Craziness...

We are halfway through our two months of crazy busy time. With softball games, school concerts, ballet recitals (which involved classes, rehearsals, pictures, etc), field trips, weddings, birthdays, birthday parties, Mothers and Fathers day...

Seedlings, seedlings

These are the round 1&2 seedlings. In here we have peppers (sunbright and california wonder), tomatoes (sweetie cherry, beefsteak, endless summer) and cucumbers (straight 8, sweet garden).

All but one of the seedlings have come up. I can't wait for planting time! Next weekend we'll start the next round of seedlings including the squash, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, onions.

I'm so hoping we have a better garden year than we did last year. We planted on a Sunday and Monday started a string of 23 days of rain. Let's just say we didn't get off to a good start.

Cutie Patootie

So we learned that Anna is incredibly farsighted. Apparently one eye is significantly worse than the other eye - so she has a lazy eye (amblyopia) meaning one eye is significantly weaker than the other. It doesn't drift or cross, but she is in danger of losing sight in the eye that does not work as well.


She is very excited about wearing glasses - and could not wait for us to pick them up. She picked them out and there was no 2nd choice for her - these were IT for her. "I'm excited because I'm going to be the ONLY one in my class with glasses!" I love how much of an individual she is.

She complained today that the glasses hurt her eyes (which we expected until her eyes get used to them) but she also admitted it was fun because she can see little letters now.



I think she's cute with or without the glasses!

I didn't realize how bad her sight was until I looked through her lenses. Whoa. One of the lenses is as thick as the rim - and I can't see anything through it.

I can't wait to see what she can do now that she can see the world around her!

Drowning

Ever feel like you are drowning?

Right now is one of those times for me. In the scheme of things, it's not even that bad for us, we've definitely been through worse, much worse. I think I'm just overwhelmed. I keep waiting for something to happen to be that deep gulp of air, to be able to reach land and stop treading water even if it's just a sandbar.

I try to be positive - it takes every ounce of my energy, but I try. Lately even my optimism is clouded with well, clouds.

We will get through this, we will survive and I know we'll all be stronger/better/happier for it. I just really want that to start now. I want our hard work to pay off. I want to have things be easier for a while.

I want to reach the shore - even if that means we have mountains to climb.

I'm drowning.

Hello...

So, Remember me?

I'm alive. We're all doing well. Really.

What have we been up to?

Well, we spent a week in Michigan over Thanksgiving. It was terrific to visit my brother and his amazing family - including my brand new little baby niece. Then we spent some time up in Midland and were able to hang out with Dan's family. It was a lot of fun and the girls were able to hang out with almost all of their cousins. We stopped in Ithaca on our way home and spent the weekend with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Helen. My Aunt Pam and cousin Kurtis drove up from Virginia and we had so much fun! We were all a little sad when we got back home. It's hard living away from family sometimes.

Thank goodness Julia kept us super busy. She was in a performance of Anne of Green Gables that was terrific. We were so proud of her. She worked so hard to memorize a really tough script and was beautiful. She was poised and remembered her lines so well. It was great to see her in something like that.

The rest of our time was spent planning and preparing for our trip to Arizona for Christmas.

We had a great time in Arizona, up in Phoenix we finally got rid of our storage unit (I know, I know) and spent time with some special friends. We also had In n Out burger which you know was high on our lists.

We spent the next 10 days with my parents which was beautiful - although our first day down there felt like we were still in Maine. We woke up to three inches of snow! The kids too advantage of the pool and swam even with the snow!

Back up in Phoenix we spent more time with our friends and my friends came down to visit for an afternoon of bowling and yummy food.

Back home in Maine we were left with a little post vacation depression.

More snow and winter got us back on track especially an ice rink that Dan made in our backyard.

So - we've been busy and that just brings us to January! Perhaps I'll have another update soon.

Or.... maybe not!

Miss you too!