(Half) A Year in the Life

So. I missed this here little ol' blog, and I came over a few days ago to dust it off and get caught up, and there were gross horrible rapey comments waiting for moderation, and it momentarily upended how I felt about the internet, because amongst all the loveliness and wonderful human connection, there is apparently horrible barf-inducing assholery as well, and even though that's a thing you think you know, you don't know it til it's aimed at your own children.

So, I did what any normal person would do and I locked this sh!t down. Hello from this newly guard-railed space which can't be googled and no longer has links posted in any public profile, where people only find me if I share on a platform that's now private, because all my platforms are now private. Which means people only find me if I share myself where they can.

Hi! You found me! I shared myself to you!

Y'all, it hasn't been our best season/s in these parts. The honest but not-gritty recap:

NOVEMBER

I turned 35, Another Nathan flew in on my birthday and Mark and I had a lovely visit with him, and I felt very loved and very middle-aged.

Mark and I took a grownups-only trip to Mexico, and my dad came and stayed in our house for a week and managed everything (everything!) at home, because he is amazing. Mexico was also amazing. Mark was amazing. It was such a happy trip.

Mark turned 35. We had cake and a date and took this family picture. Yay family!

I started a new job.

!!!!!!!

I mentioned this in my year-end recap post; it's the same job I did before, but with a different company. The whole going-back-to-work thing was really fraught and stressful, half because I'm suddenly 35 and don't know what to do with my life, and half because Mark's work is so batsh!t insane that it's really difficult to piece any kind of work schedule together and balance it with also picking up the slack at home, plus all the normal stuff I do (I was already busy). And, so, things kind of came to a head around this time about the balance in our marriage and house and life, and there were ugly feelings and patterns surrounding some of that and, well, yeah.

Speaking of ugly, this laptop bag I got from my company is kind of the worst, yes?

(I got a new one to tide me over until I find The Bag, don't worry.) (Suggestions welcome, if you love your laptop bag, by the way.)

DECEMBER

It was not our best holiday season. It's kind of a blur now. But here, look at a sweet Christmas picture of the babies.

JANUARY

We got a new car! I forced Mark (forced!) to feel his feelings about his old Mazda, the first car we ever bought together, and we sold it and are now back to being an Accord family. It'll be mine when the van dies, and whatever Big Car we get to replace it will be mostly Mark's to drive around daily. SEDAN ME, YO.

Since we didn't get our traditional New Year's Eve all together, I flew to Minnesota for Another Nathan's birthday. It was -36 with the wind chill (yes that says NEGATIVE THIRTY SIX OH EM GEE) when I went to church that Sunday morning. I secretly felt like a badass and I secretly love the snow, but only because it's in a place with plows and such. Was a delightful visit and left feeling... spirit-filled. Friendship-filled. Etc.

We lost power for a night in an ice storm and the kids and I camped out by the (gas) fireplace and read books out loud. It was surprisingly sweet, in a Laura Ingalls (cussy) kind of way.

Also, Charlotte helped me with work, and it sort of delighted me, on the days it didn't exhaust me.

I'M RIGHT ON TOP OF THAT, ROSE!

And that is legit the most exciting thing to report in all of January.

FEBRUARY

Anneliese burned her hand badly on the stove while helping me make sloppy joes.

She also read Amelia Bedelia and sent funny texts about it.

And wore this great outfit.

Hmmm I'm grasping at straws. February mostly sucked.

MARCH

I went to Pawley's Island to see my friend Amy for the weekend, and play with her kids at the beach. It was cold so we didn't put the kids in swimsuits, but they got in anyway, and who couldn't have seen that coming?

Our grocery store stopped selling my favorite bread that I love for toast, so I started making my own. Because I love toast. I eat it every day. With coffee. Toast is a meal for me. Anyway.

I played with recipes until I figured out how to do it exactly how I like it, and it's a barely-changed version of Arwen's "the bread" and hey it turns out I'm not scared of yeast anymore, and it makes me feel all Laura Ingalls (the good way) to do this for myself every week.

Bowden's kidneys started to lose functioning. Our sweet girl is getting old.

March wasn't really my favorite either.

APRIL

Things started to feel a little less sucky in these parts, for a moment.

We got a new nephew! Meet baby Charlie! This is Ali's little brother. Anneliese of course always loves a new baby to hold.

We celebrated Easter, but sadly not with a beach drive, since Bumgarner Beach Week is moved to August this year. The kids looked cute though.

We went camping as a family. It was pretty, the kids loved it, it was fine. No one sleeps well when camping, right? But campfire food is always delicious.

I went to Las Vegas for the Blathering, and it turns out Vegas is nothing like I was picturing, in all the best ways. It was clean and fun and lively and beautiful, and I tell you what, people in Vegas know how to commit to a theme. It's just all very... well done.

This is my favorite picture with Sarah that we have ever taken.
Every time I look at it I feel happy.
I legit keep it in an album on my phone of things to look at on crappy days.
I love her.

And it was wonderful to be with amazing ladies who are good for my heart and make me laugh til I cry, and love me even in hard seasons, and do not hate my life even when I hate it, and to hug Another Nathan on the way home via MSP.

Basically re-entry sucked, after a happy laughy weekend away from real life. Suuuuuucked. On many levels, but not the least of which was Charlotte getting terribly sick with a chest infection (shocker) (asthma baby) and that bled into a vom bug, and it was generally  miserable.

MAY

Anneliese got a grade-level responsibility award at school, and we about burst with pride.

She also sang an adorable solo in her chorus concert at school.

Everything's coming up Anneliese!

We all (well, except Charlotte, but she was there, listening) sang/played together in a music festival at church. A seriously lovely family moment after lots of hard months.

Nathan got big kid teeth! And had several teeth pulled in preparation for braces, sometime... sometime. Who knows exactly when. Braces! They are coming!

He also played delightfully in his orchestra concert and is vying for a spot in the advanced group next fall. (Is maybe a long shot? I can't tell.)

My work got completely insane and busy, and I needed to do it full time, which we had expected for spring, but we didn't know what that would feel like on the home front til I was doing it. Working full time from home with only a few hours of childcare a day is NO JOKE, especially when May is too much anyway. Just... too much. People of the world: May is too much. Please spread the schedule around a bit. COME ON.

I laughed-to-keep-from-crying by singing into my phone headset like Britney, basically every day. (I cried too, because obviously.) (Mark's job continued/continues to be also insane.) (SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE.)

Charlotte finished her last day of preschool, ever. Here she is starting 2's in 2013, and finishing 4's this spring.

Lest you think she is always this beautiful, you should know she smiled like this on the first attempt:

I don't even know.

At some point in May, Mark went to Seattle for a week and kicked off a long several weeks/months of us like ships passing in the night. Trips backing up to each other, and work schedules, and yeah.

We needed the space but then also missed each other, which is a really nice feeling when you think about it.

JUNE

I started the month with a Memorial Day road trip with Another Nathan, from Minnesota down to North Carolina, kinda reversed from what we did when we moved him up there two summers ago. Turns out, we're still great at road trips.

Then I spent two weeks and change at Montreat, where he had asked me to be the office manager for the first several weeks of youth conference, which he DIRECTED this year, and did amazingly well.

Montreat was wonderful and spirit-filling as always. My heart has a whole blog post stirring about just this, but not today.

Oh and also I broke my foot there. *cringe face emoji*

After the conference, we had a few days of all of us at home for a moment, and Another Nathan and Mr David visiting. and we celebrated our 13th anniversary and the success of the youth conference and David's new book (!!) and all was well.

Mark went on ASP and I missed him, again. Re-entry sucked, again.

At some point we went on a date and I ordered this drink with a flower in it and we took this picture together and it makes me smile to look at it, so I am posting it here.

Marriage is hard work but sometimes you look cute, so.

Days 6-11: MinneEFFINGsota, Take Four

{Still backdated, are you still with me?}

And on the sixth night, tired from the water park and after one small carsick rest stop, we rolled into Northfield, Minnesota, hugged Another Nathan, and there was much rejoicing in all the land.

A year to the weekend after he moved away, the kids were so excited to see his new house, and play in "their" room he had set up for them in the den downstairs, complete with shelves of toys and trinkets and plastic animal snouts and other Welcome Prizes, and air mattresses, and snuggles and legos and happiness.

And then they crashed, and Mark and I played allllll the pictures from our northbound journey as a slideshow on the Apple TV in the living room, because we are adults who know how to partaaaaay.

Day 7: The Sather Farm

The next morning we drove with Another Nathan to his grandparents' farm a few hours away, in rural Minnesota (even more rural than where he lives, which is basically in the middle of corn, if you'll recall). His mom had been sweetly inviting us to come visit the farm where she grew up, if we ever came to Minnesota, and, well, here we were.

The Sather Farm

(She drove from Iowa to hang out with us for the day. Another Nathan's mom. At her parents' farm. Isn't is just the coolest thing ever when the people you love start meshing into your family, and then they share their family with you?)

The universal preschool method for eating corn on the cob.

We had a such a lovely time with them, a lunch with fresh corn picked that day (it was basically all of Mark's corn dreams come true) (yes he has corn dreams, and has for years) (HE ATE SIX), and we got to see their horses, and Nathan got to play hide and seek with me in the cornfields, which, I won't lie, secretly scared the sh!t out of me. But he was cute.

At one point, while shucking corn to feed the horses, Charlotte proclaimed that her hair was the color of the cornsilk, which it was! Exactly! And now I can never see it any other way. At another point, while exploring all the giant* tractors and combines and trucks in their barn, we looked up and Charlotte had hopped up on a tractor with Grandpa Sather, and was waving to us happily, and oh man I just love that she makes friends wherever she goes. It also made me feel a bit sappy and miss my Grandpa, so yeah, that's the story of how I cried in a barn in Minnesota on our family road trip.

Also, Mark and Another Nathan piled the kids into a Gator (?) and drove across to where their big silos bins are (I have been informed they are not silos but bins, so okay), and Mark climbed to the top of one to look inside, even though he is scared of heights, so excited was he about this giant commercial farm.

And then we had root beer floats and heard funny stories and peeked in their ice fishing house, which apparently just sits in the garden during the summer (Minnesota is baffling and delightful to southerners like us, y'all), and played games and accepted a big crate of kiddie books from Another Nathan's mom, for the rest of our stay, because of course she thought ahead that we might be strapped for new material after a week on the road. She is just... that person. (Lovely, is what I'm saying.)

I insisted we eat at Pizza Ranch for dinner on the way home, because I had never been to one before, and, you know, covered! wagons! with pizza! But it turns out that was a dream I had put too much stock in (YES I KNOW, EVERYONE WARNED ME: NOT THAT GREAT) but I am glad I can say we did it, although I don't need to again anytime soon.

Day 8: Nerstrand State Park Waterfalls, and Northfield by Night

We fiiiinally had a slow day on our hands, so we went to a state park near Northfield and took a short walk and saw waterfalls. Was sweet and pretty.

Also, there were swings. When you're a kid, what's more delightful than swings, except grown-ass men who also will swing with you (bonus points for Daddy and Mr. David).

That evening, Another Nathan had one of his youth choir kids come over to sit, so finally Mark and I could have a break for some grownup time. We all went downtown and had burgers and beer by the river.

And then more beers at another place on the other side of the river, and oh man, Northfield is just so dang charming.

Day 9: Charlotte Booler's Birthday!!!

In the morning we went for a walk around Northfield's downtown market, and we had coffee cocktails (mine was delicious, other people had mixed opinions) and baked goods and the kids picked out various hair ties and bookmarks and both big kids got lanyard bracelets which they loved.

Okay so, by far, the hardest thing about planning this trip on the dates we did (which were basically the only dates we could make it work, all summer, was that we would be away from home on Charlotte's birthday. I haaaaated the idea at first, although she seemed fine with it (she wasn't asking for any particular friends or themed party at home, nor has she ever had that anyway). I made peace with the idea that as long as we weren't actually in transit, it could be okay. We could have a cake and a little party, and it would be sweet. And we did, and we did, and it was.



My friend Miriel came from her town close by, and brought her baby, and we drew with chalk outside and then made superhero capes, and we opened a few presents, and had cake.

It was very simple and sweet and easy, and that's about all the birthday chaos I would be comfortable throwing at someone else's home.

There were a few moments where I felt really far from home, and I also cried when my cake frosting fell apart (David helped me fix it, because there is no end to his sainthood), but by the time the day's chaos had settled and we were all snuggled on the couch watching her birthday video, I felt so warm and sweet and happy. Birthday feelings all intact, even while abroad. Ha.

Oh! And also! When Charlotte woke up on her birthday morning, Sheepie was suddenly wearing a birthday shirt, just like the cupcake one Charlotte had packed to wear all day!

Someone must have put it on her in the middle of the night! No one will ever know who. (Edit, backdated: this remains a much-discussed mystery of our family, even months later. Haaaaaa being a parent is sometimes the best.)

Day 10: Another Nathan's Church, Mall of America

We had to hug and kiss Marky goodbye first thing in the morning, since he had to fly back to Raleigh for work (the kids and I had plans to drive home slowly and see more friends along the way, but he didn't have that much time off), and it was surprisingly sad considering we would see him just a few days later. We didn't want the whole-family portion of our trip to be over. It was so fun! I never would have dreamed that driving across the country with three kids could be so fun  but it was! Fun and easy! We had had lots of adventures already and we were sad to send him to the airport.

But we waved goodbye and then went to church in Northfield. Anneliese had been waiting for years (literal years) (in the correct use of the word literal) to sit at the organ with Another Nathan in worship, something she didn't get to do when he was here in Raleigh (she was jealous when big brother did). I think it made alllll her dreams come true. So sweet.

After worship we had a delightful Cracker Barrel lunch (oh, how we have missed post-church lunches with Another Nathan!) and then drove to the Mall of America. The rides and such were too chaotic and busy for us that day, but we did go to the very giant and impressive Lego store, and Anneliese had a gift certificate for the American Girl store, and she had a delightful time wandering around forever, choosing a back to school outfit for Kit.

Another Nathan was also delighted:

Day 11: St Olaf, and a Hymn Festival

We took the kids to St. Olaf in the morning to walk all through the campus and chapel and see all the places where Another Nathan went to college, which was very sweet. I think he liked seeing them run all around outside in a place he loves so much. It's really pretty in the summer!

We shopped in the bookstore and ate grilled cheese at the student cafe, and it was actually a totally delightful little excursion.

The kids and I spent the afternoon bumming all over town, we went to the library and a few shops (Northfield has fun quirky shopping! Beautiful pen and paper stores, and fancy candy, and even a little shop that sells handmade doll clothes in that delighted all of the children but maybe especially Nathan, who has a hard time finding boy things for his tiger to wear), and also playing on a swingset at a park. It was sometime that afternoon that I realized how delightfully awesome summers in Northfield are, and understanding why people have summer homes in small towns away from home.

Just. So. Charming.

We lounged around in the library at Nathan's church and listened to him practice a bit, which sounds like a silly dumb thing, but it turns out it's totally a thing I miss from when he lived here. He plays beautifully, and when your best friend is a beautiful musician, it turns out you should not take that for granted, because it's lovely to listen to, and someday he might live in MinneEFFINGsota and you won't be able to listen to it as often as you used to.

ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

Anyway. Charlotte danced while he played. It was sweet.

That evening, we drove all the way up to a town north of St Paul to see a hymn festival from two important music teachers of Nathan's, they do these lovely little worship/festivals with readings and beautiful music and a choir, and he has wanted to show me for years what they're like, and here I was in the same town where they were doing one, when they were doing it, and so I was not passing it up.

It was a lovely last evening in Minnesota. The drive back through the cities was gorgeous, although you can't tell from this picture. It's blurry but pretend it's blurry with my tears, because I hate saying bye and I'm not very good at it.

Afterwards we had a beer and popcorn at a bar in Northfield before we went back to the house, because beer and popcorn is a thing one does when one is in Northfield.

And then we really did cry the next morning, because having our whole family together, and all of us together there with our dear friends, was so wonderful.

You're welcome, friend, for posting the pictures we took before your cry eyes got bad. (Mine were even worse, which is mostly why I'm not posting it, but let's pretend the decision was purely altruistic.)

Til we meet again, Minnesota.  <3 p="">