Wide Open

June came and went in the blink of an eye. I doubt I’m the only one that feels that way. It was so fast I didn’t even get this entry written in time. I had good intentions last week, but the crafty last week of the month had other ideas.

We have no medical updates related to Jennings to share. Mark your scorecards at home - that’s 2 months out of 11. We have, though, had our share of this weird end of school year / start of summer sickness. Caroline spent the first week of summer laid up on the couch sleeping most of the time. That’s one way to kick it off I guess? It’s three weeks later and she is still randomly coughing up a lung. Jennings had a random fever last week that knocked him down for all of one afternoon and has now apparently taken the baton from C in the coughing fit relay.

Here’s a few of us almost too busy to notice 👇

Clockwise from top left: We knocked out our first go at swim team. So far, for us, it has been the most intense sport time commitment-wise crammed into a single month. The second is L carrying on the tradition from her youth with a last day of school ice cream party. That’s Char with the jazz hands, J hugging one best bud while giving bunny ears to another, and Henry’s buddy telling him that it’s not that bad to have to pause the ice cream to take a picture. In the third, we have officially promoted one from elementary school to middle school! The last is the little three celebrating the end of VBS to kickoff the first week of summer. Turned out to be a great week for C to be down since she has aged out. 🥹

Speaking of middle school, I have been silent on the “big life decisions” for a few months now. Over those past months, we have continued to take our time, take in information as it has come, and keep our options open until things felt clear. In God’s grace and providence, we feel like that happened simultaneously for both MS and the house. Caroline is going to go to a public middle magnet school, actually my MS alma mater. Go Raiders! And we have decided to stay in our home and are in the infancy of designing an addition / renovation. In the end it won’t be massively cheaper than moving, but we just came to realize that we love where we are, we love our lot, and we love the home that we have created here. We pray that we are bringing God glory and being stewards of our kids and our resources with both of these decisions. If we go through with the project and have to move our family out for construction, I can refer myself back here while taking deep breaths into a paper bag.

I love the summer. And L does too. She wrote about it beautifully in a recent newsletter. But I am thankful to be turning the page to July. June was full, mostly of good things but we allowed it to get to an intensity that wore us down. We had two and a half weeks where L & I only saw each other at home in 2-3 day chunks. And those chunks were filled with 5-hour weeknight swim meets, work, and catching up from / preparing for the times apart. Needless to say, neither of us operates well in that environment.

Thankful for a bond held together by more than romantic love and for grace. With that gratitude and hope, we look forward to a slower July, some time at the coast, and the privilege of doing this life together.

Before we go, here’s a few from our annual family camping trip. The one the wives look forward to…because it happens only once a year. The kids, on the other hand, who do no packing, very little unpacking, and virtually no setting up, have a ball. There are virtually no rules (other than don’t leave anything out that attracts bears and don’t eat wild berries in the woods) and they form bonds that lead to pictures like the one in the bottom right. That was not staged, no parental involvement.

And finally, here are 2 out of 4 one-on-one dates with mommy. Jennings went to a Knights’ game where he got a new glove and a game ball. But Caroline made out on hers. She had her nationals gymnastics meet in Daytona and Lauren surprised her with a quick side trip to Disney.

While they were gone, Jennings crossed over Day +1200! He had no idea - only his crazy dad keeps up with the numbers. But I had some time with just him that day as the twins had a birthday party to go to. You know what he asked to do? He wanted to sit in the basement and play Lego Jurassic World. “Just like we did in the hospital!” he exclaimed. He even used the Nintendo Switch controller holder that mimics an Xbox controller because that’s what we had in the hospital.

We have learned to cherish those moments because of him. We have learned to pause and take it in when we see him come home on his bike from a friend’s house with his baseball bat balanced across the handle bars…what a gift to see and experience.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

#allinforjennings