Time continues on

Time continues no matter what is going on around us.  I almost can't believe that it is the middle of July and the last time I entered this blog was January.  At the same time though, I feel like it really has been too long since I have written anything, whether worth sharing or even just for catharsis purposes.

So how does one begin to even sum up 6 months of life in one blog post? If I figure that out, I will share the magic with you. :)  February brought us to house hunting - for our first house!! We spent February looking at homes, found one at the beginning of March, long story short, closed in April, and moved in the weekend of the April 18th.  Evan's birthday was the first one celebrated in our new home :)
Then came end of the year for the kids school, Willow did great and has great plans in place for next year. Amanda came out with a great year as well and will be in 5th grade at Palmer, Evan did a great job and finished 6th grade at Blandford with all A's and B's! I am so proud of him.  Jonathan struggled a lot this year, as a freshman at City High; despite all my working with teachers and counselors he finished the year with sub par grades and was dismissed from the school. :(  I had told him that if that were to happen (as I had many talks with him throughout the school year) that I would home school him.  I knew he didn't want it, but I also know that for someone as bright as him, there really aren't many options for him here in Grand Rapids and I trusted the school when the counselor said she had control of the situation and not to worry. So I didn't look into filling out applications for school of choice or other theme schools.  Luckily, we were able to compromise and he is now signed up for Nexus Academy in Grand Rapids (check them out here). It is a blended program with four hours of on campus learning and the remaining 2.5 at home, and they require weekly check in's by the parents and it sounds like he will be able to go at his own pace as well.  So we are now hoping that this year is much better than last.
We are now in the middle of summer and my kids are definitely bored. LOL I have to laugh a little at that, because it probably is the truth - but there is still so much they could be doing and instead seem to not 'see' it.  We have had no fun trips anywhere, no big vacations planned as this is our down here from DC (meaning we aren't going), we have been sharing one car this summer and only taking it on days when we have appointments and many errands to run, so not even any fun day trips have been planned.  Yet while staying here I have been busy planning the PHF Walk MI 2015. So I have been pretty busy even though the kids feel like they haven't.
Another event that happened this summer was Evan had his appendix removed at the end of June. He then spent the next 2 weeks in recovery mode, and not able to do anything anyway, so that also kind of put a sad face on the summer. Now though, we are all doing well, Amanda has come back from camp, Jonathan leaves tomorrow for scout camp and now we start the planning of summer's end and back to school.
Now let's not get too far ahead of ourselves on that! LOL, but I do need to start thinking about school as we will have 2 kids in uniforms and 2 without. We also need to start thinking about a second car, and what that will look like for our family as well. One car this September with all the places kids/Jon needs to go will NOT look pretty or work out at all.  Wish us luck on that journey as well.

I hope all of you are doing well, I know I didn't touch on my depression at all this time, and well - let's just say that I am still trying to figure things out, but feel closer to a goal than before. Enjoy summer!