The Busy Life

It has been forever and a day since I had time to sit down and write on here. Mainly because life has been just too darn busy in this season of life. Today is the first time in a month that Peter has been home at a reasonable hour to spend some time with the family. He has only had 4 days off in the last month and has been pulling some super long hours at the office. Add on long commuting hours and it has been a really tough month.

On top of Peter's crazy schedule, we are also in the busiest time of year with the kids. LB is in preschool now, the big kids are about 1/3 of the way through their school year and the calendar is full of a wide array of activities - 3 kids playing soccer, piano, science classes, dance. It has been very hectic with not enough hours in the day to complete each task. I'm hopeful that with soccer ending soon that the schedule will calm down at least a little. The return of normal evenings and reasonable dinner times will be welcomed!

This phase of life can be really hard. It's hard when you're pulling very long days with kids who are with you 24/7. It's hard for Peter to be so busy at work that he has no idea what is happening at home and is lucky to walk in the door and kiss the kids goodnight before they go to bed.  It's hard to maintain a healthy marriage when you barely see each other and communication falls to the wayside because you're both just trying to keep a float with your tasks. I'd be lying to say this last month or so hasn't been difficult.

Fortunately the end of this hard season is here. It was wonderful to see Peter walk through the door early tonight and see the surprise and excitement on the kids faces! I count myself so blessed that my husband works as hard as he does for our family!  He took on a lot of responsibility this year with his new job and I've really seen him excel. It has presented challenges and stress along the way for both of us as he takes on more responsibility at work and I take on more responsibility at home. But we've always made a great team and this has been no different. I love that my husband still wants to be home with his family most of all. That when he has a great success at work, the first thing he wants to do is call me so we can celebrate the victory together! That in the midst of his own stress (that he hides well) he is more than willing to listen to me vent about my challenges.  We have always been a team and even with how difficult life has been lately, we're still a team above all else. 

So while the blog has been a bit silent, life keeps on flying by. These last few weeks have been so very challenging but good things are coming! We have a lot of really fun and exciting things on the horizon so stay tuned as we take a little bit of time to breath before we keep on keeping on!

Wallowa Lake

Between a very busy schedule and my computer somehow deleting ALL of my pictures from this vacation, this one has taken me awhile to get posted. But with all that being said, fortunately between text message pictures, pictures I'd posted to facebook, and collecting the rest of the families photos, I can make this post! 

All that to say, over the Labor Day holiday we scheduled a fun vacation to a place that I have lots of fond memories from in my childhood. It was a long drive day for the kids but they were troopers and a couple of fun stops along the way made it even better!

   

But finally we were there. I think I was probably around 10-12 the first time I went to Wallowa Lake and it has been 11 years since my last trip there, but really not much has changed. So it was fun to just relax and unwind as a family for a few days before the total chaos of fall set in.  Between fishing (not a single bite) first time on horses for the kids, lots of runs for treats and ice cream, introducing the kids to geocaching, and a gorgeous day on the mountain peak it was fun for all of us! 

 

 

It really was a fun and simple vacation, just what our family needed before we burst straight ahead into the chaos of our fall schedule and a busy time at work for Peter. I am grateful for any opportunity we have to get out of town and spend time together as a family and it was really cool to be able to create some memories with my kids at a place that I have several memories from. The kids are already asking when we can go back! 

What Have We Done?!?!

It's no surprise that we like dogs in this house, hence the two years of puppy fostering we've been doing. There have been a few pups here and there that stand out in my mind that have been very hard to give back and not keep. But we've stayed strong..... until now! There were a couple breeds of dogs that were on an approved list with Peter. They weren't something that would likely come into a rescue organization so he sat pretty safe for 2 years.  Until this guy came into the picture! This beautiful boxer boy came up on rescue! The odds of an (almost) full breed boxer PUPPY coming up on transport to the rescue was very surprising and we couldn't help but scoop him up! 

The best part of it all is that since we are fosters we were able to test drive this boy and see how he fit in with our family! Our Junebug, while we loved her was neurotic, and stubborn, and not the best with the kids when they came along so while we loved and adored that girl, we weren't ready to repeat history of her personality. 

This guy from the beginning has been awesome! He's easily our best large breed foster we've ever had and I'm not just being biased. He had the added benefit of spending a lot of his early life in foster in California so he has been around people and in a home environment. Most large breed struggle with jumping on and trying to use the kids as chew toys but he never had any of those behaviors with the kids. But he loves and adores the kids and is super patient with them! It is fun to know the kids will have a dog of their own to grow up with and the kids are so excited after being so good at letting puppies go back all these years. 

And even Peter after years of being the tough one may be a bit smitten too. He reminds us so much of our Junebug. 

So there you have it, after 2 years of puppy fostering and 69 puppies brought into our home, we have a keeper! The kids have named him Groot, he's 5 months old and we are in the midst of potty training and basic puppy training.  Never a dull moment around here I guess but we sure are happy for this unexpected pup coming into our family! 

Our Family Day

One of the cool parts about being an adoptive family is celebrating family day or Gotcha Day. It just so happens in our family, that all of these adoption milestones take place in the same in our family and also just some exciting memories in general as a family so we like to get out and enjoy some family time during this week each year. 

Lots of shades in this car, on our way to the beach! All the kids love days spent playing on the beach!

A stop at the cheese factory on the way, we heard it gets quite crazy now (and it was by the time we left) so we hit it early! 

Basically ice cream for breakfast, but who's to judge - it's family day!

We tried a new beach this year and loved it! The sand was awesome and there was hardly anybody there the whole day. We packed a big bag full of food and stayed for over 6 hours playing together until the food was almost gone and the sun was out long enough to fry us! 

It was truly the perfect type of day with our family, we loved all the time together just playing and being together. I sure do love all these little people and am so blessed to have each and every one of them in my life. 

A couple days later we celebrated Malachi's joining of our family with some Ethiopian food, whenever we have Ethiopian we wonder why we only make it once a year. So maybe it needs to happen more often because it is yummy! I love the pride Malachi has for his country and we certainly adore him and his birth country too!