random updates on a Tuesday

 

1. I started working full time last week. It will be an adjustment, but it is a good step for the time being. I have been working part time since March for Keeco, the company that Neal went to work for soon after we had Reese. I have had plans to slowly transition into full time work when William went to kindergarten. I have really enjoyed being back at work and surrounded by other adults. I have some learning to do and look forward to the day that I can feel that I am providing more value.
2. William is playing soccer this fall. He played basketball last winter and hated almost every second of it. He played baseball in the spring, and he loved it. He did try to come off the field and hang with me at least once a game in baseball, but I was able to coax him back out there most of the time. So far, he hasn’t tried that in soccer and has had a great time. He claims to like baseball the best, but he seems to like both sports. He asked me last night if I will sign him up for football so we may try that next Fall.
3. Ella switched club soccer teams. Ella played for Legends for 3 years. We really loved that team, the coaches and the families. Ella has wanted to try out for a new club team for a while and has desired more of a challenge and a team that is a little more skilled overall so that she will be stretched more. She has found that in this new team and she is love it. I had no idea if the coaches and families would be people we would enjoy and wondered if they would be welcoming or not. So far the coaches and families have been wonderful and I am looking forward to watching Ella grow with this team.
4. Reese keeps on growing and is almost as tall as I am. Her foot is now a size 11.5 and I sure do hope that her foot stops growing. I love that she’s getting so tall though. She is playing school volleyball right now and just loves it so much. She is excited to play club again soon and I am excited to watch her, but I am not so excited about the travel schedule that is about to be upon us. I know I will miss it one day, but it overwhelms me today. 
5. I am so thankful for the 3 kids that God gave us. Life is lonely sometimes lately. I feel a large void with the loss of Neal. I am missing my travel and concert buddy. I am really missing having someone to vent to when things are hard and having someone that is always in my corner. I also miss being that for someone else.  I am missing that constant companion that loves me no matter what. I miss having my person. It sounds far fetched that I would be lucky enough to find that twice in one lifetime, but I sure do hope that I am able to find someone to spend the remainder of my life with. I know it is what Neal wanted and I am glad we had that conversation. But how I find that I just don’t know. 

 

 

a few special things this summer

 My posts are really all over the place, but I keep thinking of things I have failed to document that I never want to forget. This summer I tried to do something special with each kid. Being a single parent has been a hard transition. The hardest part is time, or lack of it. It is difficult to get 3 children to all the activities and to map it out from week to week. I feel like I fail to spend one on one time with each of them and I feel like each of them really craves that, and they won’t always. I will have to make extra efforts to make any of this happen and over the summer I was at least able to get something in for each of them.

 Reese’s was big. I took her to Cancun for 4 days. She didn’t get to go to camp with her friends this year because the week they were going just didn’t work for her schedule. She was bummed to miss camp but asked me if she and I could go on a trip instead. I needed a little break anyways and Cancun is always a good idea. We had the best time. 4 days was a perfect amount of time to be able to rest and swim and eat and talk. We rode water slides together, ate lots of food, played water volleyball, she played beach volleyball, rode an electric bull, rode the wave rider and had many frozen drinks. We had a really good time.

 

I took both girls on a pre-kindergarten trip and the plan had been that Neal would take William on one but he couldn’t miss out on this so I knew we needed to figure something out. The days that I had available to make this happen were so hot that I didn’t want to do anything outside. I decided to take him to Tulsa. We stayed in a hotel with a good pool, and we went to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie. We took Ella along because those 2 are close and I knew he’d have more fun with her, also Reese didn’t want to miss volleyball practice. Before we left I took him to Top Golf alone because he has been asking to go there and we have that locally. He ate his weight in soft pretzel bites, and he took all of his turns and most of mine too. We had a fun time there together. The new turtle movie was good, it had a lot of action/violence and scary enough that is what seems to hold his attention best.

 

Ella has loved Luke Bryan for as long as I can remember. We took the girls to see him when I still worked for Walmart and they brought him in for shareholders, they were 2 and 3 at the time. Maybe that’s why she’s always loved him. I got tickets to see him when we’d planned to go to the Houston rodeo just before covid hit, but obviously that got cancelled. So last Spring I got tickets again to see him at the Rodeo. At the rodeo, a bull rider was pretty badly injured and that delayed the concert start time by a couple of hours. He went on so late that William just didn’t have it in him to stay long. I pushed him to stick around as long as I could, but Ella only got to see him sing around 4 songs before we had to get going. We were parked a long way away and William was just falling apart. Ella was disappointed but she handled it really well. So, when I saw he was coming to the AMP I decided to get tickets for just she and I to go. The week leading up to the concert we saw that Luke cancelled 3 shows due to sickness. We worried our show would get cancelled but there were 5 days between the last of the cancelled shows and our show so we hoped he would have enough time to recover. He did make it to the show, but he was so sick. He could barely make it through songs, sounded pretty awful, was coughing and had to take breaks. We felt bad for him. We still had a really fun time and it was fun to see him but he didn’t have nearly the energy that he normally brings to concerts. I had fun with Ella but we will be getting tickets to see him next time he comes. 

 

I hope to cherish these days with them because time is flying. I know I don’t always do it as well as I’d like to, but I do hope that I am making lasting memories with them because they mean more to me than anything this world. I am in the middle of a transition into full time work which will only add to the juggle. It is what I need to do right now and we will adjust if needed in the future. The juggle isn’t always easy but I hope they always feel my love.

 

 

back to school and fall transitions

 I cannot believe that my baby has started kindergarten. Today is Tuesday and the kids started school last Wednesday. I walked him in his first day but by the 2^nd day he just wanted me to drop him off in car rider line. He did amazing. He was a little nervous that he wouldn’t be able to find his classroom, but I reminded him of which way to go and told him he could ask any adult for help. He did it without hesitation and reported that he found it without a problem when I picked him up. He has handled this transition so well so far. He is a little uninterested in going back again upon waking up each day, but he quickly adjusts and is willing then always reports a fun time when I pick him up. I can already see his confidence growing and I know he is going to change so much this year. I want this for him because it will all be so good for him and his future, but I am also already missing my sweet baby.

 

Ella also started middle school. There were a few nerves there as well, but she has come home smiling each day and has said that it is better than she expected it to be. I can’t believe that Reese is in her last year of middle school and will be headed to high school next year. She turns 14 in a little over half a year and will be eligible to get her permit. This is flying way too fast!  

 

During all of these changes I am transitioning into full time work for the company that Neal worked for, Keeco. I have been working 2 days a week since last March and hired a sitter over the summer for the 2 days. For the first few weeks back to school I am working 3 days but only during school hours so that I can be the one to pick William up from school each day. The 2^nd week of September I have hired a sitter to help me after school 3 days a week with the pick ups and transports. I will work in office all day 3 days and will work from home and manage some of the transports myself the other 2 days. So far it has gone well and Keeco has been so supportive of this transition for our family.

 

Some of these changes are big but so far they have been good.

 

 

30a trip July 2023

 I am so thankful that my kids love the beach like I do. Neal also had a major love of the beach, so we always made room for a beach vacation most years. Growing up my family went to Destin every year. I love the Destin area and Neal did too. We did want our kids to see other things, but we generally made our way back to Destin every other summer. This summer I decided to get back to that area at the end of July. The past few times we have gone we have headed a bit east of where I always went growing up, to the 30a area. We stayed in a complex that we have been to once before. It doesn’t have beach access but comes with a golf cart to be able to cart all of your stuff and people over to the public access areas. Some of the family ended up going with us and we had a fun time. We stayed in a rental with Chelsea and Tyler. Carrie, Ben and Jacob got a unit, Mom, Aunt Mau, Uncle Chris, Uncle Pat and Aunt Cheryl got a unit and Katie and her family got one. We had some fun time with family and were able to celebrate Mom and Chelseas birthday together. 

 

One day a few of us went on a boat ride to see dolphins and go snorkeling at shell island. Shell island had very few shells but it was still a fun adventure.

 

We had a fun week at the beach. The kids can have fun for hours now playing in the water and the sand. William spent many hours on end with goggles and a net immersed in the water swimming around trying to catch the little fish that he could see. I am so glad we are to a point that they can last several hours out by the ocean. The beach is a lot of work though. I knew that Neal did a whole lot to make our trips more enjoyable and boy did I feel the loss of his help this trip. The kids have gotten so big though and they were very helpful. It was a good week spent at the beach but I was so worn out by the end of the week. The 13 hour drive doesn’t help much with the exhaustion at the end of the week.

 

Next summer we are looking at doing a Disney cruise and I am excited about the thought of not having to cart around all the stuff and having some things taken care of.