Lots of News!

I have been sidetracked lately. Nope, it's true. I thought that doing the freedom in Christ class was going to be time consuming and it hasn't been time consuming in actual time I'm spending reading or with my mentor but it's more that I'm just focused on other things. I'm not feeling like myself so much lately. Usually when you do FIC you go through book one with a mentor and it takes a minimum of 10 weeks. There are 5 classes and 10 mentor sessions- in theory. In reality you have to deal with your schedule and your mentors schedule and kids, sickness, etc. So we really should be done with the first book but I probably have 3 weeks left. But in doing the first book some things came to light that my mentor though that we should deal with now rather than waiting until the end of book two so really, wow, I'm kind of tired mentally and spiritually and feel like taking a little breather. So, on with the news...

Amanda will be 18 (seriously!) in 22 days. Yes, it's hard to believe and not hard to believe at the same time. You mom's with little ones can hardly imagine, I'm sure, but trust me it's not as incredibly horrible as you might imagine. All of the stages prepare you for the stage when they're mostly grown up. And the advantage of having one kid that is so much older than the others makes me want to cherish every single day with all of them. It makes it harder that Amanda pretty much wants to do, um, nothing with me (not that she doesn't like me, she just mostly likes her friends better right now) but I enjoy the time we do spend together.

And in more Amanda news- drumroll please- it looks like she's going to be the valedictorian of her class! I hadn't really been telling anyone thinking that "something" could happen. But she'd really just have to stop going to school and fail her last two classes in order for it to not happen but she has straight A's right now so I'm pretty sure that she's it and that she'll be giving a speech on her graduation day. I'm so proud-sniff, sniff.

In Chloe news- Earlier this year I applied for a school of choice that is on a balanced calendar. Balanced is also known as year round education. She won't really be going year round it's just that during the hottest months of the year when summer drags on forever, she'll be in school and then in October when the weather is beautiful she'll have 3 weeks off and then again in the spring. Pretty smart, huh? Anyway, getting in is pretty difficult but she was accepted- probably because she's 25% Cuban. They actually look at ethnicity as a determining factor to get into the school. Funny since it's frowned upon in every other instance...but moving on. I *really* want her to go to the homeschool academy at our church but unless God makes a way we just can't do that so this is a nice second choice.

And...we're going to FL in May!!! By the time we go at the end of May it will have been 2 years and 5 months since Trav has been. He hasn't seen his brothers or grandparents or aunts and uncles or his little nephew Cameron (who will turn two in April). So we're pretty excited. Of course, there are *lots* of people to split our time with but we've narrowed it down to 3 people that we'll actually stay with during the 10 days we're there. It will probably be exhausting but we're all very excited. We're hoping for a theme park excursion since it's been nearly 8 years since we've been to one. And having moved from central FL it's just been a huge adjustment for us. When we lived there we went to Disney *a lot*. Amanda actually went on her first trip when she was 13 days old and lost her umbilical cord there- um kind of yucky but definitely unique. And when Trav and I got married we had year passes to Busch Gardens and Sea World. It was so.much.fun. It was kind of hard to adjust to being fun free here. Seriously, we saw it that way. So anyway, nothing is concrete except for staying with my brother, Trav's brother Shane, and Trav's parents and going to the beach. I want to go to Sanibel Island which is a little far to drive but it's the best place to get shells that I know of and I know that Chloe will *love* it. We also want to have a birthday party at the beach for Chloe with all of her little cousins but we'll just have to see what we can work out. There's also shopping in Ellenton, St. Armand's circle, and John's Pass. Then there are the places you've all seen in pictures before, Lake Mirror in Lakeland, Lake Morton in Lakeland, and downtown Lakeland. There's so.much.to.do. I'm excited in case you can't tell.

And does anybody wanna see pics of my new niece?