Too Much to Post

There have just been too many BIG things going on around here since Family Christmas Dinner at our house. And yes, our Christmas Tree is still up even though many of our Nativity figures throughout the dining room and living room have toppled over.

For one thing, Kevin's Dad passed away on January 5. I was so grateful we had seen him right before Christmas and again on New Year's Day. Even though his death was expected, it still hit me harder than I'd thought. My heart remains very heavy about it and there is an internal exhaustion that is hard to explain. We had his funeral at our local church on January 11. Kevin did such a good job sharing memories and I related some as well. It was bitterly cold that day--like around 5 degrees F. The air felt just like ice. Maybe in the future I'll post what we had to say. Thankfully, all of Kevin's siblings were able to be there.

Another stressor is that I am James' home learning coach and the end of our semester is Jan 20 . . . so we are truly working our tails off trying to get to the mandated 24-25% in ALL subjects by that day. (We started late in the year or else we'd have to be at least 40%) Because Idaho Virtual Academy is still a public school we have to meet all the state regulations--just like anyone in a brick and mortar building.

Happy stress is planning for a trip to Eastern Europe in less than 4 weeks--made a little trickier by the fact that my husband is largely unavailable for the next 2 of those weeks. If you remind me, I'll explain that better a little later. Also made trickier by the fact that our main baby-sitter is due to have her firstborn here very shortly so will not be available to care for our kiddies as we'd planned many months ago when we started this adoption process. Hey, there was a time we had to prepare for Ukraine in 5 days so 4 weeks shouldn't be that hard, right??

And THEN Jan 18 is a big day in my life because someone I know well will meet the half-century mark on that day.