What a summer! I barely had time to think, much less process it all on the blog piece by piece, so I've got my handy dandy summer calendar right next to me. Let's do this chronologically, shall we?
May
I know, I know, it's not really summer yet in May, but Lukas was done with school May 9th! James and I helped him move out of his dorm. That was a beast. Thankfully, the dorm elevators were all working this time. Lukas ended up renting a small storage unit for the items he knew wouldn't fit in the van. He planned it all out REALLY well and handled the time pressure with ease. I'm proud of that kid! Er, uh, adult? Man? Guy? People don't really say "I'm proud of..." an adult. But I am. We moved him into Erin's guest room, where he lived all summer. It was pretty cool to have him nearby and yet independent of the day-to-day craziness. The younger boys were completely excited whenever Lukas came over for anything. He's kinda become the cool uncle, of sorts. Matthew will call him whenever he needs something or has a question.
The two youngest boys finished school just before Memorial Day. I threw them in the van and we went on a road trip to New Jersey, just the three of us. I think this was one of the first times in my life that I actually enjoyed a road trip. I rode 50 miles on my bike (state #42) and we ate a lot of pizza.
June
James had a science/engineering camp at his school the first week of June. Not his favorite. He did like, however, all of the freedom the instructors gave the kids to create and tinker on their own. He said it was the first time camp leaders didn't treat him like a baby. I always thought James just liked building, but I learned this summer, finally, that James actually likes free access to a piled mess of interesting components and tools. The messier, the better. Barely organized chaos like the Bike Project (a community co-op bike shop we frequent) quickly overwhelms me, but it's heaven on earth for James. That's why he likes Art Club so much. They just get to create stuff with whatever is in the classroom cabinets.
The very next week, Robert and James traveled to Kirtland, OH, with the youth in our stake for Youth Conference. It was a looooong bus ride, two days of crazy hot, humid hijinks and spiritual highs, then a looooong bus ride back. A youth leader told me he was impressed with Robert's eloquence. Other adults remarked on his deep thinking and thorough analysis. One leader told me that James was one of the youth who bore testimony in the Kirtland temple.
The week after that, Matthew took a class at a local Maker Space. It was the first time I had been there. I thought James might like to spend some free time there this summer, too, but it was FAR too organized and supervised for his taste. Matthew's class was a 2-D Game Lab where he got to develop his own video game (one of his goals). It was sort of a bust, but he did come up with a hilarious game idea that I would love to see him develop sometime later in his life. It's about a button that the bad guy does NOT want you to push.
Father's Day weekend, I popped off to Oregon solo to ride the Petal Pedal with Rachel (state #43). While in Portland, I got to catch up with my old college roommates Julia and Karen. We ate very delicious Mediterranean food. They took me and Rachel to a fantastic rose garden. I thought I didn't like roses very much, in general, since they have a stuffy reputation, but the huge variety of roses was amazing. I even saw one type that I wouldn't mind growing at home: climbing roses. We also visited the largest bookstore in the world. Seriously huge. And yes, Portland is weird. Very, very weird. Julia wouldn't have it any other way!
About mid-June, Lukas started work at the Anita Purves Nature Center as a Nature Day Camp Counselor. He loved, loved, loved the job and working with the kids, despite his new supervisor/coordinator having no experience with the job or with kids in general. Lukas always has a good camp story to share.
July
We celebrated Erin's birthday, then left for Alaska! It was me, Bobby, James, and Matthew traveling together. No Lukas or Robert. Lukas had to work, but he and Robert kinda felt the same way about traveling far away from friends and comforts just to stay in close quarters in strange places with the whole family. Neither one of them is very outdoorsy or travel-hungry or extroverted. In fact, they barely even saw each other for the whole 11 days we were gone. Robert enjoyed having the car to use whenever he wanted it. He played tennis, worked out at the gym, met up with friends, went to church and youth activities, shopped for groceries, cooked, and did a whole bunch of extra chores at home for me. Nova was staying with Ruby at a doggy daycare and boarding facility.
So, the rest of us spent a few days in Anchorage where I rode 50 miles with Rachel (state #44). Erin joined us the next day and we took a 7-day cruise from Seward, AK, to Vancouver, BC. We saw so much. We ate so much more. On that one trip, we rode a plane, train, shuttle, bus, car, boat, ATV, gondola, dog sled, and Unimog. I'm probably missing something in that list. Matthew's anxiety was pretty manageable. The best part was seeing James and Matthew grow in confidence and independence. Matthew took on several of his fears: riding in boats, heights, speed, bridges over water, new foods, and large crowds to name a few. We saw a couple of magic shows and he totally lit up. Erin and I went to see live music and dancing. Both boys were comfortable going anywhere on the ship on their own. James loved the shore excursions like halibut fishing, ATV touring, and the musher's camp, but he found the ship itself kinda boring. We ate way, way, way too many chocolate croissants. Erin took the boys to dinner at Le Petit Chef (our dining room waiter set us up with a sweet discount, kinda hush-hush, or so they wanted us to believe). I loved eating a 3-course dinner in the dining room every night and the boys even came sometimes. They both learned that they like Caeser salad. We learned that James LOVES shopping and Matthew is completely overwhelmed by it. It doesn't even matter what you're shopping for. He just can't be in a large shopping area very long without triggering his anxiety.
The cruise ended in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A foreign country.
Earlier this summer, Matthew had a panic attack the moment we were leaving for the boys' passport application appointments. Matthew, therefore, didn't get a passport in time for the cruise. The TSA and airline research I did online indicated that a child's birth certificate would be enough to fly internationally from Canada to the U.S...wrong. It turns out that a child's birth certificate is enough to cross the border by land or sea, but not by air. While everyone else got on a plane, Matthew and I rented a car and drove across the border to Seattle. He felt like we were smuggling him in.
A week after we got back from Alaska, most of us headed to Branson, MO, for an Evans Family Reunion. Bobby, me, Robert, James, and Matthew. Lukas opted to stay at work. Bob and Loretta reserved a HUGE lodge that would fit all five of their kids and their families in one spot. Holy moly. Considering Matthew's anxiety, James' anxiety, and the specific environmental cues that provoke those anxieties, we decided to try staying in a different house nearish to the lodge. It was an experiment. It had its pluses and minuses. The place itself wasn't awesome, but we got to start and end each day as "just us", which was a long, beautiful sigh of relief. On the bad side, we missed out on a lot of conversations and decisions at the lodge. I felt like we were often playing catch up, and that we were infringing on others' space. So, there's no easy answer about what we might do next time.
Maybe it was the cousins' ages or their unfamiliarity with each other, but they didn't really play together much. Sure, they played pool and air hockey together. They watched TV and swam together, too, but just because other kids happened to be there doing those things at the same time. It was activity-led play, not relationship-led play. I wasn't much better with the adults, to be honest. I really enjoyed the small group talks...a walk with Gma and Gpa, chatting with individual adults on the porch or at the fish farm, sitting a few minutes with one of the two extroverts, joining a conversation in the smallish living room area just off the kitchen where only 5-6 people could gather. I really liked those moments. I struggled being a parent in front of other parents whose opinions really mattered to me. I second-guessed myself constantly, wondering what they might think about this or that or the other thing that I did with my kids. I tried to play it cool, but there was this whole internal dialog in my head...ugh.
Robert did puzzles with grandparents and played pool with cousins. He also found a 24-hour gym that he could go to in the evenings. James watched TV and enjoyed the snacks. Matthew spent a lot of time on a screen. We did have some pretty neat outings, though, which the younger boys enjoyed. We saw an acrobat show with EVERYONE. Gma and Gpa were given VIP treatment when they made the reservation. We all got front or second row seats. We toured a fish farm, which was cooler than I thought it would be. I took the boys to a butterfly house, but it had other attractions as well. We had a riot in the hall of mirrors. Oh, man. Then another day, Bobby and I took Matthew to a theme park. He rode on his first real roller coaster, a river raft ride, and several other attractions. It was amazing to see him tackle his fears and have so much fun.
August
This was a short month, since school started up again on the 18th, but we crammed in plenty! Matthew attended another round of 2-D Game Lab. He made no progress on his actual game. He decided that he liked the storytelling more than the coding (surprised?) and would focus more on that from here on out.
As soon as Matthew's lab was over, I threw him and James in the van for a cross-country car trip to Utah. We had the ultimate flexibility of going where we wanted and stopping whenever we wanted. It was a long drive (24 hours over 3 days), but we got to Salt Lake City in time to tour The Great Salt Lake with my sisters Lara and Heidi. The shore was disgusting. It reeked of sewage and was absolutely infested with flying insects. The birds were cool, but no one had cleaned up their droppings in what looked like years. The tour company folks assured us it was much nicer further out on the lake. Thankfully, they were right. They drove us out to the middle and dropped anchor. Then we jumped into the lake! Slowly. Carefully. It stings like the dickens if you get any lake in your eyes. The lake water is so dense with salt and minerals that you literally float in it. Matthew was amazing. Not only did he go out on a boat in deepish water (12 feet), but he got OUT of that boat and INTO the water. Matthew likes swimming in a pool, but open water has always been tricky for him. A few critical pieces of information helped him overcome his fear:
- The water in the Great Salt Lake is medically sterile, containing no pathogens or predators or anything even remotely dangerous.
- You have to try really hard to drown. If you literally do nothing and go limp, your feet just float up in front of you and you lie back comfortably.
- It was hot. The water was cool. Everyone except the captain was in the water, and who wants to stay on the boat with the captain?!
Matthew came out in a life jacket at first (a huge step forward for him!) but we convinced him to go without. And he actually trusted us more than his fears! We all floated with the brine shrimp. James was catching them with a net. The captain told us how to tell the males from the females. Lara dared James to eat one. He did it. Twice. I just kept repeating in my mind, "medically sterile, medically sterile, medically sterile". For the last few minutes, the captain took us to the "beach", which was actually just a shallow sandbar we got to walk around on. He told us the "sand" was largely calcified brine shrimp poop. I looked it up later. He was right. As we rode the boat back and dried off in the wind, salt crystallized on my skin and clothes. Crazy.
We spent the rest of the weekend with my family. We went to church with Gma and Gpa (both boys were able to 1) dress in church clothes and 2) stay for all of Sacrament Meeting!). That evening, we drove out to my sister's house in Heber for a big family dinner. We were passed by at least 30 corvettes on those winding roads. There weren't any cousins or second cousins my kids' ages, but we had a good time anyway. Matthew fell in love with the horses. James discovered a garage with 4-wheelers, a golf cart, dirt bikes, and a personal-sized snow plow. Heaven. He asked my sister if he could drive the golf cart, but they were just holding on to it for a friend. No go. She did let him know, though, that they had a Mule (the off-road vehicle, not the mammal) full of garbage that needed to be taken to the dumpster at the end of their street. Once the garbage was delivered, we could take the Mule anywhere on the trails behind and around their house. James was ALL over that. It took me a good little while to get used to driving it. The trails were pretty straightforward. Four wheel drive is awesome. James says that outing was the best part of the whole trip. He thought Matthew would love it, too, and ran back into the house to find him. He was right. Matthew loved it...speed, noise, rocky ground, ups and downs, all of it. Who is this kid?!
Monday morning, I got to attend the temple with my parents, then we boarded a plane for Spokane, WA. It was me, the boys, and my parents. Spokane was on fire at the time, so we had to change a few plans and reservations, but it all worked out for the better. We ended up at a nicer place closer to everything we wanted for the same price. Woo hoo! I rode in Washington (state #45) the first day and Idaho (state #46) the second day. The boys stayed at the VRBO with my parents. They played in the pool, mostly, and watched movies or played video games. We were staying at a horse farm. The property was gorgeous. We saw wild quail, turkeys, and deer. No fire. We spent some time at a beach on the Spokane River. Meh. We went to dinner at a restaurant that was hosting a Corvette Club annual meeting, so the server promptly seated us in an empty room and forgot about us for an hour. Ugh. This wasn't the first time I had selected a terrible restaurant. My dad said I was no longer allowed to pick the restaurants.
We flew back to Utah the next day. The boys were completely out of whack from that moment on. That night, especially, they were attacking each other and getting offended and apologizing and lashing out in vengeance all at once. Matthew was panicked and anxious. A thunderstorm started and he just couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't able to visit with my friend Marie that night as we had planned. Instead, the boys and I stayed in the grody hotel, ate bad Chinese food and fries while Matthew screamed and freaked out. He sobbed himself to sleep at about 10pm. I had specifically selected this hotel because of its breakfast. We went downstairs the next morning only to learn that the breakfast room was under construction and there would be NO BREAKFAST. Grrrr. Things got marginally better once we got back on the road, but we were all tired of the traveling by then. It was a long slog all the way back to Illinois. Whew!
We pulled into home the same day Lukas moved back to college.
A few days later, the boys started school, too.
But that's a blog post for another day.
Other things we experienced this summer:
- The City Museum in St. Louis, MO. Awesome.
- James fixed up a bike at the Bike Project, built an enormous "quiet box" for Matthew out of plywood, and grew the biggest vegetables I've ever had grow in my garden...giant pumpkins
- We fixed up a "free" power washer and discovered that 1900psi is just not much of anything
- Bobby, me, and the younger boys went to the temple in Anchorage, AK. It was Matthew's first time performing proxy baptisms for some of our ancestors
- Robert improved so much in tennis that he was ready for a competitive racquet. He had a great time working with it all summer
- I refurbished over 20 bikes for a local charity, and donated 50# of homegrown vegetables to a free produce market held in at-risk neighborhoods
- Matthew got together with some school friends at Curtis Orchard, the pool, Parcadia, Urbana Boulders, Old Orchard Lanes, and the Union. He also played Minecraft with them online a couple of times.
- Speaking of video games, Matthew logged hundreds of hours on video games over the summer. The biggest winners were Spider-Man, Hogwarts Legacy, Zelda: Winds of Time, Horizon, and a whole slew of cozy games
- We visited a Cat Cafe in town. Matthew is now a "cat person" and can't wait to get one of his own
- I canned 36 quarts of peaches and made 12 pints of strawberry freezer jam
- Matthew worked with Lukas and Bobby developing a sock puppet mockumentary ("Sockumentary")
- Matthew slept in my bed almost every night, even on trips
- James got bored, bored, bored pretty much every day
- James was scheduled for another week of science camp in June, but he panicked and became physically paralyzed at the thought, so we skipped it
- By August, Nova was so distressed with all of our traveling that she chewed her knuckles raw
- No one swept or mopped or vacuumed any of the floors for months, except when the Evanses came to visit. I'm pretty sure I did it then...maybe. You'll have to ask them if they noticed.
- After each trip, all the stuff got pulled out of the car and piled up in the living room, then we'd take what we needed from it for the next trip and leave the rest in a pile
- I paid Lukas to do some cleaning while we were away, which kept the bathrooms *just* clean enough to keep using until school started
- I currently have 24 bikes in our garage. Bobby hasn't been able to park his car in there for months. And every once in a while, neither car could park in there
- There were several times that I had to talk myself down from doing something in anger that I would regret. Every single time involved James. *sigh* that boy
- I stayed up late into the night doing NYT crossword puzzles because everyone was asleep and it was quiet and I could think straight for once
- Late nights meant groggy mornings, but Matthew's days go much better if we start with a hot breakfast, so I pulled myself out of bed to make pancakes or waffles or crepes or whatnot. I indulged my Mountain Dew habit just to get through the day, then stayed up late again. My detox days were not good. Ugh.
- We did NO scholastic enrichment. Period. The boys completed the library summer reading program, but that was only because we listened to audio books all the way to and from New Jersey in May (20 hours)
- Church feels like a foreign country to me. I only get to sit in the chapel during Sacrament Meeting 2 Sundays a month, and often I'm working to keep James and/or Matthew's anxiety in check the whole time. Second hour is a struggle, too, since I don't have friends who are easy to sit by in those classes. I want to connect with people, but I don't want to talk about myself and I don't have the patience for polite small talk. I want to enjoy a spiritual feast, but I struggle to get into the lesson topic. I roll my eyes at the same 5 people who answer every question with their predictable perspectives. Then I chastise myself for not having the right attitude. The Spirit can't teach me in that frame of mind. I don't like feeling that way at church. I want to get over whatever my problem is and just go back to the way things were before church got so, so stinking hard with my kids. And kinda lonely. And I groan to myself, "I'm too tired/exhausted/insecure with all my own family's problems to put myself out there for others." That's when I hear the other part of my brain nudging me with, "You're not the only one. Do it anyway."
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