The Saturday 7

We experienced some exciting milestones this week.

1. Driver's Training. 😬 If you haven't put a kid through driver's training yet, let me do you a favor and warn you that it is a cut throat business! I was totally unprepared! Fortunately, Lucy's friend's mom (Shawnna) was more on top of things than I am, and she warned me that classes fill up super quickly, did the research this spring, and found a class our girls could take. We had to sign up by the end of March for end of July classes! And then this Sunday was the parent meeting. We were told to bring our calendars to schedule our kids' drives. I feel like when I did driver's training 100 years ago, they said, "You're driving Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 4-6. Be there." Well it's not like that anymore. What we did on Sunday felt like the NFL draft! There was a huge whiteboard at the front of the room with all the available driving slots on it. The only time options were 7-9am, 9-11am, and 1:30-3:30 (with an 11:30-1:30 slot on the weekends). Only two kids can drive per time slot, so if Lucy and her friend wanted to drive together, we had to sign up for a slot that had both spots open still. The instructor said, "Drive One" and started calling people's names in random order. When your name was called you had to be ready with the date/time you wanted. Shawnna and I were frantically flipping through our calendars, conferring together. We would decide on one date/time, but it'd get taken before our names were called, so then we had to quickly pivot to our second choice, and so on. We did this 6 times to fill all 6 hours of required drive time! And our poor girls ended up with three 7 a.m. slots. It doesn't help that our private school starts the week before the public school, so we had to cram all our drives in during the first three weeks, instead of spreading them over four weeks like everyone else. Oy.

2. Fortunately, driving seems to be coming more naturally to Lucy than it did to me. Haha. She's driven twice now. When she came home today she said the instructor asked her if she's driven before and said that she changed lanes flawlessly, like she's been doing it for years. Whew! I truly have every confidence in Lucy to be a competent and cautious driver. But I'm a control freak, and I know I'm going to be that mom who stomps on an imaginary brake and gasps dramatically when I'm riding with her. Lol. Everyone keeps telling me to make Justin do the driving, but she has to get 50 hours in before she can get her license, and he works full time! It makes way more sense for me to do the majority of her hours with her. Pray for us both. Lol.

3. In other milestone news, Justin and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this week! 😮 Despite the fact that we're old enough to have a child in driver's training, it still just doesn't seem like we're old enough to have been married that long. Haha. I decided to write Justin a letter, highlighting some of the big moments of each year we've been married. I spent a few hours pouring over old journals, blog entries, and photos, then sat down to write . . . and started bawling my eyes out!! I am so not a crier - mostly because I'm highly medicated - so it was a shock to be so overwhelmed by emotion. It was just amazing to look back and see how far we've come and to recognize what a beautiful life we've built. God has blessed us beyond measure. It's easy to overlook it when you're living the day to day, but I have the journal entries to prove that God has provided for us time and time again. We're finally in a position where I'm not terrified about making ends meet each month, even though we still don't feel 100% financially secure. It was humbling to remember that first miscarriage and my fear of ever being able to carry a baby to term, when now I can look at my three precious children and be thankful for each moment with them. There were the years we lived with my parents - which were such a blessing for us financially, and for me emotionally. My depression was really bad after Lena was born, and I needed that extra support system. That move also enabled me to stay home with the kids I so desperately wanted in their most formative years. Now we're in our own house, in the town I always dreamed of, and still able to send our kids to private school. It's so easy to get hung up on what we still want - this house has so many issues, we're ready to be out of town, and my van is a hunk of junk - and forget that the life we have now is what I've always dreamed of. I'm so thankful for having Justin by my side through it all. He's sacrificed a lot for us to have the life we do, and I never want to take him for granted.

We celebrated on Tuesday with dinner at Olive Garden, and an exciting trip to Ollie's Discount Store. But we have plans for something much bigger and better coming soon!

4. On Wednesday, the kids finally got to cash in one of their Christmas presents by going to the Dude Perfect show! In November, when I saw that it was coming to our area, I knew the kids would love it, but hesitated to spend so much. Justin convinced me it was ok to splurge, so we bought the tickets! The show was so much fun! Of course, parking downtown during such a huge event was a major (and expensive) pain, and my anxiety was in high gear as I tried not to lose anyone in the rush of the crowd filing into the building. But we all managed to stay together, our seats were better than I expected, the show was very entertaining, and the kids had a blast. I was especially impressed that the Dude Perfect guys gave a little gospel presentation at the end! I knew they were Christians, but I didn't know if they'd incorporate that into the show. Ty said, "The number one thing we want for our kids is that they have a relationship with Jesus Christ. It'd be cool if they were able to experience the things we've been able to because of this show, but knowing Jesus is more important than anything else. And we want that for all of you as well." So cool.

I refused to spend the big bucks on actual DP merch, so Lena painted t-shirts for herself and Levi.

Levi made this mask an hour before we left by printing off a picture of Ty (as Chubby Dubby) and cutting out eye holes. Lol. It was creepy and hilarious. Soooo many people pointed and laughed at him throughout the night. The girls and I kept saying, "This is so embarrassing," and Levi just laughed and said, "I love it!" Hahaha.

5. Yesterday, we had our second-to-last Cousin Fun Day for the summer. We kept it low-key by going to a local park, then back to Aunt Karen's house to swim in the pool.