Marvelous Pigs in Satin

I’m still trying to catch up after not posting all summer.  June was a busy month for us.

First, the DH and I went on a 4 day Handcart Trek as a “Pa” and “Ma”.  We had a family of 8 youth, 4 boys and 4 girls, who we guided and encouraged along the way.  We pulled our loaded handcart over many miles of a prairie reserve in southwest Missouri.  Our kids were great–always cheerful and willing to help with all the work that needed doing.  This was the DH & my second time going on a trek as a Ma and Pa.  The first was 8 years ago and I felt that we were much better parents this time around.  (Hey, we have had 8 years of parenting our own kids to help us get better.)  I still feel awkward around teenagers but I’m getting a little better, I hope, at sharing my life experiences and things that have helped me when they ask for my advice.

We got home from the handcart trek on Saturday evening and early Monday morning, the DH left for 17 days of annual training with the National Guard.  He got to ride in a BlackHawk helicopter one day, which was the highlight for him.

I took the kids to swim practice every morning and can’t remember doing much else the whole time besides assigning cleanup chores and cooking food for the ravenous swimmers.  I did blog a couple of times while he was gone here and here.

I also replaced the air filter in our van-which turned out to be a lot easier than I expected.

My hope was that I would be done with morning sickness by the time DH got back.  Every time I have “morning” sickness, which for me is all day sickness, I try to remember if it was really this bad the last time, or if it is worse this time around. 

I think this time round really was worse because the DH washed dishes more times in the month of May than he had in the entire rest of our 14 years of marriage. 

So I was really hoping to be feeling better when he got back.  Alas, I was still feeling pretty sick every day when DH got home.  But a couple of weeks after that, I began feeling more human again and my stomach stopped threatening upchuck with every change in sound, smell, or movement near my person.

While DH was gone, the kids had their first swim meet of the summer–luckily put on by our home team so I could leave the 2 youngest kids with friends for the day. 

Pumpkin Pie placed in two of her races and all of them got best times.  It was hot and we ran out of drinking water with 2 hours left, so I had to buy some gatorade at the concession stand, but it was a great start for our summer meets.  Ha! turns out I already blogged about this meet here.  This blog is getting as hit and miss as my journal is.  yikes!

Daddy finally came home and we were all very happy.  Cutie Pie  had to try on his dog tags and boots while we all just sat in the living room and were happy to be together.

There may have been some silliness.

DH had talked about volunteering for a 4 month deployment to Guatemala in 2014, and I had initially been very positive that we could handle it and that I would be fine because I thought it would be such a good experience for him. 

But after this two and a half weeks without him around, I had to confess that I wasn’t sure at all that I could handle everything on my own for 4 months, especially considering that there would also be an added 3 month old baby by then.  He admitted having the same doubts and decided not to volunteer for the mission.  I wish a little bit that I could have let him go, because I know he would have loved the project–which is building and renovating school houses.  But it was the truth that the time would have been a huge struggle for me, so I don’t feel guilty about the decision we made.

And thus ended June….

There’s nothing like a bad case of poison ivy to make one feel like a leper….except actually having leprosy, no doubt

This is the second time my husband and I have been a “Ma and Pa” on a handcart trek. I feel like we were much better prepared to parent teenagers than we were the first time.

First of all, We were able to remain focused on the kids and what they needed instead of being focused so much on ourselves and our own experience.

Second of all, Blueberry Pie is 13, so we have more experience as parents. Our first trek, our own kids were age 8, 6, and 4. We were still parenting noobs at that time.

My good friend Shelley took care of our kids while we went to Trek.

I was pregnant- just like last time. But this time they decided that starving trekkers the first day was unnecessary, so that helped me stay positive.