i almost don't know where to begin. this has been my longest blog absence since 2007...but i have a few good excuses. for starters, we moved into a new house at the end of march and it has taken us until now to fully retrieve all our belongings from the old place. the new house...what can i say about it? i am so happy here! i love the neighborhood, i love that the kiddos ride bikes to school, i love living on one level with no stairs, i loved painting (and almost finishing) the walls, i love the layout and the size and the neighbors...i really could go on and on. this house is a much better fit for us and seems to work well with our theme of simplifying and living without excess. the kids love it too. let's see...what are my other excuses? i've been taking seven semester hours on-line in order to re-certify for teaching, which i hope to do online in the fall. any spare moment was spent stressing over espanol and world literature. tonight i got my grades--As for both, y'all!! in other news, todd's brother tim got married at the end of april (those pix to come later), and we were all in the wedding. what a busy, crazy, and beautiful time! i've also still been working for gem, at least two days a week, and sometimes more depending on what's going on. i was also the chair for hospitality for hand camp this year, so the month of march had me hopping around preparing. those pix to come in another post as well. i've also taken up photography as a little paid hobby. i've had a few folks have me do family portraits or maternity sessions and i am loving it. it has fueled my desire to a)get a better camera than my canon rebel (although it's a pretty nice one), b)learn how to use photoshop (i've gotten by with iphoto's editing program, but could do SO much more), and c)take a photography class to officially learn things i have taught myself. we'll see if any of those come to fruition, as they each require time, money, or both...and finally, in addition to soccer four nights a week and the general daily life of managing four children, i have been doing freelance writing for giggle magazine. this is truly a dream-come-true and every time i get another story assignment, i'm doing cartwheels in my mind! all these things have left zero time for sleep, but i can feel a little margin creeping back in as may picks up and the only major item on my agenda is the wedding of my brother and leslee on the 26th. so, with all that said, tonight...i blog.
we visited my folks recently--mostly for leslee's bridal shower, but we also took advantage of mimi and poppy's pool and the beach. it was a fun and whirlwind weekend, but the kids reveled in their first pool foray in 2013...
at the shower, my sweet daughters (who rarely sit still) bunched up all the tissue paper from leslee's gifts and created pompoms, made a nest, and turned themselves into babushkas. they kept busy during the entire shower. thankfully the room was full of grandmas egging them on because they were being so cute...
have i mentioned how much i love my sisters-in-law? seriously, leslee and dianne are some of my favorite people and i get teary just thinking how blessed i feel to be gaining friends and not just family. dianne and tim stop by as frequently as their schedules will allow, and leslee and i talk every tuesday morning.
me, my mama, leslee, my grandmother ada, and leslee's mother janet
these two could only stay still for one picture...then they were off and running...
when i was growing up, we could stroll down caspersen beach and find shark's teeth littering the sand. venice is called the shark's tooth capital of the world for a reason. so i decided to recreate the experience for my kids and go hunting for fossils at the beach. long story short, they no longer litter the beach. one must hunt. with proper equipment (which we didn't have) and one must be patient (again, lacking)...my little eagle eyes, lily, found a few, and that was enough for me to pronounce the expedition a success.
later on, after dinner at pop's sunset grill with the whole fam, we went to the north jetty and stayed until the sun went down. my kids seriously don't feel the cold and got in the car wet and blue.
wish the colors from this sunset showed up on my camera...we all stood and watched it, in awe.
so i plan to blog more...and here's a shout out to steph in iowa--because when you move far away from your friend and then you remind her that she hasn't blogged in forever, you get a special shout out when she finally blogs :) cheers
