Hey, how are you? Weird.

When people ask us this question these days... Hey, how are you?... The only answer we can possible give is, "Weird. We're weird right now."

Transition is weird. Last-holidays-again are weird. Fundraising is weird. 

And the weird-ness started for us last summer. It's the reason I haven't posted an update about us for awhile. I actually wrote this post last November but then Hubby felt like we weren't really ready to post it. Now, we are. So here you go. The blogpost I tried to post a few months ago... 

I've tried to figure out how to write this blog for awhile now. I wanted to catch everybody up on the summer that we had. But it was a LONG summer... and it wasn't filled with happy/do-all-the-last-things-in-Wilmore like we wanted. Instead, the grief and loss of May just kept going. Interspersed, there were moments of joy and laughter and visiting with old friends. But it felt like, right around the corner, there was always another big pit waiting for us. 

JUNE

some "Super Fun" times:

Legoland Discovery Center in Columbus, Ohio

Playing in the water in the backyard

Family birthday parties and outside time with family and friends

and an amazing day at a waterpark in Columbus, Ohio! (I have a very good friend whose family gets Cross-Cultural Witness life. Her parents gifted our family a day at the waterpark while Hubby had fundraising meetings, because "the kids have to remember parts of this as fun, too so they don't hate it." 

and super crazy, amazing-ness: D was baptized in June! (He said that he wanted to be baptized here at our church in Wilmore as a sign that he was part of this community as well as a part of the family of God.)

We're a Vineyard church in Kentucky, so of course we use a horse trough as a baptismal font. 

Super NOT fun times: Mike's Aunt, who had fought valiantly against ovarian cancer for 2 and a half years, passed into the arms of Jesus so we traveled to St. C for her funeral and to spend time with the family. This was the fourth family member that we had lost to cancer in the past few years. There's something very heavy about having to say, "Kids, you need to pack your funeral clothes again." It feels weird that my 6, 8 and (then) 9 year old kids have dedicated funeral clothes. Mike's Aunt B was always the life of the party. Whenever we would visit Mike's parents, she and Uncle J would always come by to see the kids, have a drink and share stories. The last time we visited, even the kids noticed her absence and commented on how they missed seeing her. 

JULY

some "Super Fun" times:

We got to celebrate Fourth of July with our TMS Global people because Maclin training was in Wilmore this year! 

We visited The Wilds in Central Ohio with Grandma and Grandpa. 

Mike and the Kids got a little taste of what it was like to take a Safari in Tanzania. 

Cousin Camp with some of the nieces and nephews. 

Some not fun times: We had a yard sale with some of our other CCW people. It was a lot for the kids to have to make choices about what will fit in a suitcase and what will need to be left behind. 

In July, we also lost a good friend to cancer. He was a member of our small group for a few years and he was our kids favorite greeter when we arrived at church. They asked "what happened to the guy who always said, 'Hi, Batman and Spiderman!' ?" When they found out he died of cancer and there was going to be another funeral, they responded, "Another one? Seriously? Is cancer going around like covid?" We decided to get a baby sitter so they didn't have to go to the funeral. 

AUGUST

August started back at Ridgecrest in Black Mountain, North Carolina for the Vineyard National Conference. Our kids LOVED it. They met friends from all over the country and all over the world. They also didn't have to explain why we are moving to Albania or justify why our family is going into full-time ministry work. At conference, they weren't weird ministry kids. They were just kids. 

We got home, and started our new year of homeschooling!! With all the traveling for church visits and unknown departure date, it felt easier to pull the kids out and start the school year in a way that we could take with us. 

But we couldn't figure out why mommy felt so bad and B was struggling with a cough and feeling super tired. Surely it can't be covid... Daddy feels fine. If Mommy had covid, surely Daddy would, too. But we tested anyway. 

Apparently, Daddy was just asymptomatic. 

So we cancelled all of our travel plans and stayed home for a few weeks. 

But Mommy still felt bad... real bad. 

And now she was super nauseous and so tired that she can barely stay up past 9 pm... 

We thought it was still covid. 

Turns out, it was morning sickness. 

The Super FUN and Super NOT FUN all at the same time:

It has taken me a long time to write this post because it was supposed to be a "guess what? We've got another little pumpkin on the way!" post. But it's not. Now, it's a weird "I haven't updated my blog but what are we even supposed to say?" post. It took us a few weeks to even get our heads wrapped around the idea that we had gotten pregnant. (I'm 44 years old. We honestly thought we had aged out of this system.) But when we finally came to grips with it and started to plan how to adjust our timing for moving to Albania, we lost the baby. What was supposed to be a super fun celebration for my August birthday at a hotel with a pool and an art exhibit, became me sitting with my feet up and Mike and the kids playing in the pool without me. 

So August ended and September began with a complete whiplash: Super Fun and Super Not Fun. We crawled through the rest of September in a fog of recovery, doctors appointments, church visits (because fundraising), homeschool and grief. 

It was a weird summer.