Life as a Yowler

We are back on the road again. I feel like I need to be real for a second. I am totally beat. I’m exhausted. I’m a grump. I’m an emotional basket case. Brielle asked me today if I hate being a mom. So that wasn’t my best parenting moment. Joah chimes in and said “Brielle no,  she doesn’t hate being a mom or she would quit having kids. She is just having a rough day.” That was a pretty good summary. It might look like traveling is a big vacation. It’s definitely not. Brandon travels for work, and although we do a ton of fun things, it’s emotionally and physically draining. It’s hard containing the kids and meeting all their needs while we are driving down the road. Brandon is still taking a million phone calls. He is still having meetings and doing store trainings.  He’s still answering emails and in contact with buyers. I have had a rough couple days of feeling burned out. I miss home. I miss friends and our community. I feel like I’m missing out on so many things back home. I’m struggling with wondering if we are doing the right thing taking our kids all over the planet. The lack of routine gets to even me sometimes. The lack of plugging into church because we are gone so much, is tough on all of us. I know at the end of the day we love our kids and we are doing our best. We are focusing on pouring into our family and making memories. I am trusting that God will fill in all the gaps in every area we are lacking. He is the strength in my weakness. He will carry me when I feel burned out. I’m trying to shift my focus and focus on the positive. I’m thankful for memories and a lot of fun experiences.

With all that being said, we’ve had a whirlwind of a couple weeks at home between the last trip and this one. I’ll do a short summary.

Our kids have been playing outside pretty much constantly when we are home. They really miss playing and riding bike in their yard.

I decided to be a good mom and juice one day. About 4000 carrots and I got about 30 ounces of frozen carrot juice for Isla. She gagged at first, but I persisted. Ummmm no, kid. I worked way too hard for you to refuse it. She has learned to like it. I’ve been juicing apples for the other kids. They love their apple juice.

I’m an effort to encourage creativity, I put together a craft basket that I leave out all the time. I put it right beside the kids picnic table. I have paper, crayons, glue, markers, yarn, scissors, and a few other craft supplies in the basket. This is a pretty big stretch for an OCD like me, but the kids are loving it so I’ve loosened up. I found these homemade guitars on joah’s bed one day.

I also found this beautiful spider bracelet. Uncle Evan was the lucky recipient of this beauty.

Jessi and I met together one day at the park and let the kids play. It just happened that the Elkton police were there passing out bags to the kids involved in the Summer Rec Program. The police were kind enough to give our kids a bag. Our kids were so excited. We had them write thank you cards to show their appreciation.

We had the furniture sale last week.

Joah worked with his uncles and Snider(his new friend) for half the day loading and wrapping furniture.

Brielle worked for about 8, maybe even 10 minutes, with Grandma and Aunt Kiersten.

Brielle got to go on a play date to her friend Emma’s. They even stopped at Emma’s coffee shop for smoothies.

I kept Elijah, although he didn’t want his picture taken.

We went to the parade in Pigeon and watched uncle Grant march.

You go, Grant! Brandon made sure to yell extremely loud when he marched by us, because the band director was standing right next to Grant. She shot Brandon a dirty look, so what did Brandon do?……he yelled again even louder than the first tine. He told grant later, “the first cheer was for you. The second cheer was for me.”🤦‍♀️ It was soon after this that the sheriff walked by. Brandon motioned to him then whispered something to him. We all wondered what in the world he told him. Any guesses?

He told him his zipper was down. 🤦‍♀️

We headed to my parents cottage to relax after the parade. Joah discovered tiny frogs. He caught 3 of them. They are the cutest little things.

They are this small.

We also said goodbye to a season….a season of boating. The last two summers we haven’t even put the boat in the water. Summer is too busy of a time for us right now. We sold this boat lift. One of the cottage neighbors was interested. We are going to sell the boat as well. We will buy a new one some day. Someday when our kids are older, and we aren’t traveling as much, we will have more time to boat.

Brandon and I went out on a date and had Lexi Smithers watch our kids. She was amazing. She had so many fun activities planned for them. They haven’t stopped talking about how much fun they had. She took them on a nature walk.

She made a ton of crafts with them.

She took them to see some animals.

Isla crashed our date.

Joah slept in his hat he made.

We let Joah open his gifts early, since we will be traveling over his birthday.

A couple of his favorites were this shark tale blanket, and a devotional book for boys.