Aaron is 43

Aaron is the greatest. This year has been the most exhausting yet, and he drives our family train steadily on a track of faith and righteousness. 


Soren announced the day before Aaron’s birthday for “no one to touch the wrapped gift on the counter. I found it in the woods, but don’t worry mom, I washed it real good.” 😳

It was (luckily) not alive. But it WAS a mysterious little Mario box. What 6 year old boy could resist bring that home after finding it in the woods? He filled it with broken crayons, colored it red with a sharpie, and wrapped it up with so much love. It might top the dental x ray Soren found and wrapped up for Father’s Day a few years ago. 


We made two “31 flavor turtle ice cream” cakes per tradition. 






Our friends, Greg and Val, gave us a couple tickets to the a cappella group the Edge Effect at the Walton Arts Center. Thank you, Chandler’s! We had a birthday date and loved every minute. 

Happy 43rd, Aaron! You carry a lot on your shoulders, and you do it selflessly without complaint. It’s a joy to be your wife. Our children are the luckiest.  We love you. 

Violin Shopping

We were not expecting today to be an emotional one, but it surprised us with a little wave of grief. Reese had  crossed over to playing MY violin. The one I received for my 15th birthday. The one I just had a tuning peg and bridge replaced and bow rehaired so it was perfect for my and ready to pass on to my daughter.  But my/our beautiful EH Roth violin is really, truly gone. Reese is the most sentimental of my children.  More sentimental than Aaron and I put together. I realized that if this was emotionally stirring for me, it was even more difficult for Reese. She has patiently played her little half size violin all school year long. But she’s getting taller by the day and starting to look like a bear riding a tricycle with her tiny violin that is 2 sizes too small. She decided last week she is ready to move forward. 

So we shopped and cried a little, and we got excited over the many many choices. She played a few and much like her mother, managed to pick up the highest valued violin in the shop first, without seeing the sticker price. Ha. She has lovely taste. 😂 she put it down rather quickly when I told her how much it cost. I gave her a budget and she narrowed it down to two, then finally one. It is bright and rich and full of glorious sound. And she’s a pretty little lady. We called her Gloria, and she came home with us.  

Reese spent the week adjusting to a much larger instrument (again). It’s hard work! Frets are in new places. The bow is like twice as long. After a frustrating dress rehearsal, last night Reese decided to perform her recital piece on her old violin, and then kiss it goodbye and then go forward with Gloria. 

Tenacity

There seems to be one mini crisis after another regarding the rebuild, and it eats up a lot of time. Boss Lady has had many opportunities lately to practice and develop tenacity. 

Installers scheduled a meeting and presented to me a problemo with aligning new materials with poorly installed preexisting siding. The siding on the right side (shown above) of the wall was level. The left side was also level, but over the door there was a 1.5 inch height difference no one could find a cause for.   After expressing my frustrations, I was generously offered a custom fix for said problem.  I returned to inspect the solution today and was disappointed to find this.  Nope. The “custom fix” was a scab. 

Nope. Nope. Nope. 
I sedulously searched my photo history until I found the fire damage pics of this same exterior wall. 

What really happened is they started hanging the siding on one side, and started on the other, and it didn’t meet in the middle. As you can see from the burned house pic, there WAS no “original line to work with” that caused the misalignment, because all of the siding on that wall melted off. 

So what reeeeeallly happened is that no one used a magical tool called a laser level. If they had shot a line down the entire wall, they might have noticed they were starting 1.5 inches higher on one side than the other. I texted the pic of the scab and of the burned wall, to the general contractor at the restoration company and my sentiments or dissatisfaction. 

2 hours later I got a text with this pic. Scab gone. All is well. Carry on. 

Annnd Friday I popped in for a surprise visit and smelled a certain green illegal substance coming from my basement. 

Nope. I kicked those workers outside, told them not to smoke [um ANYthing. At all. No smoking at all in this home.] in my home, and messaged contractor again. 

Tenacity.  

We’ve reached the halfway point in this marathon. Deep breaths. Tenacity. 

Thursday in May at Fort Willy

April is busy and May is just ridiculous as all the things come to a close. Today’s schedule was packed from 5:45 am until these late hours with field trips and orthodontist and piano lessons and an after school audio test retake and a budget meeting with our contractor and shopping for new floors. 

And then Sloane vomited all over the van while taking kids to school. 

So there’s that. 

I canceled all the things and spent the day laundering things and cleaning up bodily byproducts and was gross and l fulfilling because I also got to snuggle sick little Sloane abd hold her hair back and rock and comfort her.  

She clung onto me like a baby Joey today and breathed her hot stinky words of affirmation right into my mouth and I’m 200% certain that of what she has is contagious, it will knock me down soon. But maybe she will hold my hair back and fix up Gatorade and snuggle me again and make us both better.  (Or most hopefully, I just won’t catch whatever ailed her, but that’s just a crazy dream considering my immune system has been broken since December). 

Here’s to May that came marching in with a bang! Thank you Sloane, for the excuse to cancel everything today! 

Quincy’s Orchestra Concert

Quincy had her spring orchestra concert this week.   She performed her way 1/2 way through the Suzuki Book 1, Gaelic Castle, and Boil Cabbage Down. Quincy faithfully practices the cello and is becoming quite the musician. We love to listen to her play and she performs a new song she’s working on in lessons each week for us. Her cello, though a rental, is one of only four things (kitchen gable, church pew, the cello and my wedding dress) that were saved from the main floor of our home after the fire.  We begged the fire investigator to let us remove it from the house before it could be damaged by smoke and the water it was sitting in. The case was destroyed, but the cello lives and we are so happy for it to fill our current home with music and CeeCee musical talent.  

Quincy, you are resilient. You are dedicated. You are smart and creative. You are expressive. You feel BIG. 

Your dad and I are impressed with the way you are channeling grief and frustration and disappointment into something that brings you peace and can offer peace to others. It is very good. 

You sounded wonderful tonight. Great work! We love you! 

Corbin and Soren’s Piano Recital

This was Soren’s first piano recital. He wasn’t nervous at all. Corbin felt much more relaxed this time around. I’m so thankful for the comfortable atmosphere Karen provides in these recitals for her students. She always gives a “group pep talk” to the audience. Last time was about the motivation, practice, results cycle.  This time she encouraged parental involvement in becoming our kids most frequent audience and biggest cheerleaders. 

Let’s talk for a second about how much Corbin has grown in 6 months. He’ll be seeing eye to eye with Karen in no time! 

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

I could probably start a whole series of random things I find in the wash. A toothbrush is a first though. Obviously necessary though since evidently I also laundered a tiny plate of shortbread cookies. 😂