This month we have been trying to settle back in to “normal” life. We enjoyed reuniting in Carlsbad for 4th of July, with Tim returning from Taiwan and Cordelia completing her week of “camp grandma”. After a week of visiting with the Powers clan we all returned to San Jose to be together for the first time in three weeks! Unfortunately being back home was quickly followed by a terrible cold virus from the airplane trip. So after 10 days of dealing with that, we are finally getting back to life this last week of July.
Cordelia had a fantastic week with Grandpa and Grandma Powers. Her zoo camp experience was very successful and she had fun playing with Max, going to LEGOLAND, and all sorts of fun Grandparent things. Corrie also officially graduated to quotbig girl pantiesquot when we got back to San Jose and she has been doing a great job keeping dry. She still wears her training panties for nap and bed time and we are still working on getting the quot#2quot in the potty but we are proud of her progress. Cordelia quotbaptizedquot Alicia into motherhood this month with her first throw-up and thus began the week plus sickness. She continues to be a good big sister to Anthony and is generally very caring. Now that Tony is more active there have been some conflicts over toys but we are helping her to work through that.
Anthony continues to develop, transitioning from rolling around to army crawling. He is not doing hand-knee crawling yet but he is pretty quick at sliding around. Now that he is more mobile he has been getting into everything, including Corrie’s toys. Cordelia is generally good natured about it but he is still drooling and spitting up a lot so she gets really upset when her toys are covered in quotwet!quot Tony is exploring more baby foods. He seems to be opinionated about what he likes and doesn’t like but he does enjoy eating food. We have also introduced a beginner sippy cup. Anthony will occasionally drink out of it but he’s much more interested in the solids. Unfortunately while Tony was sick he did not eat or drink his milk very well. We are grateful that he is feeling better and has a better appetite now. Hopefully at his 6 month check up he will not continue to be underweight. His napping has become more challenging as he has gotten older. Now that he is more aware, he is not very interested in sleeping and his naps are sometimes very poor. He does not do well sleeping in the car seat which has made it more challenging for Alicia and Cordelia to go out during his first nap.
Tim is glad to finally be done with business travel. The traveling took a toll on his work productivity and family life. Fortunately even with all the plane travel he did not get sick. Even when the rest of the family came down with the cold he managed to escape the disease! We had a good visit down in Carlsbad and Tim had lots of fun with the kids. Tim and Cordelia also took a short trip up to Tahoe and enjoyed some father-daughter time playing at the lake. Tim got back into things at work fairly quickly. He seems to be everyone’s go-to-guy so whenever there is a crisis he gets pulled into it. He got an “A+”, 5-star rating on his performance review and everyone seems very pleased with his work. Now that his current product is going into production he will be moving on to a different product, probably by the end of the year. Management is still deciding which new product to put him one, since both managers are pulling for him.
Alicia has been staying busy with all the travel and trying to catch-up on things back in San Jose, plus sickness . She enjoyed being down in Carlsbad to visit with family and meet up with one of her friends. Back in San Jose Alicia is trying to stay connected to various moms and meet up for play dates. Unfortunately the week of sickness prevented any play dates but now that everyone is better Alicia has managed to meet up with a few moms during the week. The summer is always a difficult time because there are no organized groups or child care. So it takes a lot more effort to find people to hang out with and actually meet up.
We have been trying to have as much family weekend activities as possible. Due to the hot weather we have been taking advantage of our community pool. Tim and Alicia enjoyed a few date nights to focus and reconnect as a couple. Over the next couple months we will have to decide on our next steps for housing, so we have been having lots of discussions on what the right path is for us.
Please pray for guidance on our housing decision, that we would have clarity. Pray that we will remain healthy and not have any more sickness. We a grateful to be back together as a family again. We are also thankful for the favor God has shown us, specifically Tim at work. Thank you all for your love and support and prayers.
