Adventures in La La Land

 1. We had another momentous week around here. First was back to school: I only have 4 library classes this year, but 3 of them are very big. It's a pretty tight squeeze! But it went well. The whole week went well. Lena was very nervous and starting to melt down in my office on Monday morning, but I said, "No. Do not have a panic attack. Get out there and do it scared." She agreed with me, and said, "I know I'll be fine as long as I don't freak myself out." And she was. The first two days were hard, but she did it anyway, and by Wednesday she wasn't nervous at all. Thank you, Jesus! Levi has been loving 4th grade. His 3rd grade teacher warned them that 4th grade was going to be a lot harder and the teacher was really strict, so I think he's been pleasantly surprised that it isn't that bad. Haha. Lucy doesn't have much to say. Science is already really hard. Math is too easy and she's worried she should've done the advanced class. ...

1. It was back to school for me this week. The kids start on Monday, but I was there much of this week to prepare. Honestly, I'm ready. I'll miss sleeping in, but I'm reaching my threshold for unstructured summer. I've all but given up on enforcing screen time limits since I was at school so much this week, and Levi can not  self-regulate. He never  gets sick of it, and the guilt is eating me alive. So I'm looking forward to him going back to seven hours of screen-free time, and only having to fight with him about it for a few hours every night. Lena is not  looking forward to going back to school, and I'm really worried she's going to have a rough start, so feel free to pray for her! 2. On Monday, I had to take CPR/AED training.  I've never been trained on the AED before. I guess it's a good skill to have, but I really hope I never have to use it! I'm really great at book learning, but handling an emergency in the moment is a whole new ball game...

1. I hinted at this in my last post, but it's finally official: Justin and I are going to an all-inclusive resort for 6 days to celebrate our 20th anniversary! I feel weird about sharing exactly where and when, but suffice it to say that it is out of the country, and somewhere warm and tropical. 🌴🌞 I am equal parts excited and nervous. I've never been out of the U.S. - not even to Canada. We turned in our passport applications today, so hopefully they'll get here in time! 😬 Mostly I'm nervous about the unknowns - flying internationally, navigating customs, getting from the airport to the resort (although I specifically chose a resort that offers shuttle service, so hopefully that won't be a big deal), and even silly little things like - am I supposed to tip at the resort? Will they take American money? Of course I'm also nervous about flying, getting kidnapped in a foreign country, and leaving my kids orphans, but hopefully Xanax will help with that. I'm ...

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, ...