December 2022

One lovely hot summer morning the kids wake up, two and eight years old. The sun has risen two hours prior around 5am. The air conditioner kicked on before anyone woke to chase out the heat in the quiet humid home. Birds chirp endlessly right outside the front door. Life is busy, life is crazy! The clock just keeps spinning, I mean like fast forward spinning with abandon. Then suddenly years are gone, the children are four and ten years old. It's dark outside at 7am. The heater is chasing the cold chill of a December winter from the midst of a dark room speckled with Christmas tree glow. Christmas is just three weeks away AGAIN! How is Christmas here again? 

Several birthday parties have flown by in the blink of an eye. Wonderfully fun celebrations of life! A few family vacations are in the books. Several amusement park trips, an RV rental through Michigan's U.P. and an incredibly overstimulating trip to Tennessee's Gatlinburg/ Pigeon Forge area, including a short little cabin stay, two days at Dollywood, and of course a little jaunt through Smokey Mountain National Park. It's funny how you look back and remember only the amazing, most joy filled parts. That's a pretty great human quality I think.

The first year on a baseball team for Abe was tackled and highly enjoyed! Swimming lessons are underway at the YMCA for Wren. Our days of homeschooling continue as fifth grade is almost complete. Almost seven years into this homeschooling adventure (including preschool and kindergarten) we've really grown to LOVE history. Some days are seemingly identical. In fact so many of the days are seemingly identical but I couldn't complain for a second about that because the monotony is complete with health, yummy food, silly arguments, laughter... perfection? NO! Life is busy, life is crazy, life is MESSY, but life is a blessing.