St. Edward's Park and Trail

 Another weekend hike, more water features, another swinging rope. We all thought this one was not as good as Chalk Ridge Falls though. Ollie: "Now this is what I call nature." 

The Smallest Whiff of Heaven

Back in Lubbock, Ollie was always jealous of our friends, the Hohbein's, neighborhood. (Laura, he didn't know about THAT family. AmIright??!) He loved their culdasac because it was so chock full of kids: someone was always out riding a bike, someone looking for a friend to play four square, kids with chalk, kids practicing home made talent shows. It reminded me of something from another era when families knew and spoke to one another face to face, rather than fb messaging.

I think we have stumbled on something very similar. 

I can't believe how much I love our new neighborhood. I never once thought Jon and I would be new construction people, but here we are and I couldn't be more happy. Our street is currently an enormous mess. In a three-ish block span, I bet 7-12 houses are currently being built, which creates a lot of noise, trash, and tradesmen trucks parked all over the street. But I say build on, because in one week or four months, that house will have a family. More kids for my kids to run around with, more families to get to know. 

So far we have met families from Wyoming, New York, St. Louis, Round Rock, Laos, Kenya, and Virginia. While our neighborhood is lacking in diversity of age, (it seems to be a whole slew of young families moving into starter-type homes) we are excelling in diversity of race, ethnicity, and culture. I hear spanish everyday and I love it. There is one neighborhood park that has been built (so far) and many days you can see 10-ish kids playing football, riding bikes, and swinging. They are happy to have found one another; most of the kids have been bored out of their minds because of a pandemic and then a move to a new neighborhood. These kids have many shades of skin, many types of hair. They are sharing languages and laughs. It does my heart so good to see this and I can't help but think of heaven. I'm reminded of Revelation where it speaks about every tongue, tribe and nation worshiping as one. I'm so grateful to be reminded of God's creativity in creating people and learning to love people as He does. 

Our neighborhood also is sandwiched between two schools to the north and a nature area with a creek and outdoor amphitheater to the south. After many cancelled concerts, the amphitheater has figured out a way to let the show go on. They have made these pen type areas around in a field, calling them pods. They are lining up performers again, and you can purchase tickets and attend as long as you stick to your pod. As you can imagine, if you are the neighborhood sandwiched right by this, plenty of folks are on their porches and in their driveways making the most of a night of free entertainment. 

This last weekend Snoop Dogg and Nelly performed Friday night with Josh Abbott on Saturday. The neighborhood kid crew has been planning a Harry Potter party/movie night for themselves for a while and thus the perfect evening was born. The house closest to the amphitheater hosted; kids inside watching the Sorcerer's Stone, parents in the backyard listening to Snoop and Nelly. I went for a run Saturday evening and didn't even need my tunes on my phone, rather enjoyed live music instead. I had already been ruminating on how diverse heaven will be, and let me tell you, this only drove home the point. I'm not sure you could get a further stretch on modes of entertainment than Nelly, Snoop Dogg, Harry Potter, and Jost Abbott. After covid, politics, and the fight for racial equality, this kind of diversity just makes me so happy. Come, Lord Jesus, come! I'm looking forward to the block party in heaven. 

Mandrakes!

Family Day, Swim Lessons, and a few School Pics

Look at our little Poley Pie with Miss Brooke at his first ever swim lesson. He wasn't super eager when we first arrived, but he warmed up quick. Also, let me just tell you that Nolan has been stealing my heart by wanting to hold my hand when we walk in places. Love that kid. 

I die! I'm guessing Nolan was huuuungry!

Bless the pre-k teachers who spend part of their day taking and sending pictures!

We recently celebrated family day by going out to eat. 9 years! Hard to believe! We forgot to take any pictures, but I did snap a quick one when the boys went to check out the pies. 

September 14th

 Oh me oh my. The kids are all Hippos now, (our new school mascots) and I could not be more pleased. The last day they attended school was March 13th, 6 months later we are back! A few nights ago Ollie said, "This was the best day ever!" (It was a totally normal day; absolutely zero special events, not even school.) "I feel like I'm doing a lot better lately. I feel... I feel... You know what? I feel happy." Hallelujah! 

Here's some back to school pictures. Again! Because why not? 

I've been enjoying the sun rise on our walks! (Let's be honest though. I would be enjoying this walk to school even if it were raining cats and dogs.)

Happy first day my little hippos!

The school schedule is perfect because by the time I walk Nolan and Ollie to school and return home, it's not even time for Seth to wake up yet. Elementary starts at 7:40 and Middle School at 8:35. All the kids eat breakfast at school, all the kids walk. I am living my best life. 

Seth's first in-person day at Farley Middle School. 

Go Hippos!

After drop offs Jon had the lovely idea to take me out to coffee before he went in to work. You could tell many other parents had the same idea. 

I have been loving doing my own thing. I got Seth's room painted, ran errands, and met an old uni friend for lunch. (And if you couldn't tell by the last sentence, I also have been watching plenty of British sitcoms.) I spent time with hippo HR to start subbing at Ray and have been sitting on my front porch watching houses being built. I feel like Ollie. Nothing super special, but lots of best days ever. 

Moiety of the Year

Does that even make sense? Can you use moiety in that way? 

(If you couldn't guess, this is a half-birthday post, but I got all wild and crazy and decided to look for a synonym for the word half.)

Nolan Riley! You are 4 and a half years old! 

You are a tiny pip squeak, but no one has energy or moves like you do.You are brave, curious, kind-hearted, and are quick to laugh. We love you, dear!

 Recently, Nolan was sitting in the dentist chair and said, "I'm pretty excited bout this." It made me laugh. 

School Update

Our little home-school experiment is wrapping up, but not with a bow. It looks more like a gift you thoughtfully bought, wrapped, and mailed only to find out that on delivery the box was smashed beyond all recognition and maybe even soggy to boot. And probably late. 

I think the best word to describe our experience would probably be "fiasco". 

Strangely, out of the four of us, I enjoyed homeschooling the most. This is not what I expected. I fully anticipated pulling my hair out and just putting one foot in front of the other because it seemed to be our best choice. But I actually really liked some aspects of our adventure! For one, I have a finger on my kids' pulse and know where they are strong and where they need a little extra support. Ollie and I (ok, mostly I)  have decided we are going to continue to work on math lessons to build his confidence. Last night he even told me he was grateful for the extra math help and said "thank you for teaching math to me". I hadn't even realized how much he was struggling/faking it last year. 

I also liked the flexible schedule and how for the most part they just got to be kids. Taking breaks to play, taking breaks to examine bugs, taking breaks to explore outside. They held pencils, needed paper, checked out books from the library, and did not sit in front of screens for hours. 

In hindsight though, one major problem we had was too much time together. The big boys worked on roughly the same thing at the same time, which caused more explosions than I anticipated. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but I should have saw this coming and tried to vary when they were working on subjects. I was trying to make it easy on myself and inadvertently made a mess for myself. Also, with both big boys busy working at the same time there was no playmate left for our littlest buddy, who did not appreciate being asked to play by himself, no matter how small the time increments.

Then there is the issue of having just moved. When we started the boys and I had zero friends, no community to speak of. We were isolated with no outlets. Who wants to play with the same kids that you were just yelling at during an ELAR lesson? Not the three Mot boys, that's for sure. 

Now, thankfully, we are spreading our wings a little in the area of people we know who have different last names than us. The kids have made fast friends with Sebastian and Santiago, two neighbor boys who live a block away and have re-kindled our love of Bey Blades. The Hohbeins also introduced us to some old friends of theirs, and they have been such a blessing to our lives. A friend for me, and one for Ollie. Plus I hear the husband is a die hard Chiefs fan, so we are going to have to explore that further.

Our district will open back up next Monday for in-person classes. Depending on your viewpoint, that is a month sooner than I anticipated. The way it sounded at one point made me think school would not start until October or November, with only a virtual option for months. (Also depending on your viewpoint, school is starting a month later than I expected when I was a naive person living in May 2020 and was told school would open in person on August 10th.) We are ALL signed up and ready to go! I think everyone was nervous about this at one point in time, but I also think the big boys know full well that we have been living a hot mess and everyone is relieved we are going back. Something normal. Something we have done before with a mix of people and friends to be made. 

In anticipation of going back to in-person school we enrolled everyone, which meant we had a week or so of virtual. This has actually been great, teachers have been excellent; kindness, grace, and patience have been the norm. This has put my big boys at ease. Seth told me a few days ago, "I'm not nervous about middle school anymore because I've seen how nice my teachers are." I heartily agreed. Ollie has not said anything like that to me, but I think he has been thinking it as well. 

And for me? I am like a senior in high school waiting for graduation. Like a child during the Christmas season. I love these boys, but I CANNOT WAIT to get them out of the house. I have 20 projects I want to do to our home (many involving paint and a desire for Noey to stay far, far away), plus I feel like this whole situation has confirmed how much I enjoy teaching. I have applied to sub and want to eventually get a full time job in an elementary school again. I feel like I'm ready to launch and can't wait. 

Chalk Ridge Falls

A hike with several water features? We are not in Lubbock anymore!

Down a ways we found this beautiful swimming hole; good thing we wore swimming suits for the falls! It was so pristine and surreal. I felt like Katniss in the wild. (Except of course, I wasn't concerned about starvation and being hunted.)

Then even further down, a swinging rope!

This hike is definitely going back on our "to-return" list. 

A less Fancy Birthday

 But no less fun! We celebrated with a very Austin birthday: mini-golf at Peter Pan, dinner at the original Chuys, play time at Zilker park, and watching the bats at dusk on the Congress Street bridge.

We about had Ollie convinced that River was apart of my name.

This is either hole 2 or 3. We are already so hot and sweaty.

Ideas of food trucks were abandoned once we realized we could sit in AC! As always, food was delicious at Chuys. 

Just hanging with my favorite crew.

I love this picture! Great on the fly capturing of everyone's personality. 

When you come to visit us, this whole bat-bridge thing is really pretty cool. About 10 to 15 minutes after google tells you the sun goes down, 1.5 million bats come out for the night. 1,500,000!! It really is such a cool sight. They all go in a long group, you can see the lanes/clouds/paths of the bats coming out and crossing the sky. I had never seen it before and was pretty impressed.

And Oooooh! A cricut! Yay!! Thanks!

The next day blowing out my candle on my actual bday. None of the kids were impressed by my choice of fruit and fruit dip as a celebration dessert. ha. 

A very Fancy Ten Year Old

Just look at this kid. 

Doesn't he ooze charm, warmth, and kindness? He is just the best. This past summer he has started to love to read, continues to love sports and still is friendly and friends with everyone. He has also been fashion conscience since he was first able to express himself. I can remember shaking my head at him when he was two because he had such strong preferences of what he thought looked good and wanted to wear. That has not changed. He has become borderline obsessed with suits and loves to see people wearing them. Recently he made our flight attendant chuckle by complimenting his sharp suit. I found him a suit jacket at goodwill and he was in heaven. He and Jon spent an hour or two pouring over restaurants, pictures, and reviews to find a fancy place to go out for his birthday dinner. Maggiano's was selected and it was perfect. 

                                                 

Just look at that giant meatball. 

It was declared second to grandma's though. Hers are still the absolute best. 

Our kids' first Shirley Temples. 

For sure a great evening out celebrating this 10 year old young man.

A picture of the lucky ones. We are blessed and honored to get to be Ollie's second parents.

Of course we had to celebrate at home as well with cake and presents.

Loot this year included tons of Chiefs paraphernalia for his room and an aquarium! He was pretty happy to have a tank for his room to put all his fishies he catches at the creek. 

Pat and Ollie. Bffs forever. 

Ollie, you are tremendously loved! We are so proud of the young man that is taking shape before our very eyes!