Summer update

It's been a crazy busy summer.  It feels like I have spent most of it preparing or cleaning up after the children/ husband who lead very busy travel lives. I think Connor has spent maybe two weeks home the whole summer.  He has been given a scholarship to go to the Scratch 2015 conference in Amsterdam so we will have him home for a week, then he leaves for a week and then he has three days before he moves into the Engineering Honors Dorms at CU.  It's a good thing he staying close so we didn't have to factor in travel time.

  Caileigh has had an odd summer as we found out at the beginning of the summer that she has an autoimmune disease called Retinal Vasculitis which attacks the blood vessels in the eye and can cause blindness and/or brain damage.  God was faithful and protected Caileigh's eye.  Even though we didn't find it until the infection was at an 8 out of 10, Caileigh has no permanent damage which the Autoimmune Retinal Specialist ( bet you didn't know there was such a thing - me either) called miraculous.  We have been so grateful that God steps in and takes care of us even when we didn't know we needed it.  She will be on medication for the next 2-3 years to put the disease in remission.  She has been a trooper and has been so faithful to take her meds and all the supplements we put in place to help manage the side effects.  She has spent much of the summer reading, when she isn't traveling, taking care of her garden ( and making sure I take care of it when she's gone) and swimming.

Collin finally has hit his growth spurt.  He is getting tall and lean, except for his hair which we tease grows faster by the hour.  He has finally embraced the love of reading and now spends hours in his room just reading.  Every so often though, the lack of movement gets to him and he jumps up, thunders outside and kick the soccer ball around for awhile or convinces Caileigh to go to the pool with him.

It's funny being the Mom of all teenagers.  I always feared the teen years a bit.  I didn't need to, it has been so wonderful.  I can see however, that all the years of training and discipline really start to pay off.  I don't need to repeat things because they know I mean business the first time I say something.  I can just say, "15 min cleanup" and everyone jumps up to make the house presentable because we taught that when they were little.  They get along beautifully and talk respectfully to each other and us, because we never allowed anything else.  They are not perfect, neither am I, by any means but they are pretty great and I am so glad I spent those younger years training and retraining and Rae-retraining.  The fruit is beautiful to behold.






Categories: parenting