April had lots of ups and downs this year. We started off the month with Spring break. Cordelia and Anthony went to Arizona to visit with Mimi and Papa. Lydia and Natalie did a science camp. After finishing the break week, we went back to our normal routine. Tim and Alicia celebrated our 15th anniversary, although it wasn’t a big celebration this year. Just a family dinner out at a local restaurant. The kids all continued their sports activities at school, but they are all finishing up at the end of the month.
Cordelia had a fun family and friends birthday party the beginning of the month. She’s continuing to grow and mature. She had a fun visit with Mimi and Papa. They went to the desert museum and an indoor video game experience. Cordelia and Anthony flew back to San Diego without an adult, which was a first for them. At school Cordelia has had several big presentations. In English she did a country report on South Korea and dressed up for her presentation for the school walk through. She also had an in-class presentation for history. She did very well on both presentations. In basketball her team had a bumpy time since they got back from Spring Break. They had won two games before Spring break, but they seemed to have lost their touch and lost their remaining games of the season. It was a bit disappointing. She still has built some good friendships during the season, so overall it was helpful. The middle school band is getting ready for a competition at the beginning of May and also their final band recital. She has enjoyed playing clarinet this year and will likely continue to play in 7th grade.
Anthony started out the month still in a nervous emotional state. He enjoyed the actives in Arizona with Mimi and Papa, but it was a challenging flight home with Cordelia. Since then, he’s been getting steadily more confident and seems to have returned to his normal emotional level. In school, he has been enjoying history and science. His class had a field trip to the Independence Hall replica at Knott’s Berry Farm. It was a really fun experience. In soccer, he turned the corner back to enjoying it. He’s really starting to connect with some of the other players on his team. They had a mini 4v4 tournament at the end of the month. Tim was the coach of Anthony’s team the “Fried Pickles”. They tied 3 games and lost 1, coming in 4 out of 5 in the overall standings. It was a good bonding opportunity and he’s getting his enthusiasm for playing back.
Lydia got baptized this month! It was a very special event for us and we are very proud of her taking this step. One morning she woke up and said, “I had a dream I got baptized. Can I get baptized?” So we followed that calling. In school Lydia is doing well. The subjects are not very challenging at the 2nd grade level so she’s sometimes a bit bored. She did enjoy the after-school intramural basketball for the month. She’s still continuing swimming through May but that will be her last month of swim lessons. She’s also continuing her piano practice. Lydia has completed all her books and lots of extra credits in Sparks. She is excited to be moving up to T&T next year in AWANA.
Natalie finished her phonics book 2! She has started on phonics book 3. Natalie is going strong in her soccer and she’s going to be moving up to the next level next session in June! She’s enjoying the end of her school year, and is looking forward to the summer. She’s very excited about finishing her last few verses of Cubbies so that she can move up and be a Sparkie next year. She enjoys playing with her dolls and making up songs; she’s often singing to herself or having her dolls sing to each other.
Alicia’s work continues to be a bit overwhelming; there’s far more to do than she has time for. She is in the process of ramping up her work time back to full time in preparation for a possible promotion to a supervisor role towards the end of the summer (when she’d be able to return a full-time again). She’s stepping in and taking more of a leadership role in preparation, helping people drive a tasks to completion and take charge. At AWANA she is finishing strong; there is one more club night in May and then the end-of-year activities (the family Carnival and the Awards ceremony to celebrate everyone’s hard work this year). Home life continues to be occasionally challenging. The juggle of making sure everyone gets homework completed, fed dinner and any after school actives keeps things in constant motion. With all of this, clashes with the kids and their varying personalities have been a struggle. She’s enjoying the weekends a bit more with things more relaxed and less activities than we used to have on Saturday.
Tim had a bit of a setback at work this month; he spent all of one day “officially” assigned to his new role before he was pulled back into a support role for a previous program working with some good coworkers but supporting a very challenging schedule deadline with equally challenging management. At the end of the month he and his team were able to successfully complete assembly and testing of the systems he was assigned to help with. He’s been doing some gardening at home, and finished up on the carpentry for the upstairs linen cabinet (so the upstairs is now “Done”). He’s also experiencing the same challenges at home with conflicting personalities and lots of drama and disrespect among some of the kids.
May will bring a lot of changes with the end of the AWANA year and the end of the school year. We are all looking forward to a bit more free time and less extracurricular stress, in the hopes that it’ll help our family to settle a bit and feel less stressed. Please pray for all of us that we’d have more patience with each other and extend more grace; none of us are at our best when we are stressed by outside factors and it tends to spiral sometimes. We are praying for God to help us navigate the emotional turmoil and regain more positive family interactions.
