June Scrapbook Day 2017

Scrapbook day for June fell on a Saturday of Fathers Day weekend. My roommate from college came to visit for the day and it was so fun connecting with her family. It felt like no time had passed at all and I am always encouraged to love the Lord more deeply after being with her and her husband. Their commitment to the Lord, to each other, and to their work is inspiring and it is a lot of fun to be in fellowship with them. We capped the evening with a birthday dinner for our friends in Colorado, who joined me on the girls weekend to San Francisco the weekend before. Overall it was a great day. The kids are loving summer, the lazy days, the pool, and simply being out of school mode.

Denver Zoo

As I write this, it is November, several months past since we went to the Denver Zoo at the end of our home school year last May. But we celebrated our last day of school at the Denver Zoo with our babysitter/friend who watched the kids during the year while I would work with them each in school. The Denver Zoo is quite a nice zoo and we had a fun day with our friends. Our transition to public school has gone well, for the most part. A lot came into our decision to switch from public school to home school. In a nut shell, mama needed a break, and we felt that they simply would do better responding to teachers with their academics than they were to me as mama and teacher. They are both thriving socially and academically. The biggest challenge has been at home. The school day is a much longer day than our home school day was so they come home pretty tired and worn out. Plus, we have a lot more to parent emotionally, especially with a nine year old girl in the house, so that takes a bit more energy than it did when we were schooling at home. I do not know if we will home school again. We are all open to it and depending on our circumstances it may be a better fit at a different season. But for this season in our lives I am grateful for a good school with a family community where we have felt cared for and treated well. Some people wonder what I do all day and surprisingly the time goes by quickly. Between taking care of J Man, prepping dinner before kids get home, BSF and leadership meetings, and trying to organize around the house occasionally, my time goes by quickly and before I know it we are walking to the bus to pick the kids up. With the husband traveling a lot, it is best for me to be home and provide some consistency for our family and the kids. I miss them during the day but I am grateful to be home when they come home, hear about their day, and watch them grow and develop.

May Visitors and Scrapbook Day

Scrapbook day for May fell on a Tuesday. The big kids were at their co op for the day and I had the J Man. We went on a walk at a nearby trail with a friend and then took daddy to the airport! Not much exciting. We also went to community group that night with church. We were blessed to have visitors from Tokyo come to see us. One family still lives in Tokyo and the other family we met in Tokyo but currently reside in St. Louis. It was so fun to connect with them and enjoy being with people who shared that time of our lives with us. We went into Boulder one day, took a walk to a local park, visited Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs and ate a lot of good food together. It was neat for us to hear our kids talk with their kids about things they miss from Japan and to have that connection as well for our kids. It is simply special. Here are some highlights from their trip to see us.

K Man Turns 6

The K Man turned six on May 2nd. He is into all things Star Wars even though he has never seen the movies. So, we did a Star Wars themed birthday party with a few friends. I found these plastic light sabers at Walmart for $2 and recruited our neighbor friends' sons to come do a fight with the K Man and his friends. It was a very low key party and the K Man had a lot of fun. We had the cutest star wars cupcakes and such a good day. On his actual birthday he had his co op and they were performing their puppet shows so we got to watch the kids in action and take cup cakes. Then we went to our church community group and they celebrated him there with cupcakes again. K Man is such a sweet boy. He is all boy and loves to play but he also has a sensitive side to him. It takes him time to warm up to people and he likes smaller groups as opposed to large group events. He is learning to read and is doing great in school at home. He observes a lot and is careful to jump into things. I am so proud of the young man he is growing up to be and cannot wait to see what God does in his life.