We have had play dates at friend's houses, and at parks. We are signed up for the reading program at our library, so the kids and I have been busy reading as much as we can, and taking trips to the library for more books! I have been trying to incorporate more daily Mass into our weeks. Peter and I went on our first ever get-away for a weekend. My mom generously offered to watch the kids the whole time. It was refreshing to get away, just the three of us (we brought Noah), and live life at a slower pace for a bit. My mom also took my two oldest kids to NYC for a weekend to visit my brother, Johnny, and see a bit of the big city. They loved it and raved about it for days after they came home. While they were gone, Gianna and the boys got to do a few fun things too like a play date, the movie theater, and the ice cream shop. All around, it was a fun time!
To kick off the month of July, we celebrated Noah's first birthday. Its really hard to believe that it has been a full year since he joined our family (on the outside), and it was so fun to celebrate him! I always love my children's first birthdays. It might be (one of) my favorite year(s) to celebrate.
I began a 28 day detox about a week ago. I am trying to get a fresh start with my health and teach myself and family a healthier way to eat. We tend toward healthy eating already, so this isn't a huge change for my family overall, but the program that I am doing for myself has been a moderate but welcome challenge. It involves cutting out many things like caffeine, gluten, dairy, and soy, among other things, but it is chalk full of good lean protein, produce, and a limited amount of few whole grains, like brown rice and quinoa. The idea is to reboot your digestive system, then after the 28 days, slowly reintroduce the foods you cut out, to see if you are sensitive to anything. I know I may sound crazy, but its kind of fun. Kind of.
The bigger news for us this summer is that Peter finished (almost... will be completely finished by August!) his thesis for his master's degree, and also, we are finally able to start building our house on the land that we have owned now for almost a year. The building process should start this week! I know we have A LOT of work ahead of us, but it doesn't seem too daunting...yet. We have always had a lot going on, so I don't think this will be too dramatically different from other very busy times. We have survived through having two children a year apart, while at the same time, Peter was finishing up his undergrad degree at MSU, after which, he went on to get his masters degree at Uof M and I continued having babies and homeschooling our 3 older children, while chasing after 3 little ones. We never said we liked to do things the easy way ;) Luckily, we will be able to stay in our current house until we move into the new one, which I know is a major benefit, and makes things 10 times easier than having to move into a rental house, while preparing our current house to be sold. I know many families who have been, or are in that situation, and I truly commend them for it. I don't have what it takes!
So, these are just a few parts of our summer. Life keeps on going, and we are doing our best to keep up. The summer months have been a breath of fresh air to me. Its a wild ride at times, but what a blessing it is too! Please keep us in your prayers as we journey into the realm of house building, and moving away from the only home our children have ever known. We are excited!
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