Big Changes in the Kendig Household

 As you all probably know, Kevin and I were in St. Croix earlier this month.

And we had a fabulous time.

We also had extra time to talk and pray about our future.

Our book "business" is doing well, far better than we expected. We have managed a delightful combination of writing in a niche which has a lot of fans (Pride and Prejudice) AND I write fast AND I am creative.

That's my side of things. Kevin manages almost everything else.  He is the one who handles marketing and editing and bank issues and all that.

We also have a delightful friend who is both editor and part time ghost writer. She writes amazing descriptive prose far better and faster than I do, so we are working together now. I still write most of the books, but she contributes and again, Kevin manages a lot of the interface between me and our friend.

AND we have seven kids at home, and two young adult daughters living not too far away.

We have busy lives. Very busy, very stressful lives.

While in St. Croix, we prayed about it and felt God was directing us toward a big change.

Namely, Kevin is taking an unpaid leave of absence from his job. He is going to take over some of the things I do so I can write more.

The leave of absence starts in a week!

It will last at least a few months.  We are still uncertain about the situation past that, but this summer, yes, he will be off.

We are frankly super excited.  The stress levels have been high trying to juggle his job, parenting, homeschooling, and writing.

We will both have less on our plates.

We will have more time for one another and the kids.

It is going to be good.

A big change, but good.

Lots of communication will be needed because naturally we don't do everything the same way. 

But we have been married almost 26 years so we can make it work.

I am thrilled!

Daniel's birthday

 Our youngest son turned 11 this week!

I may have forgotten to make sure we had two "1" candles. So I did surgery on a "7".

Daniel is a great kid. He is smart and interested in scambaiting videos. He loves building things with magnetiles and legos.

Less than 12 years ago, Isaac informed me one morning that he was "praying for a baby brother".  This was after three baby girls in a row.  Within a few weeks, I was pregnant.  I was still surprised when I was pregnant with a boy baby but I do not why I was surprised.  Isaac prayed for a brother, after all!

Happy birthday, little guy!

(He is still shorter than me. I know in a few short years he will be tall and gangly like his older brothers!)

Bouquet of Flowers

 Lydia crocheted these flowers for me for Mother's Day.

She has serious skills!!

I didn't teach her this at all. I cannot crochet, I cannot sew, and I cannot knit.

Amazing and beautiful.

Underwater Pictures from St. Croix

The waters and coral reefs and marine life of St. Croix are amazing.

And Kevin is an amazing photographer.

 

Mother's Day

 

All the kids were at church this Sunday. I told them, line up against the wall!

I love them so much. I am privileged to be their mother.

Home Again!

 Kevin and I went on our annual trip to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

We had a great time as usual.  

Our condo was right on the water.  This is some kind of big boat.

I snorkeled a lot, and Kevin snorkeled more!  We have 18 million pictures of pretty underwater sea life but Kevin took all the pics and he hasn't processed them yet. I hope to have a few on the blog soon!

So yes, it was marvelous.  We spent a lot of time sleeping, a lot of time snorkeling, and a lot of time talking.

We also, oddly enough, played a lot of Solitaire! I haven't played Solitaire in a long time and it is quite soothing.

I wrote over 30,000 words of the novel I am currently working on.

Kevin cooked almost every dinner. We had steak, potatoes, mushrooms, and onions, plus some other vegetable, six nights while we were there!

I love that meal SO much.

So yes, it was great.  Coming home was great too. I missed the children.

End of April

 

Our pool is, once again, breeding 18 million tadpoles. Those dark spots? Tadpoles.  Our local tree frogs LOVE the pool.  For now.  We are still a month out from opening the pool so we are probably going to have a lot of little frogs.

Kevin's mom kindly gave the kids an Easter House to decorate.  They did.  It was beautiful. Then they ate it.  Why waste food, right?

You may remember that we adopted two little tiny kittens a year ago or so.  They were very small and needed to be bottle fed for a week or so.  Jet is on the left in this picture. The cat on the right, with Jet's arm around her neck, is Cocoa.  Opal, Jet's sister, is living with Naomi and Lydia. The funny thing is Opal went to live with the big girls (she was not doing well with annoying dogs coming over from a neighbor's house, to the point that she wasn't eating well) and then Cocoa showed up and Jet adopted her.  It is adorable.

Naomi sold us one of her tablets with an Apple pencil. The kids are ecstatic.  They are drawing a lot.  Have I ever mentioned how artistic they are???

I wrote "Cats Need Water" and Rose wrote the other things.  Obviously she is not spelling well. Yet.  I am thankful she is my 9th kid because I am totally mellow about the phonetic spelling.  I know from experience that she will naturally improve as she reads and writes.