I can’t believe I have not posted since last October. Or I guess I can, given that I just wasn’t ready to write anything down for awhile. So I’m excited to be back on the blog and hope to be making more visits. Work has been wonderful and I’ve been busy doing what I love and giving everything else I have to my family. But I’m happy to come back to my other passion.
Like the words in a Brett Eldredge song, “I’m going away for awhile. But I’ll come back with a smile.” I’m leaving with one too. My family and I are dropping out for awhile this summer. We are putting the brakes on what is typically a fast paced summer full of swim and dive team practices and meets, me being on the Board at the Swim Club, tournament lacrosse, baseball and sports camps. We need it, we want it and we’re taking it.
The time between last summer and this summer was challenging for all of us. I have been dealing with multiple muscle and bone injuries that I’m still working through with a fair amount of pain. Casey battled migraines and all of the anxiety and treatments that accompanied those. She was brave through it all and gratefully, she’s done very well since a chiropractic adjustment to her neck. And Henny and I spent a lot of time working closely with Ryan to help him cope with anxieties and worries that were way too big for a 7 year old. And I’m thrilled to say that right now, he’s thriving. He’s happier and lighter and much less fearful. Safe to say he’s crushing his 8 year-old life. Stronger and more resilient than I ever imagined possible.
While in the middle of a lot of that crap, we decided that the four of us needed to be just the four of us. Fast forward to the end of June, when we will head out on a month+ away at the beach. Just us. Henny will do a lot of back and forth from the office and I will work down there when I’m able, with a few beach shoots already on the books. We have room for visitors and will happily welcome them. But I am really looking forward to long, lazy mornings and days that turn to nights on the beach. Bike rides to get donuts and ice cream and introducing our puppy to the sand and salt water. Nights spent reading books (and enjoying a few cocktails) on the deck and doing puzzles at the kitchen table. The kids are going to do a surf camp and I hope they love every minute of doing something Mom and Dad cannot teach them.
I hope to absorb and suck up every minute of this time away and I want all of us to remember every bit of it. So, I’m going to do my best to document it with my camera and write about it here on the blog. I’m not stupid. I know that it won’t all be roses. Raising two kids will never be that and we’ll have our moments. But those are part of it, too. To expect anything different is setting dangerous expectations. I also know they will only have each other. And often when that’s the case, they genuinely enjoy each other. They will sleep in bunk beds in the same room, as they’ve always done when we are away from our home. I anticipate lots of giggles before bed and a definite night visitor in our room from time to time. And I will do my best to enjoy all of it.
“We will miss you,” has come up a lot from our great friends and neighbors and I know I will miss them too. But this is likely the last chance we’ll have to do something like this before the kids’ summer schedules get crazier and they are pulled in various directions. So for now, I’m pulling them in tight and I’m not letting go for a wonderfully long summer as Just Us.