Documentation

At the end of July Jonathan came and told me about his co-worker that was also a member of the National Guard. The man talked it up nicely, and it piqued Jonathan's interest. Jonathan came home, mentioned it briefly, and then said he'd call the recruiter and see what the guy said. I said, "Sure, sounds good." I didn't think too much of it as we had considered military service in the past and had dismissed it as not being for us after a moment's consideration.

Nothing else was said of the National Guard and I thought it was a passing fancy that would not go anywhere. Jonathan had a good job, he had a game plan, and he had the bar to study for.

September 2nd, a Wednesday night, Jonathan came into the living room after having been on the phone for well over an hour. Turns out it was the recruiter, and it turns out the two had been playing phone-tag for a month. Jonathan talked about the different tracks, the possibilities, the benefits.... There was just one catch: Jonathan aged out on the 14th, if we wanted to make this happen we'd have to have everything done by the end of the next week. But it felt undeniably right. I felt like this was a really good opportunity for Jonathan, and a great opportunity for our family.

The next day Jonathan mentioned it as a possibility to his boss. We decided to meet with him as a couple Friday before committing to one plan or the other. As we met with the boss I felt even more that, while the plan Jonathan's boss had is a really, really good plan, the other fork in our road was the way to go. Jonathan called the recruiter that night: "We want to make this happen."

Jonathan was given a list of documentation that he needed to bring to start getting his paperwork together. We realized Saturday morning, the 5th, that we did not have the Andrea's birth certificate or ANY of the kids' social security cards. Somehow, in the move, they all got lost. (HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN???? It isn't like I take those out and play with them!!!) That night we put in an order for a replacement birth certificate, but I felt we might be lucky if we got it in by the following Friday.

Monday, Labor Day, Jonathan spent the day with the recruiter (who graciously took his day off to help) and got the paperwork rolling. We needed those documents!! I got online and filled out all of the paperwork to be able to get the kids' replacement cards Monday, and then we spent the evening filling out paperwork. Miraculously people were on Facebook and next to their phones when we needed them to be, and we got all of the information we needed x 10! We were up far too late, and worked far too long, but we got it done.

Tuesday I hustled David off to his first day of school and started in on my busy day. I called the county clerk office in Texas to see if we could get a verification of birth form faxed to the recruiter (we couldn't, and orders processed on Friday would be shipped out that day, arriving Wednesday, so we were looking at getting Andi's birth certificate on Thursday, grrrr). Then I drove down to the SSA office only to discover that the documentation the website says to bring is NOT the documentation you need to take to get your replacement cards. By that time I needed to get home and get Andi ready for her half-day first day of school and drop Peter off at a friend's house. I was a wreck. I had a deadline of noon Wednesday and I was about to spend the rest of the business day at the school with Andrea. I called Jonathan, ranted for two seconds, then shrugged it off because there was really nothing to be done but wait until the next day. I managed to enjoy the afternoon at school getting Andi acquainted with her teacher and classmates. Tomorrow would have to wait. 

In the meantime my sisters had texted saying they were praying, my parents were praying and asking for information, and Jonathan's family was praying for us. Jonathan was praying, I was praying, I'm pretty sure his recruiter was praying. So much had to go together seamlessly, and it seemed we just kept hitting snags. The plan was to have Jonathan spend Wednesday afternoon and Thursday in Lansing taking the tests he needed for entrance into the NG. They would be putting him up in a hotel, and they'd just pack everything into two days, but it really wasn't going to mean anything if we didn't have all of the documentation they required.

That evening I got a shipping notification: Andrea's birth certificate was headed our way. At 10:45 I saw that it was at the DFW airport - with an estimated delivery date of Wednesday. Yay! Something going right! I requested a shipping change and opted to go pick it up at a local shipping office. I just knew that I'd miss the delivery the next morning and have to wait until the evening to go pick it up. Best to just schedule a pickup. Thank you UPS for having that option!!

Wednesday morning I had my checklist: Hospital for records, birth certificate, SSA, pick up Jonathan from work, drop off Jonathan with his recruiter, go home and crash.

I got David off to school and drove straight to the hospital. Fortunately (if you can call an emergency fortunate) each of my kids had some sort of emergency this last year that required an ER visit, so the records I needed were 15 minutes away instead of an hour. The nice information ladies pointed me in the right direction and I got to the records department with relative ease. Once their I started filling out the request forms. The night before I'd filled them out online, but I wasn't able to print them. I came, once again, to the "Reason for the records request" line and, rather than say "personal use", I felt I should just be completely honest: I'd somehow lost my kids' social security cards and needed proof of identity for replacements. The gal working the desk looked at the first form and jumped right to that question. "What exactly do you need for proof of identity?" I told her, and we chit-chatted about how this kind of thing happened all the time. She said she'd lost her son's for a year before finding it after her move. I mentioned that I didn't have a year, my husband needed it for his military application that day. She worked faster and got everything I needed. When I asked how much I owed them (there is a $1/page fee for records) she said, "Nothing. You're in a hurry, get out of here." I almost cried. I was out of the hospital 15 minutes after I'd walked in, and already my day was brighter.

Next up: birth certificate. Thank heaven's for GPS because I had no problems getting there and getting that package. The guy who got me the package brought it to the counter saying "Ah! A birth certificate! We get these all the time." Ha! I'm not the only parent that loses important documents, then! Hahaha!

I walked out the UPS place at 10:00. I was making really great time! I might even be able to grab something for the littles to eat at the store before getting Jonathan. I was almost to the SSA office when Jonathan called.

"Do you have Andi's birth certificate?"

"Yes, I just picked it up."

"Where are you now?"

"About five minutes from the SSA office. Why?"

"We need a dependent waiver. The recruiter needs Andrea's birth certificate and our marriage license, front and back, within the hour or I'm not going to be able to get my paperwork signed."

"............ Seriously?!?"

So I turned around and raced up to FedEx. Only one employee was there. There was a line of people needing help, and a crotchety old lady who kept interrupting her because she couldn't get connected to the wi-fi. With 15 minutes left to go, and several panicked texts from Jonathan later, the man ahead of me told the employee to help me, he'd watched her working the big scanner enough to know how to scan his blueprints until it scanned correctly, and then he turned and helped the cranky lady get connected to a free wi-fi in the area. I think the man was an angel in disguise. I explained what I needed to the sweet, tired employee, that I had ten minutes to get it emailed to my husband's sergeant (the recruiter), and she had the best quality PDFs on my flash drive in less than a minute. She didn't charge me for the job, just told me to hurry and get logged into the computers to email the documents off. With five minutes left on the clock I hit send on the email. I sent a back-up email with the attachments to Jonathan incase the recruiter didn't get them, then scurried out the door to get off to the SSA office. Everything all went through and ten minutes later I got the text from Jonathan saying the paperwork had all been signed.

It was now 11:00, and I had one hour to get to the SSA office, get the replacement cards rolling, and then get Jonathan picked up. Fortunately there was no line to speak of, and the young man who had helped me the day before was assigned to me again. He got me all the paperwork I needed, and we were ready to go. (By the way, the new cards arrived Monday the 14th, less than a week after I'd requested them. They told me it would be three weeks before we got them!)

I checked the time as I buckled the kids into the car: 11:32. GPS told me it would take 28 minutes to get to Jonathan's work. It was dead right. Jonathan was in the car at noon, and we were meeting up with the recruiter and saying good-bye to Jonathan at 12:30.

Somehow, by one miracle after another, and I'm sure in answer to every prayer being uttered on our behalf that morning, I got everything done just in time. I do not doubt that my way was being cleared by prayer. I kid you not, everything just went too smoothly that morning.

Jonathan aced his ASVAB Wednesday, and then had a perfect day Thursday with all the testing there. At 4:30 that afternoon I got the call that Jonathan had just been sworn into the military. Four days later he turned 35, and if there had been any hiccups at all this wouldn't have happened. Miraculous. It is the only word I've got for last week.

Jonathan has drill this weekend, and then ships out to basic training for 10 weeks. We think he will get home the week before Christmas. The kids gave him a phone card and stationary as his birthday gifts Monday. They are really going to have a tough time with this. That's not to say that I won't, either, but I grew up thinking it was normal for mom to run the house and for dad to be gone for days at a shot. At a certain level I understand that this is just a short time, and we can definitely make it work. But Andrea had a horrible night the night he was in Lansing doing all of the testing, she missed Jonathan so badly. I was grateful she had her first full day of school the next day as it kept her distracted, however this will be 10 weeks of dad being gone and I know that will be tough. But I know we'll be okay. We'll work it out, we'll work through it, and we'll come out a better, stronger family on the other side.

So for posterity's sake, I had to record this story. It is a jumble of my thoughts, and about as rushed and hurried as I felt Wednesday of last week, but I had to get my thoughts and my gratitude down before I forgot it. There is no doubt in my mind that the prayers of so many had an impact on my day. I felt guided and protected, helped and cared for, loved and supported all day. I couldn't feel overwhelmed because, especially after the hospital, I just knew that everything was going to be okay and that I'd get everything we needed in time for this plan to work. I do not think ANYTHING has ever worked so smoothly for us before. And I'm so grateful. I'm pretty sure God looks out for us mere mortals sometimes. ;)

Indianapolis Temple Open House

August 7th Jonathan took a half day off of work and we loaded up and took a day trip to Indianapolis. We went to the Indianapolis temple open house and toured the temple. The kids have already forgotten about the trip, so I'm not sure it was worth the hassle of getting out there, but it was fun to go. It is a beautiful temple and Jonathan and I enjoyed the tour. The artwork was gorgeous, and I wished a few times I could have gotten pictures of the paintings so I could find them later.

 They built a new stake center to go with temple. There they staged all of the tour groups. We watched a short video about temples, then headed up to the temple.

They outfitted us with these nifty shoe covers. Peter hated them. But we pointed out to him how every single person, including the volunteers and tour guides, were wearing the same shoes. He got over them at some point, but he was so glad to take them off when the tour was finished.

They took us in the baptistry entrance first, and then we went through the rest of the temple. It was very pretty, and very big compared to our tiny Detroit temple, though it had the same number of rooms as our temple. It was a quick tour, only an hour, and by the time we finished the kids were so ready to be done. No one was pitching any fits, but after four hours in the car they were restless and wanted to run. So honestly I don't remember a whole lot about the interior features other than dark wood, tall windows, and lots of tulip tree flowers in the designs.

I think next time my friend, Chandler, comes up we'll take a day trip down to Indianapolis just the two of us. I think I'll better be able to appreciate the architecture and decor without kids around.

We really wanted to take advantage of the fact that there won't be any new temples built in our area for a long while, and we thought this would be a good opportunity for the kids. Unfortunately I think they will only ever remember the 8 hours in the car. Maybe we'll  try again when everyone is MUCH older. Surely there will be other open houses somewhere we can go to when they are all 10+. We'll see.

And suddenly we've moved

In April we approached our landlords about renewing our lease. Turns out they were wanting to sell, be rid of the hassle of taking care of two houses (one of them a VERY nice house in a VERY nice subdivision). They said we could go month-to-month for a few months, but we knew we needed to be looking for a new place.

Everything I saw was a wash. I looked everyday on Zillow, Apartmentfinder, Craigslist.... A few more but I don't remember what they were called. And then, randomly, at the beginning of June I saw a posting for an apartment over a shop in downtown. I thought "How cute. Very metropolitan." And was about to scroll on when I really noticed the square footage. It was a large apartment. Two bedrooms, but lots more room than other two or three-bedroom apartments, and WAY less in rent per month. I shook Jonathan awake (poor man) and said we should look into it. In a sleepy stupor he agreed. "Tomorrow" he said. So we did.

We updated our rental resume and submitted that to the shop owner. Not knowing if we would actually get it or not we started making lists of what we needed and what could go. In short order I'd organized a very disorganized yard sale and gave away sold half of our possessions. The kids ran a very successful donut and lemonade stand and earned quite a bit of spending money for the summer. I felt happy getting rid of things, even if we didn't end up moving, and we all got very sunburned.

We found out days later that we had been approved for the apartment. We could move in July 1st.

In the mad rush of packing we got rid of another two thirds of our things, the kids were limited to 20 items each (that was so hard). I actually still feel like we could get rid of more, but I will take it a day at a time. If I were to suggest getting rid of half of what we have left I am afraid the other four people that live with me would rise up in open rebellion.

Oh, and both of our computers broke as we were getting things finalized. Let me tell you how fun that was. It is the second time that I've had a computer's hard drive BREAK. The thing was only four years old, as was my laptop that had the same thing happen four years ago. I think I take too many pictures....

But we got moved. 

The apartment is on Main Street, over a corner shop, so we only share one wall with another building. For the first year and a half we lived in this town I never noticed the front door, but suddenly there it was. I think someone had put some sort of charm on it so ordinary people couldn't find it. Only if you were looking for it would it pop out at you, our own little Leaky Cauldron. We have 16 steps from the street level to our apartment, and we've all become experts at gliding up and down those stairs rather noiselessly. The rooms are decently sized, and hold us and the essentials nicely. When the kids keep on top of their room you can hardly tell it is a tight fit. We have no room for fluff, that has been an adjustment. No extras of anything. Our tiny bathroom sports a one man shower that provides ample motivation to not add any bulk to one's body. The kitchen has a multitude of deep cupboards, decent counter space, and lots of storage over the stove, fridge, and counters. There is also an open shelf that helps fill the gaps. We have a small dining room that has windows on the two exterior walls. We have a perfect view of the corner of our streets, and Peter has spent hours at those windows watching cars, fire trucks, people, puppies, and, several times a day, an aweeyance (ambulance) rushing by. Our living room has two windows that let us look on Main St and people watching opportunities abound; we've managed to fit all of our books onto a corner shelf and some EXPEDIT shelves from IKEA. We have a tiny couch, and my Grandpa's chair, and hope to someday soon have a digital piano against one wall (we gave away my piano, it wouldn't fit up the stairs). Not a floor is level, nor a doorframe. Some might call it character, but that hardly captures the apartment's irregular and unbalanced charm. We call it the apartment that Jack built. There are many tall windows, and the apartment is bright and cheery all day long, and we enjoy our crooked accommodations.

The size of this apartment has taught me that I am not the only one who must multitask. Every piece of furniture must serve dual purposes. Nothing extra is kept, and I have to be very clever with the closet spaces (which are actually quite roomy). I thought I'd be good at this kind of minimalism, but there is a steep learning curve. I'm enjoying it, and the challenges I've found in exploring usefulness and necessity.

We spend every morning out, both to avoid going stir crazy and to avoid excess noise while the shop is open. We go to the park, walk to the library, stroll to the grocery store for breakfast and picnic at the gazebo on the way home. We spend time at the laundromat (the attendants know my kids' names now), and we wander around the farmer's market. Most weeks we've gone to a friend's pool at least once and have all gotten pretty brown and freckled. In the afternoons the big kids read while Peter takes a nap. I cook dinner on our vintage stove (it has electrical outlets ON the stove, I've never seen that before) and reassess usefulness and necessity every time I wash anything in our little sink. Dishes are all useful and necessary. As are cups and cutlery. Unfortunately.

At night we listen to the local bands play at the restaurants. Some of them are pretty good. The cars can be noisy, but we've mostly tuned it out. Only the ambulances get special attention anymore.

I am quite in love with our quirky apartment. We are the only family living in the shop apartments, so we've come to the attention of many of our neighbors. It would be hard not to be noticed when a woman and three small children come magically out of our little door. It is a funny little club we belong to, and I enjoy seeing our fellow apartment dwellers across and down the street from us. We can all see each other's lights, and it is a comforting thing to know that we are all there.

And so we have begun a metropolitan adventure in a quiet, innocent little downtown. The kids are happy, their parents are happy, and I think our apartment is happy. I'll post some pictorial evidence of our adventures eventually, but for now my ramblings will have to do.

Recording studio

While in Texas for Spring Break we stopped in at Kathaleen's friend's recording studio to record the song David sang at Easter.

Pat was really nice and patient with my grumpy son, who really just wanted to go back to Grandma's house and play with cousins.

We recorded the piano part first while David sang along as warm up.

Then David rocked his recording. He was what Pat calls a "One Take Wonder". David was so happy to get out of there.

Our family has loved the song he sang for a long while now. We listen to it fairly regularly to help us all settle down and be more still. Now, though, Andi only wants to listen to David singing it. It certainly is quite sweet.

Sometimes I'm a fun mom

Yes, we can go play by the waterfall today.

Yes, we can go do crafts at the farmer's market.

Yes, we can go get ice cream cones.

Yes, you must absolutely play in the rain!!

Yes, I will play in the rain with you!

Andi's birthday

Andi turned five this month. She has been looking forward to this birthday for a long time because she knows that she will start kindergarten when she is five.

She requested donuts, pineapple, and sausage for breakfast. We happily obliged. No complaints at breakfast that morning!

She had been on a HUGE unicorn kick lately. I managed to find a set of play unicorns for a few dollars off of amazon. Some went to decorating the table, one went to decorating the cake.

She thought her cake was the "most prettiest!"

And then I cut her slice. "Holy moly, it's pretty on the inside!!"

I used two box cakes, food coloring, and my six-inch cake pan to get the layers. There were lots of leftover cake and frosting scraps. We froze gem and saved them to make cake pops for David's baptism. 

She got two gifts that day, and two when grandparents brought up her gift from them and her cousins the following week. She was totally princessed out, and quite happily too. :)

Shenanigans

Racing to the bus stop Friday morning:

Pizza for David's birthday (Thanks, Mom!!):

Another batch of cake pops pre-sprinkles, and a cherry-apricot slab pie:

Zoomfs! They were close enough that we could see the people and hear the fire. It was rather nuts!

No piano bench? No problem! Have piano, will play:

Memorial Day parade with the pack:

Turtle Rescue on Wednesday:

Chandler was so thrilled that she got to hold a squirmy turtle to his new pond-home. The little guy was trying to cross the road and my big suburban nearly smushed him! I couldn't just leave him there...

And he really seemed excited about movin into his new place:

Shenanigans of the week.