May Rewind

Honestly, I’m not sure that I would want to rewind and relive May! It was an AMAZING month, but it was SO PACKED that I’m still trying to catch my breath! Here are 20 highlights from the month. Yes, 20. I wish I had written separate blog posts for half of these things, but at this point it’s getting so far into June that I’m just cramming everything into one place and calling it good.

1. 1. Sunny Sundays.

It has been so special to be able to spend Sunday’s with my parents. Since they moved here, my Mom hosts Sunday dinner after church on Sunday. We usually have 7+ people around the table and it’s SO, SO special to me after years and years of going home to a very quiet house after church on Sundays. Theo works on Sundays now, so it is extra special to me that I don’t have to be alone for the afternoon.

• 2. Negative for Cystic Fibrosis!

Ezra finally met with a pulmonologist who listened to us and laid out a game plan for tackling his severe asthma/reactive airways. He’s on a whole cocktail of medications, which I hate…but I am also thankful that we have been able to keep him out of the hospital for a few months now. The pulmonologist did recommend that we test for cystic fibrosis, just because he had one or two indications of it and the Dr. would like to catch it earlier rather than later. He took a sweat test (literally had to sit under a heat lamp and sweat for an hour) and it came back NEGATIVE. Hallelujah! That was a big weight off of our shoulders.

• 3. Moving/Packing Progress

May was absolute chaos with packing, moving and unpacking! We basically lived in a state of “I don’t know where anything is, but let’s just try to get through the day anyways”.

• 4. Getting outside and enjoying the weather!

We visited some parks and made sure to soak up all of the beautiful weather!!!

• 5. Patience Vet.

Of course, Patience picks the one craziest month of all time to get a UTI. Ha. We made an emergency vet visit and were $150 dollars poorer by the end of day, armed with daily medications and a kitty that was feeling much better within 48 hours!

• 6. We celebrated teacher appreciation week, my Mom’s birthday, and Mother’s Day all in one weekend!

For her birthday, we got my Mom a bike…and we got one for my Dad, too, as a belated birthday gift!

• 7. Church Goodbyes.

We had a challenging month with our church, knowing that it would be our last. We gave it our all during the last few months and really made sure that we were involved as much as possible, but we also made the difficult decision to leave the church we have been at for 11 years and start to look for a new church body. One of my favorite things that we have done at our church plant since COVID hit is to sing over anyone who is quarantined before a medical procedure. We all head to their home, sing over them, and pray over them…from a distance.

• 8. Running the Airbnb.

For the month of May, we put our furnished rental property back on Airbnb. It wasn’t too busy, mostly just booked on the weekends, but it did add a little extra cleaning to my to-do list. We also had one of the worst guests we have ever had during this time, and it was not a good experience all around. We had a wonderful family move in at the end of May, so we only had to worry about the Airbnb work for that one month.

• 9. Walk for Life.

We participated with our church in the Miami Valley Walk for Life with the Miami Valley Women’s Center. This center offers pregnancy and parenting care and support for Mom’s who need those resources. It’s a really powerful ministry and we are really proud of our tiny little church plant ranking in the top 10 local churches for money raised! We then walked the 1 mile loop with many other people from the area.

• 10. Moving Day, Part 1!

After the walk for life, we recruited church people to help us load our moving truck. HA! We got some pizza for lunch and then everyone got to work. Our entire truck was loaded in 1.5 hours! We then drove it to my parents house where we spent the night since we couldn’t move in until the next day. I’m sure the neighbors were VERY confused because my parents had just moved in two weeks prior and now they had a giant moving truck parked in the driveway!

11. Moving Day, Part II! The following day we drove the U-Haul and our vehicles out to our new piece of land. We had a different crew (with a few of the same people) help us unload, and this time it took us about 2 hours!

13. LAND! It’s still hard for me to believe that we have 5 acres of country life now. It’s taken us weeks to get used to this fact and just as many weeks to learn to feel overwhelmed by all that needs to be done and then figuring out how exactly to get it all done.

14. Adjusting to a new home. Patience settled in just fine, but the rest of us have had to take a little bit longer. We have new library cards, new places to shop, new commutes and new neighbors, even though we only moved 30 minutes away from our old house and are still keeping our same jobs, our routines completely changed. And Kiah lost his FIRST tooth! The tooth fairy completely went to the wrong address, btw. But she figured it out by the second night. HAHA.

15. My birthday! In the middle of all of that craziness, I celebrated my 31st birthday. The day was a total and complete bummer day. My parents were out of town, Theo was working, and our church had a very, very difficult meeting that lasted over an hour and was incredibly emotional. To top it all off, I had a terrible head cold but knew I just had to push through. I am thankful for this 31st year, but I was also glad when the sun set on that day!

16. The End of the School Year! The last two weeks of school are always insane, but especially for our family! We had field day, Royal Presentation, class parties, end of year ceremonies, student gifts, teacher gifts, cleaning day…ALL THE THINGS. My goal was to basically get through each day and then think about the next one.

17. Our 10th Wedding Anniversary. We also celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary (it was the same day as the last day of school!). We knew it was going to come and go without much fanfare because of how crazy the month had been, so I was shocked to find that when I got home, Theo had bought me a willow tree! I’ve always loved weeping willows and have dreamed of one day having one. We also have major irrigation issues and willows are supposed to help with that, so it was a win-win. Happy Anniversary to us!

18. She’s going to the chapel and gonna get marrrieeedd!!! Corinne is getting married! One of our favorite people in the world is getting married! We also like her fiancee a whole lot, so it’s absolutely thrilling and we just couldn’t be more excited!!!

19. Hosting so many friends. We wasted no time in having people over to our property. It’s so beautiful we just can’t resist sharing! We have had family for a birthday celebration, weekly family dinners, my entire class for a bonfire, and several families sitting around the table talking through difficult church related issues.

20. CHICKS! And to finish off the month, we purchased our first farm animal(s)- 14 chicks!