I just wanted to take a minute to let all of you know that I am, in fact, still here.  I’m finding it so hard to even put into words why I’m finding it so hard to put words on this blog, if that makes any sense.  Yvonne of Joy Unexpected wrote a beautiful post two days ago about her own writer’s block, and I read through it while nodding my head and thinking to myself yes, YES.  So, I decided to just sit down, start writing, and see what comes out.

Ryan’s final grades for all his classes were all A’s. Nathan’s final grades were a B+ in math (a B PLUS! for my math-learning-disabled son!) and all A’s in everything else.  We went for our traditional end-of-the-school-year ice cream cones to celebrate.  Whether it was just being a year older and more mature, or the fact that his teacher was Bill Cecil, the Michigan Teacher of the Year for 2003-2004.  Chris and I are both positive that having Mr. Cecil as his teacher completed changed Nathan’s attitude about school.

Nathan started Tae Kwon Do at the beginning of June. He took to it immediately, picking up the moves and the Korean counting and instructions so much faster than I thought he would. My Dad and Stepmother paid for the Dobok and five weeks of classes on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Once those end, Chris and I will continue paying for the classes, probably on Wednesdays. It’s totally worth $10 a week to see how quickly he’s progressing.

Ryan applied for and was picked as a summer Teen Volunteer at our library.  He works every other Monday for about two hours. His first shift was during sign-up for the Summer Reading program; this year’s theme is Water so he helped kids write their names on paper cutouts shaped like fish and submarines and jellyfish.  His second shift was during a Water Science Fair, where he demonstrated how you can fill a sandwich bag with water and then poke a sharpened pencil right through it and the water won’t leak out.  I was SO PROUD listening to him explain to all these kids and their parents about the polymers in the sandwich bag that stretched around the pencil and formed a seal.  Another Mom said to me “your son seems really smart.” And I said to her “thanks, he is really smart”.  I’m a proud Momma

Kaitlyn is still my little pumpkin muffin sweetpea.  She makes my heart happy in a way I can barely describe.  Having had almost no relationship with my own mother, I am amazed every day at how close Kaitlyn and I are.  She comes up to me four or five times a day, lips puckered, saying “kissy kissy” so she can get a smooch.  To be able to hug her, kiss her, and have her respond back, it’s the relationship I wish I’d had with my own mother.  I treasure it, and her, every single day.

Chris and I continue to have our ups and downs.  June 19th was our 17th wedding anniversary, and this month will be our 25th year together. Twenty Five Years together, isn’t that incredible?  I wish we could afford to go on some magical second honeymoon or something, but that’s just not in the cards financially at all.  We grouch at each other and sometimes there’s yelling but we work it out because we love each other. I know, awww.

So anyway, that’s what’s been happening around here.  I’ll keep trying to sit and just write, even if it won’t come out perfect like I want it to. I keep reminding myself, it’s like writing in a diary or journal, there are no rules.

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