I've been feeling the pull to start blogging again! When I started Facebook I quit blogging as much because I could just pot and update people on Facebook; however, lately it's getting more and more scary to share details about our family there. I'm guessing no one really even checks this blog anymore, and to be honest it took me a little while to remember how to access it myself! But now that I'm here, I hope to post at least a couple times each month.
It could obviously take a real long time trying to tell you what has happened in the last 5 years, and that's a rather daunting task. Instead, I'll do a quick summary to try and bring this blog up to speed.
For starters, we no longer live in Spanish Fork. In June 2015, we moved to Payson Utah to live in my parents' house. They had retired to Payson from Rawlins, WY at Christmas a year and a half before, and they were leaving on a mission. We decided to live in their house for the 18 months they would be gone, so we found people to rent our house during that time. While we were living at their house, the house directly behind them went for sale. We felt really good about buying it, so we bought it in June 2016. We continued to rent our house in Spanish Fork until we decided to sell it in December 2017.
Lee has continued to work for Skywest Airlines, but he upgraded to captain in the Spring of 2015 (about the time we moved to Payson). It was a tough decision because it would mean he wouldn't be based in Salt Lake City anymore and would be gone more. When we did decide to have him upgrade, we hoped it would be less than two years before he'd be back in SLC; yet, here we are almost four years later and he's still not in SLC. But.....starting in March (one month from now) he's finally going to be back in SLC!! We're not sure what his schedule will be like, but we're sure we'll have him home more often. All things considered we're really getting along well as a family and are really excited for this change! Lee became a huge hunting fan probably about the time I quit writing. He likes to hunt Elk with both guns and with a bow. He also is just a huge gun fan in general, and he has made an effort to have his family of girls learn to be comfortable with guns as well. Lee recently began focusing on his dream to go to Mars, which is definitely something I'll talk about more in posts.
I feel like I've lived many lifetimes in the past five years. Moving to my parents' house after living in our Spanish Fork house for eight years was quite a big endeavor! I can't tell you how grateful I was when we moved to our new house in Payson and I knew we'd never have to move again! Funny to think back and realize I used to love moving and had it down to a science. :) I've done various work-from-home endeavors since I last wrote. I sold Blendfresh (fresh-dried fruits & veggies without any additives) for a year before stopping during some big family challenges we went through. I've been teaching piano lessons for two years, and although I enjoy the kids I think this will be my last year of teaching. In March 2017, just after starting piano lessons, I also got involved in the Life organization. I won't say much about it now other than that it has been life-changing both for me and for Lee! Although being a mom is my first job, I do enjoy having something else to do that I feel blesses me as I help others.
Morgan is now 17 1/2! I can hardly believe it! This has been a hard five years for her. Moving to Payson was a huge blessing because the kids here didn't know her so she got a fresh start! She got the lead in the musical her junior high was doing, and she made lots of friends right off the bat. She continued to struggle with various things, though, and spent a couple weeks in a behavior hospital and a couple months in a residential treatment facility (Jan - March 2016). That was hard for all of us, but it did give us all a much-needed reset. While there, Morgan was diagnosed with high-functioning autism (formerly called Asperger's), and that knowledge has helped us move forward in helping her. Morgan hasn't ever gotten along with school very well. The teachers all love her but the kids are often not really sure how to take her, which makes it difficult. She should be a senior graduating in May, but she hasn't gone to school much at all in over a year, so we're working on trying to get her graduated. Morgan started her first job, working at Taco Bell, the very end of December.
I think this move was also a big blessing for Brynne, who is 15 years old now. Not long after moving here she met a friend named Skylar Holdaway, and they continue to be good friends. Brynne really struggled when we went through the hard times with Morgan, and she has been trying to regain her footing ever since. She had a hard time with school so we pulled her out and put her into Kimber Academy, which is a private LDS-based school. In general that has been a really good thing for Brynne, but lately she's struggling to stay awake to do the online classes. She's considering going to high school next year. Brynne has grown to over 5'9"; so she's a tall, beautiful, red-headed girl. She loves baking, and cupcakes are her favorite. She is especially good at decorating cupcakes and wants to have her own cupcake shop when she's older. She and Lee just returned from a school trip to Israel last November.
Melissa is seven years old and is really looking forward to being baptized this year. Melissa really is the glue in this family because she is generally level-headed and super sweet. Admittedly she is starting to stand up to Katherine more, which causes some contention, but she always wants to do what's right and gets along with everyone in the family. She had the toughest time with our move because she went from having five little girls within a house or two in all directions that she could play with to not having anyone her age to play with. In time we've met kids, and she continues to be super social. Last year she begged me to start an after-school club for friends, which I agreed to do once a month. She is never quite sure what to do with herself if there isn't a friend to play with. She does really enjoy dance, and has been in dance class for a year and a half. She's in the second grade and is starting to get good at reading.
Katherine is going to be five in three weeks! One part of me can't believe she's getting so big, and the other part feels like we've lived ten years in her five years of life. She has kind of been along for the ride, but she has made sure we won't ever forget she's here! She has a very strong personality and isn't afraid to let anyone know how she feels. In fact, our biggest car arguments were always Morgan and Katherine arguing about the music or noise level even though Morgan was 15 and Katherine was 2 or 3! Katherine loves to dance and do gymnastics; in fact, she spends most of her time either twirling or standing on her head. She goes to preschool but doesn't always love it. I'm curious to see how she'll do in kindergarten next year. She is my pickiest kid when it comes to clothes, so I stopped dressing her years ago. She almost always has a skirt or dress on and refuses to wear anything that isn't colorful or "pretty."
That's about it for the updates except to mention we also now have a cat named FoxStripe. We got a dog, Bentley, right after moving into our new house a year and a half ago. We had high hopes for the dog helping Morgan with her depression. Not long after that, we got FoxStripe as a kitten to try and help Brynne with her anxiety. We really struggled as a dog-owning family, so in the end we found Bentley an amazing other home to go to. Admittedly, most of us wouldn't mind doing the same with FoxStripe. He thinks quality people time means people petting him while he eats. He doesn't just come snuggle and let you pet him, which is the whole reason we got him. And since he learned to play from the dog, when he is feeling playful he comes and jumps on our legs and bites us. He has several other quirks including thinking he needs to drink water only from the bathtub. Melissa is our biggest animal lover and still talks about Bentley and manages to love FoxStripe with all his quirks, but I'm really hoping he figures out to snuggle soon!
So there you have it! It was really hard not going into details about everything I said, but I knew an important part of starting back up was not feeling the weight of having to write about everything that happened in that time. I figure I might do flashbacks in upcoming posts, but for now I'm just grateful to be back!
