-cutting, tying 600 bells on tiny ribbons--oh yes, I called in help! I could not do it all on my own! Thankfully Buck, my awesome neighbors, the newlyweds, and and trip-participant/our pastor's daughter all pitched in and helped get the prep accomplished.

Packing everything was another massive task! I had piles and outfits and ideas laid out at least five times. And then I would put them all back in a mound and try again another day (mostly because they were on the bed and we wanted to go to sleep :)

Eventually, I caught Brennen between work and hanging out with his friends. He presented me with this pile for packing about three minutes later . . . lol, for real!

Although the pups tried to be very helpful, packing their toys and nearly themselves, we did have to put up some blockades to keep the ever-present fur from adding weight to the suitcases :)

What a sigh of relief it was to zip up that last zipper and put that massive task off my mind and to-do list! Did we bring too much food? Oh 100%--we ate like kings the entire visit! Did we utilize every craft item we brought? I wish we had, but no. Our bags got delayed even longer than we did. However, we left suitcases full of supplies for the children at the schools, so I think it was worth the effort. I hope they make rainbow tambourines from the (well-marked and thoroughly explained, itemized in individual oversized plastic bags) example found in the supply kit. Can I imagine what kind of crazy chaos spending time in the schools would have been without all this careful preparation? Lol, no! I don't even want to try!! :)

Rewind the Time

Each time I encountered one of my many to-do lists, located throughout the house and on my phone, a recurring theme appeared: finish school with Brennen, cap and gown pic of Brennen, grades and transcript for Brennen (still haven't checked that one off the list :) Graduation preparation. Time to wrap up more than a decade of education with my third scholar. All those years of learning letters, numbers, stories, histories, sciences, field trips, art projects (which of course he loved every minute of, lol), all reaching the grand finale for the third time. Kinda caught me unaware how that was going to feel. Ooof.

Is he wearing his sister's cap and gown? Yes. Was it too short for him and did he find that funny? Oh yes :) Did we put the cap on backwards and forget to move the tassel to the other side? Yes. Will I forget laughing with him about these things while he begrudgingly cooperated with my photo-taking frenzy in the midst of his video-gaming afternoon? Nope, not ever. Love this graduating guy, so, so much!!

June? Was That You???

It feels as though the June we just mad-dashed through deserves a bit of a placeholder on the blog. I'm having trouble even typing on this suddenly unfamiliar keyboard; my fingers can't find the right keys! I am planning to go back and put some meat on the bones of these few words, but perhaps as a reminder to myself . . .

--New job for me

--New job for G$

--Dental surgery for Buck

--Big boss walks for Buck

--Wild trip to Africa x 3

--Father's Day return and dinner with the Crew

--Baseball games with Mr. M

--Grandma J flies into town!

--Farm visit

--Graduation party weekend!

--Family dinner after the party

--Floods and storms

--More dental surgery for Buck

--Golfing in the lightning

--More big boss walks for Buck

--Packing up the newlyweds + dinner & cookies

--Pizza party and movies

--G$ buys another car

--Olive in diapers (two weeks too late)

--More packing, moving, and cleaning at the newlyweds'

--Our house and driveway fill to capacity

--A lovely evening memorial for Mr. R with our beautiful family

Goodness! Well, that's a lot to catch up on. July began with fireworks in the neighborhood, returning Grandma J to her home state, and Buck's neck turning to fire needles, so he can't sleep (and the shot in his tushie only helped for a few hours). We got our mower back (after about a month), the newlyweds are heading here from visiting Noah's fam to spend the rest of the week with us and their belongings (lol), and yesterday I rewrote an article and made 40 + calls (because no one is going to be around this weekend, and we are going to be pretty busy next week). 

So here comes July! If you see June, tell her Hi! We hope to catch up sometime soon :)

Baby Days

As if that two-week catch-up wasn't whirlwind enough, one week later and every day has been chock full of babies and birthdays and . . . well, I'll let the pictures help tell the tale :)

With all that happened before and during and after the trip to Utah, I was majorly behind in catching up with friends! I put it on my to-do list to contact one friend per day and get something on the calendar with them (I still have a BUNCH yet with whom to connect!) It turned out that on one particular day, two friends were available to meet--bonus: Mr. M's evening baseball game was just a baseball's throw from one of their homes! 

Well, I set out at 9:30 in the morning to visit my sweet friend C, and her golden-red-haired baby girl R . . . spending time with her is always a treasure, and I feel like I leave knowing something richer and deeper about God and life and friendship. Every time. Her son is the one whose boss bought the house for the boys to rent--I've been thinking about it--and I'm going to blog name it the CRYLER house. If Brennen moves in this summer, I'll have to change it again, lol :) It took a bit, but sweet (and also spunky) two-year-old warmed up to me and we became friends. I mean, we had plenty of time--a look at the clock and it was 3 PM!! That day completely flew by! And we could have kept talking for who knows how many more hours, BUT I'd told my other friend that I'd be to her house between 3:30 and 4.

Both of these friends live pretty far from me, like a 30+ minute drive in different directions, but according to the Googles, they actually live pretty close to each other. A little diagonal drive, and I was at S's house in like 10 minutes. I quickly checked text messages and the weather--which was looking super iffy for baseball--and then joined S and her two sweet girlies for a couple hours' chat. It's fun spending time with a mom of a two-year-old who is my age, and a mom of a two- and almost four-year-old not much older than my daughters' age. She's got another special delivery coming this fall, which is wonderful! Her girls were super comfortable with me this visit, and I spent a solid 30 minutes drawing pictures of myself gathering the mail with their family, going to the park with their family, out in the yard in the rain in front of the house with their family--it's nice that E was approving of my artistic ability, lol! By her direction, everyone got hairbows and dresses and oddly shaped feet (a.k.a. shoes).

Pretty soon, the skies opened and it absolutely poured! I texted my brother and he confirmed game canceled, then invited me out for a visit. But, it was nearing 6 and I knew I had hungry doggies at home--I did forget the boys might be there to take care of them. Either way, that was one wild ride home! At one point, water flowing across the highway perpendicular to my van lifted me right up and carried me sideways toward the ditch. Brennen said he had a similarly challenging commute on the interstate where speeds were 25 and visibility was maybe two car lengths. Eeek!!

An hour or so later, the rain dried up but the ground did not. Brennen very kindly helped me address the mud puppy situation that ensued while I made dinner; Daisy made a mess. Then jumped all over Olive and made her a mess. But, I guess they were both due for a good scrub and shampooing . . . they didn't like the freezy hose water very much, though (actually, neither did we as they ran in circles trying to escape, and we inevitably got sprayed trying to keep them in one washable spot :).

At this point, I was pretty sure I couldn't be social any more, but our trip leader called to go over the Africa planning that I'm in charge of, so another 45 minutes on the phone rounded out my very social day! Baby count three.5, with an additional opportunity saved for a not-rainy day :)

The very next morning, I set my alarm for 5:35 am!! What? Me?! Yup. Because of some ongoing medical complications with her father-in-law, H needed someone to care for Vi while she went to do a several-hour scan (for herself) at a medical clinic. Vi and I watched some Bluey, read some books, then she took a snuggle nap (for nearly an hour). She awoke about the same time her mama returned to collect her. I asked how the test went, and both of us got the giggles when she said she fell sound asleep and they had to cancel it. That doesn't seem like a funny scenario, I suppose, but H said they put her in a dark room, with a lullaby-like whirring noise from the machine, gave her a pillow, and then left for an hour--what did they expect to happen?! She's an exhausted single mom and it's 6:00 in the morning! So, she will reschedule. The little ones start, what my in-the-know Czar friend says is, a really wonderful childcare center this week. I may not have as many opportunities to spend time with the girls now, but I'm on the list for any unexpected care needs. 100 percent!

The still-early morning hour gave me an opportunity to run up the hospital for my next round of bloodwork--I've got two new rounds of orders, no three! as of today's appointments, but I'll get to that. Anyway, during that (long) lab visit, the fire alarms started going off--and then continued going off. It took forever for the squawking and flashing to end. Not the most relaxing situation to have someone putting a needle in my vein :) I did go home and take a nap after that, because--not only was I wiped out--it was a big day! My sweet sister-in-law celebrated a milestone birthday, and my brother invited us to the party :) Only a few of the Crew could attend, and Graysen just by a whisker, but we fully enjoyed fine dining (Caelan and I ordered the same thing), good company (lots of things to talk about with all the recent happenings), attentive staff (who were quite entertaining), and an endless amount of Bundt cake (the birthday girl's favorite :) 

Baby H wasn't feeling great, but she drank most of her bottle for me, then sat up and grabbed my silverware with some amazing kind of extend-o-reach that only babies have. Caelan did her best to clean the garlic butter from between the 8-month-old fingers (H somehow grabbed my appetizer plate, too!) Then baby went around the table to sit with her grandma while I enjoyed my salad. Mmmm, it was all so delicious!

At one point, my brother asked the waiter to refill the cup of "the little boy in the blue shirt." The waiter looked at Graysen and said, "Well, you don't seem that little, but . . ." That made us laugh for awhile! Not only are the three "boys" to Graysen's right wearing blue shirts, but so is the one sitting to his left. Unintentional color theme! G$ chose to sit where he did to have the best view of fun cars driving through town. Not quite the number or variety as we saw in Utah, but there were still a couple of winners in his book :) We felt very fancy (at least Caelan and I did) being treated to the multi-course dinner and valet parking by my brother. It's fun to have a relaxing evening where everything is just taken care of and all you have to do is enjoy the company and the meal.

Such a pretty birthday girl! I'm always thankful she's part of our family's story <3 Oh, and baby day count: three.75! T's baby is due in weeks? days? and her youngest is nearly two, too :) 2022 really was packed with baby girls!

The next day I spent in full planning mode--groceries, finances, craft and VBS activities for Africa . . . ALLLLLLLLLL day! Brennen came home from work and said, "Can I go to a concert tonight? R has tickets." So, he grabbed his cowboy boots (couldn't find his hat) and headed off to see Alabama. His post-concert summary, "He's pretty old, so he wasn't very energetic. But he still sounds awesome! There were a lot of songs I knew, but didn't know were by that band." An observation Buck guessed ahead of time (also Buck was a bit bummed there wasn't an extra ticket for him ;)

This past week has just been . . . wow!! So much going on, like even moreso than our usual so much going on. The next morning, Mr. M had a baseball game in a nearby town. I drove over to watch and got to spend some more time with Baby H. My brother was the crowd entertainer, pretending to voiceover the "commercial breaks" (my mom and M's other grandma were watching the livestream C set up), reading off the banners in the outfield. I have to say, he reminds me more and more of our dad all the time :) Oh, and while we were there the karate twins rolled up in a cart pull-behind their dad's bike! They were covered in grass clippings, collected for birds' nests, I was told :) It was fun to see them, goodness, they are nearly four! I'm still counting them as babies, though, it fits my theme, lol!

Around this time Brennen texted, "Hey, am I busy at like 7 pm?" I told him he was free. So he replied, "Sweet, my pilot friend wants to take me and C up to fly around for awhile." Wait, what?! What did I accidentally just agree to?? Lol! As it turns out, he has multiple pilot friends, this is not the one he told me took his gf up to see the Northern Lights when they appeared on our horizon (did I mention Buck and I tried to see them, but didn't know you had to look through your camera for the colors to show up--how did everyone know that but us?? :)

Okay, so after Mr. M's game, I decided to miss the first grad party I was invited to--reluctantly; I even had her gift in the van with me. I just knew there wasn't enough time in that particular day to do all the things that needed to get done. At home, I worked on organizing all the links and photos and scans and ideas and craft list items and music and . . . ALL THE THINGS into one useful document to share with our trip leader prior to our next team meeting. Well, an hour wasn't enough, but I made good progress. Then I texted the boys (who are rarely home) that I needed them at the house at 1:45 to leave for our marathon of afternoon eye doctor appointments. 

I just now realized I was invited to a total of four grad parties that day; two were out of state, so not options. But I could catch the one at our church, if only for a little while! This one was for our kindly retired gentleman neighbor's granddaughter. She's grown up in our youth group, and, even before that, I knew her older brother who attended youth group at our previous church when I helped out there. Their mom often checks in with me on homeschooling curriculum and events to gather some insight, some inside scoop, lol ;)  Anyway, Syd's party was so well planned with so many awards and accolades, organized, and informative! I'm gathering ideas--to tell to Caelan! She's my party planner this round :)

Back to my baby day count: five! I only had about 25 minutes at the graduation party, but spent some time catching up with our former youth intern, her hubby, and baby T (that's my hand on her head, lol :) And I was dangerously close to getting distracted by my friend C and little R, who walked in right as I was walking out. Confronted unexpectedly with a room full of people and balloons, R squeezed her eyes shut. "If I can't see you, you can't see me," explained her mom ;)

At home, I gathered the boys. We then proceeded to knock out our four appointments (Gabby took care of hers earlier and brought her dad a coffee, aww!). The boys got started, after some convincing, on the grocery list item acquisition--which actually saved us a solid amount of time. G$ originally wanted to get down to the farm to help on projects, but then got distracted by . . . a dirt bike. He'd been waiting for an address all afternoon, when I noticed the Utah spot on his leg had grown to somewhat epic proportions. I texted a pic to Doctor Auntie and she was like, "Yup, he needs to go to the walk in clinic." 

I had him in the car, en route (because six appointments in one day is fun!), when the seller guy binged him back an addy. We circled home, he grabbed the truck and then his bro-in-law; I grabbed another grocery list, and away we went in different directions. By the time Buck arrived home, I was exhausted and craving protein. He was willing to go get burgers and fries (sweet potato for me) at a restaurant it turns out he's been craving for weeks or maybe months, IDK. He always lets me pick!

I wondered how it was that both our boys were out doing "dangerous" things while we sat propping our eyes open and eating bar food at table 31 ;) It wasn't much later that Brennen flew over our house in the airplane! I wish we would have timed it right, because we were out there checking on the chickens and admiring the spring flower bloom!

Graysen was ripping around the farm on his new bike, but I don't have the pictures he showed me to show you (yet :) Pretty awesome weekend for the lads! But wait . . . there's more :)

Alarm set for 7:35--the next morning I was in the nursery, babies galore!, with my best helper friend--it was our last time before the summer schedule takes us apart. She's also a librarian, which makes her extra cool! We entertained the tiny crowd, and then did our usual Ms. Fix-It tasks--tightening tables and spiffing up toys. Baby count: five!

Buck actually had a Sunday off and we got to sit in church together, while G$ helped in the tech booth. We all drove separately, so I guess that brings my baby day count to six, because, after they left, I got to see Vi and give her momma a hug :) I caught up to the guys at home, then we jumped in the van and drove to meet the other five after they all finished up church and lunch. Noah and Caelan initiated the rest of our day, making a reservation for eight at a mini-bowling game place. Mini-bowling is fun! The young men formed one team, and the ladies plus Buck formed the other. The young men were hucking the ball down the lane at like 50 mph . . . our lane was in the 20s and 30s. My very first roll was a strike!!--and then plenty of everything but that. 

We played two games before our time ran out. It was still pretty early for dinner, so we visited an ice cream shop Caeloah are big fans of--now the rest of us are fans, too! Also, the ice cream was filled--like they soft serve it so there's a middle and they put sauces or treats inside, and then roll the outside in crushed cookies or candy. Pretty creative, and very creamy! Plus BeReal went off, so lots of photos :) 

Dessert before dinner is fun! But when your dinner destination is the Trash Panda Palace . . . 

Okay, that's not the official name, but that is the official mascot! Only the best for a triple birthday dinner for our March and April birthday crowd :) Two-thirds of them voted yes on this, and the third-third by default. It really felt like being in a throwback Marvel movie scene or some other warp in the "time line" ;) The fried chicken was spot on! The cleanliness was spotty, but I mean--raccoons are the dinner show, so . . .  lol!! (the waiter showed us pictures of when up to 60 raccoons swarm on the deck!!)

We arrived home in time for our Africa meeting, and I made carrot bars--and then I finished that document I mentioned earlier. Good gravy, Marie!

You'll never guess what happened next . . . I set ANOTHER alarm for 7 a.m. . . . ooof! I had three doctor appointments, the girls each had one, and then when I found out G$'s boss was out of town, so G$ wasn't at work--I got him to the doctor before noon, too (and yes, if you're keeping track all of those appointments took place, in two separate states, all before lunchtime. Gah!) The only baby was one I heard crying during G$'s appointment (it was about to get some shots), so we won't count this as a baby day. However, it was a day of accomplishment as post-appointments, I also shopped for graduation and a smidge for Africa, knocking out three stores and lunch . . . then home to watch training videos for my new job after all the groceries were put away. Stack on top of that, this lovely recounting of one week's wowza!

Up again early tomorrow--for my first day of work! I feel like I need a new backpack or something, heehee :) I should probably set an alarm . . .