March 2023

Welcome to Russin Family West! We hope you enjoy our new site. I found it ironic that Shutterfly canceled their shared sites on March 27^th, exactly on Cordelia’s birthday. We published blogs on Shutterfly monthly for the last 9 years! Let’s see where the next 9 years take us 😊

We have had so much rain this month! It snowed a lot up in the mountains, so we took the kids of out school early the first Friday in March and had a snow-filled fun afternoon! It continued to rained a lot this month, nearly every week for at least one or two days. We finished hosting an eight-week session of the bible study “life group” through our church. The kid and adult dynamics were a bit rough. We decided to move back to the previous life group we were in during the fall quarter. We ended the month by celebrating Cordelia’s 9^th birthday.

Cordelia is continuing to focus on school and piano, reducing her extra-curricular activities. She’s continuing to experiment with cooking different things at school. She’s also starting to work on a speech piece for the school’s speech contest. Cordelia is doing a good job getting her schoolwork and homework done each day. We celebrated Cordelia’s birthday with some special family time to a local trampoline house. She made cupcakes with Tim for her school class. She got to celebrate her actual birthday day at school with her friends.

Anthony’s PE class is now doing track and field. He’s done some sprinting, javelin throw, and high jump. Anthony started a new quarter of soccer practice and he’s got a new instructor with fewer kids in the class. The coach has been working them pretty hard the last two weeks but Anthony has been rising to the challenge and continues to enjoy soccer. In school Anthony is starting to have a more positive time. During breaks he’s been playing some baseball on days when it’s not raining. Anthony also had a field trip to the Flower Fields in Carlsbad, and enjoyed touring them with Grandpa Powers.

Lydia continues to enjoy school. It’s one of her favorite places and she’s got some friends she really enjoys hanging out with. She’s continuing to improve in her reading. She’s also starting to do some basic addition. Lydia is getting back to a routine with her swimming and is starting to learn backstroke in addition to improving her freestyle.

Natalie is getting all of her 1^st year molars. She went to her first dentist appointment at the end of the month. She’s starting to get some “stranger danger” and doesn’t like being held by people outside of her family. She’s getting some attitude and will flail herself on the ground if she doesn’t like what she’s being asked to so. She really likes exploring which is good, but sometimes gets her in trouble. Unfortunately she got an ear infection in the middle of the month and suffered from a cold for the second half of the month.

Alicia continues with her same tasks for the month. Work has been going well. It’s staying busy but not overloading the rest of her time. Anthony’s been having a bit more positive attitude towards school the last few weeks, which has made school time more fun. AWANA is maintaining its demands within the limits of time. Alicia is focusing on finishing the school year strong, with about 2 months left. Alicia has had a rough last week to the month. She got a really bad version of the cold that was circulating through the house. It left her pretty wiped for several days, which is hard with all the daily responsibilities.

At work Tim had an important customer meeting at the beginning of the month. The customer was extremely happy with Tim’s work, which was very gratifying. Other things at work have been a bit lack luster but he continues to be valued and appreciated. Tim’s continuing to do some consulting work, which has been somewhat interesting. At home, Tim’s maintaining the yard. With all the rain the weeds have been a big problem. We also got a load of mulch at the end of the month. So, Tim’s got a good work out lined up for him distributing all the mulch around the front yard.

Please pray that we all return to health quickly. We had a bit of a rough month with relationships and dynamics. Please also pray that we have wisdom and peace about how to make our family dynamics smoother. We’re looking forward to spending some days with Mimi and Papa in Arizona during the Spring Break week.

1 2 … 6 ►