Another Teen in the House

 

Daniel turned 13 this month. Now we have four teens again. 

Here he is playing with a gift from my parents, a Lego gear bots toy. He loves building things. 

One of the things that is nice for Daniel is that he has two older brothers. He is stranded in the midst of numerous sisters, and he likes and loves them, but the big boys, especially Isaac, are willing to chase Daniel around and tackle him and do boy things.  To be clear, Daniel LOVES this.

We have some new friends at church who have only one son and multiple daughters, and the mother has said to me that she appreciates that Daniel and her son will wrestle and chase and be rough and tough. Most boys thrive from some rough and tumble.

Hmmm, what else? I am toiling away on another book and it is coming along but sometimes it is boring to write.

However, the only way to make progress as an author, or at least for this author, is to work every day on it, or at least almost every day. I occasionally have something else going on, but almost every day I settle down after lunch and work for a few hours.

And I do enjoy writing.

It has been a cool week and today it is rainy. Kind of dreary, really. We will have warm temps eventually. So far, the pool is closed because it seriously hasn't been warm enough to open it.

This means lots of frogs are growing in our pool. Our kids keep going down and saving them and releasing them.

We may have an extra bonus bunch of frogs next year.

Octopus! And other things

 

The first full day I was in St. Croix, Kevin and I went snorkeling and Kevin found this octopus. I was out of shape and didn't swim for more than half an hour, but he spent a full hour and a half interacting with this octopus and taking lots of pictures.

He or she was an amazing creature. We have seen octopuses before, but always in holes or crevices. This dude or dudette was on a rock, camoflauged initially, though he flared white when Kevin got too close and curled up his tentacles to look bigger.

He had a mollusk and Kevin, once or twice or thrice, stole the mollusk and moved it, and Mr. or Miss Octopus swam down and retrieved it. Totally totally cool.

There are so many amazing creatures in the waters of St. Croix!

Ok, back to our life here in Ohio. It is cold this week! When I got up this morning, it was 48 degrees, which is chilly for late May!

We have also had a lot of rain and wind. Kevin put some tomato plants out and some of them were snapped off. Sad!

We have had a mild illness moving through the house for a couple of weeks now. It comes and goes. That is kind of annoying but no huge deal.

When I was in St. Croix, I had a strong desire to purchase a Major League Baseball subscription but it s $150 or so and I hesitated.

The very next day they had a half off sale and I jumped on it, so now I can watch the Detroit Tigers. They are doing very well this year so far. The main announcer is very good.

Busy busy busy week

 A few things.

 Our big girls have moved into a new apartment! It is very convenient to Naomi's job and pretty close to Lydia's job so that is good. It is also way closer to our house which makes me happy. It is about 15 minutes away instead of 30 minutes away.

We have a virus floating through the family. Some people are fine. Some people are a little sick. Some person (Isaac) has felt rotten for a few days, poor guy.

I finished editing our new book, which comes out at the end of the month. Yesterday I worked really really hard and my brain is fried. But I got it done! Which makes me very happy.

Daniel, our 12 year old son, is growing like a weed. He is in the middle of a growth spurt and is literally growing an inch every two or three months. He is currently a little over five foot five inches. His two big brothers are over six foot tall. No idea where Daniel will wind up. He has a different body type than his brothers, so maybe will top out at five foot eight or nine like his parents. We will see!

In the middle of all this busyness, we are mostly sorted after the vacation. The food situation has been a bit odd, with people coming and going and our big girls' stuff in our refrigerator. Lydia is gluten free so needs a different diet than us. It is all good, but we still don't feel totally normal.

Are we ever normal?

Anyway, busy week.

Mid May

 Yesterday, Mother's Day, Kevin and I got home from St. Croix at 1:30 a.m. in the morning.

This is our ... 9th trip to St. Croix? I think. It has been an annual tradition.

Kevin was there two weeks, the first with two of our daughters, the second with me. We had a great week together and the girls also had fun.

We stayed in a condo on the ocean and we spent a lot of time snorkeling. I succeeded in not getting sunburned even a little bit. Which is impressive!  Kevin took lots of lovely pictures of plants and animals under water.

So yes, we had a great time.

We got home to controlled chaos. The big girls have moved in for a week or two with all their stuff as they are between apartments. We hope and believe that will be sorted out shortly.

I got to see all nine of my kids on Mother's Day, which is all I really want for Mother's Day.

This week will be a lot of catching up on stuff, plus we have a book we need to do second edits on.

It was great to go to St. Croix, and great to be back.