October 2023

October has found us settling into a nice groove with work and school balance. We’ve been continuing to enjoy our church life group and growing in our relationships. We had a fun trip in the middle of the month to Mammoth Lakes to visit with Ken and Abbe. We’re still trying to balance our schedules and support all the various demands.

Cordelia continues to adjust to school and seems to have settled into a good place. She’s been writing longer papers this year and also completing her final versions in cursive. In school they completed their first module on plants and now are learning about US history starting. Cordelia continues to do well in AWANA and has a nice group this year. Cordelia is continuing in ice skating will be starting to work on a solo performance for a Christmas show in December. She’s also continuing well in piano and will be participating in a piano recital in November.

Anthony continues to have a good time at school. He is building strong friendship with several of the other kids. He’s also progressing well with his work. His still struggles with homework, especially the writing assignments. But he’s doing well in math and excellently on his spelling quizzes. Anthony is speeding through his final Sparks book. He’ll be finishing the main handbook in November and starting on the review book. He’s doing a great job in his soccer class and is continuing to improve his skills. Tim has been able to take him to soccer for several of the weeks and Anthony has really enjoyed that. He is also will be participating in a piano recital in November.

Lydia is still struggling to maintain positive interactions on some occasions. Sometimes she’s doing great but she can become easily offended if she feels something is not “fair”. She’s continuing to enjoy school and complete her works each day. She has a nice friend group and loves walking into school with her fellow classmates. Lydia is doing well in skating and goes around without falling. She’ll be continuing in her ice-skating classes and performing in a group number for the Christmas show. Lydia has improved in swim class as well. The switch to a different time has really helped her to push her skills and she’s starting to learn breaststroke. Lydia will be performing in her first piano recital in November.

Natalie is doing well at school and enjoys her class time. Natalie has been getting more attitude this month, yelling and hitting when she doesn’t get her way. We’ve been working with her to use her words and politely ask for what she wants. But sometimes the answer to what she wants is no, and that is not usually well accepted. In spite of those outbursts, she still is usually nice to be around and is super cute. She really enjoys her siblings and it is great to see how they interact to love and encourage her.

Alicia maintains a high level of activity at work. She continues to be the lead project engineer for several efforts. On the home front she’s been keeping up with the kid’s homework and taking them to their various activities. She also tries to find times to have playdates for the kids with their friends. AWANA is rolling along closing on the first seven weeks of the club year. It’s been great to see the growth of connection within the club. Sparks has a high attendance rate with about 90% of the club present every week. Alicia and Tim hosted a leader fellowship night at the house at the end of the month to get to know the leaders a little better.

Tim’s work had a few fun parts to it this month. He got to set up a telescope to look at satellites, planets, and galaxies. He’s been running into some road blocks on one of his other programs, which lead to some discouraging days. On the home front Tim made the final push to finish the outdoor grill project in time for the Sparks leader fellowship. He spent countless hours grinding and polishing the concrete counter. Now the grill is in place and doors/drawers installed. While there are a few things that didn’t turn out quite like we wanted, overall it looks nice and is a very serviceable outdoor kitchen. Tim has been enjoying watching Anthony’s soccer and getting to connect more with him on that shared interest.

We’re thankful for the family God has blessed us with and the ability to encourage each other. We’re grateful for the house and area we are in, with the ability to host gatherings. We’re also thankful for the school where we can drop all our kids off at the same place and know they are being loved and taught the love of God. It is great so see so many friendships growing there. We’re looking forward to fun activities in November, including the kids’ piano recital and Thanksgiving.

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