The Beach

The other week Rodney asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday.  I thought about it for just a moment and then promptly said "go to Lake Michigan to the beach."  And that's what we did!  Throughout this week I kept an eye on the weather forecast.  At first there was a slight chance of rain and upper 80's.  The closer today got the chance of rain was gone and the temps kept rising to the lower 90's :o)  My only concern was that with it being that warm then the beach would be super busy, but that didn't stop us from going.  And we are all soooo glad we did.  The girls had a blast and us adults did too!   

After packing a picnic lunch and gathering all the things we were needing, we headed out at 10:00am.  We weren't entirely sure how long it would take us to get to Silver Beach, but we were kinda figuring 1 1/2 hours.  And we were correct. 

When we go to Silver Beach, we don't actually go to the main beach area as it is always very crowded, which it was today.  We go down just a bit to another beach area, and when we got there this morning it wasn't crowded at all.  It was quite nice.  But by the time we were leaving though, it was definitely getting more busy.  So we picked the perfect time to go :o)

The girls wanted to go to water right away, so I got them in their swimsuits and Rodney changed as well.  We went down to the beach for a little bit until it was time to eat lunch.  The girls reluctantly agreed.  After lunch Kaycie wanted to play on the playground, so Rodney and her did that while Allyson, Janae and I went back to the water.  It didn't take too long before Kaycie and Rodney were back as the equipment was kinda hot.  Allyson finally convinced me to change into my swimsuit (I haven't been in one for years!), so I was able to enjoy the water too.

It was a totally enjoyable birthday day!  There is just something about being at the beach.  Seeing the horizon, the boats, the waves, the sand . . . That's my dream paradise.  And it is appearing that it is also the girls' :o)

Here are some pictures from the day.

Walking out to a sand bar for the first time.

Originally Janae didn't want to put on her swimsuit as she wasn't going into the water.  She was going to make sandcastles.  But I told her that she still needed to put it on in case she gets wet.  She said okay, and I'm fairly confident that she's happy she did.  Why?  Because she spent waaay more time in the water than making sandcastles :o)

This is early on in the water.  She didn't go out very far at all.  But just wait . . .

Out on the sand bar watching the boats.

The only good picture of me in the water.  I will spare you the images of me in a swimsuit - not a pretty sight.  Next time I will need to find something different to wear, so I don't scare the whole beach away.  :o\

Notice how far Janae is in the water?  After lunch she started walking out to the sand bar by herself!  She's always been the one who takes a while before she is willling to try something new.  And usually once she finally tries it, she loves it. :o)

Playing in the sand on the sand bar.

They started out making a wall, but it turned out into the girls' initials - J K A

In the waves on the other side of the sand bar.

Nothing like your toes in the sand!

Beautiful!

Think she's enjoying herself? :o)

Neighbor Helping Neighbor

I had an interesting afternoon on Friday, and once it was finally over I could really tell that God had His hand in the whole situation.  I feel blessed and humbled just thinking that God used me and how everything played out.

It all started after Kaycie's nap.  I decided that instead of sitting on the couch waiting for 3pm and Rachael Ray to come on that we were going to sit outside on the front porch.  This is not unusual for me, but it is not something I've done very often since school has started.

After a while I heard a kid yell.  I kinda looked around as I wasn't sure where there were any kids, but didn't think much about it.  I then heard the yell again and then yet again a tiny bit later.  I then noticed a neighbor boy two houses down behind the fence.  Oh, he's out playing with someone I thought.  I then noticed this boy walk across the road.  I kept watching him as he kept yelling.  He walked a short distance like he was looking for someone, and that's when I noticed that he was crying!  I told Kaycie I bet he's locked out of the house.  I debated on what I should do.  That's when the mom in me decided that if that was my child I would want someone to help out, and I couldn't just leave him out there crying.  So I walked across the yard towards the young boy (who was still across the road) and tried to ask him if he was locked out.  Once traffic cleared, he came over to me, and I was able to ask him what was wrong and if he would like to wait at our house.  He followed me home.  I asked him his name and what grade he was in.  He is a Spanish boy and it was kinda hard to understand him, but I got his name and that he is in the 4th grade.

When we got here I asked him if he needed to use the bathroom, want a snack, a drink?  He said no, no but did take the drink.  We then sat outside so we could keep an eye on his place.  This poor boy was definitely scared and was crying the entire time.  I was trying to think of what I could do.  I asked him if he knew anybody we could call or if he knew where his mom worked so that we could maybe call her.  He shook his head and told me that he speaks Spanish.  (I'm thinking that he probably understands English more than he can talk it and/or he was just so scared it was harder for him to talk English.)  So then I was back to what do I do?  Just wait until his mom comes home?

The next idea I had was to call the school to see if they had an emergency contact number for him.  I called and the lady who answered the phone was exactly the person I needed to talk to - she works with the Hispanic students and families at the school!  She has never answered the phone when I've called in before.  I told her what was going on and she asked me his name.  I told her that I was going to let him tell her as I knew I wouldn't be able to repeat his name correctly.  They then proceeded to have a conversation in Spanish.  When they were done talking he gave me back the phone and she told me that she knew who this boy is (that she's worked with him already) and that there was only one phone number for his mom.  She said she would try to reach her.

We went back outside to wait.  A bit later the lady from the school called back, and said she was unable to reach the mom but she would continue to try and reach her.  She also said that the mom works until 4pm. and would I be okay with having him there that long.  I said he could stay here as long as he needed to.   I'm thinking that at this time it is about 3:30.

We continue to wait outside constantly watching the road for signs of his mom, and I feel like I'm not doing enough.  I've never had to deal with something like this before, and what can you do?  He's probably 9 years old - too old to hold to help calm him down plus he doesn't know me from Adam.  I kept asking God if there is something I should ask him or try, but I nothing I asked him really helped.  I was at least hoping that me just being there (so he wasn't alone) was helping.

Finally at about 3:50ish I see this car waiting to turn into his driveway.  I asked him if that is his mom.  He said yes, and we walked over to his house.  I figured he'd run ahead of me, but he walked right along side of me.  His mom was surprised by all of this, but was grateful for my help.  Apparently he normally has a garage door opener in his backpack, but he must have forgotten it this morning as it was in the house.  And if I understood the mom correct, someone closed/locked a door that they shouldn't have.  (Her English was not good at all.)

So as I look back at this whole ordeal, I see God's hand in the whole thing:

1.  I went outside to sit on the front porch when I normally don't.
2.  I actually did the right thing by going over to him initially. (sometimes - okay a lot of times - I find myself not doing what I know God is maybe nudging me to do)
3.  Calling the school at just the right time so that the right person would answer the phone.

This may be a small thing to some, but it made me feel good that God used little ole me to help this boy.

Sleepless Night in Schrockville

What a night!  I know it could have been worse, but it wasn't a good night with it being the night before school starting.  Why you say?  Well let me tell you . . .

We decided that since it was the night before school and excitement and maybe some nerves were a bit higher than normal, we would have all the girls go to bed at 8pm.  (Normal school bedtimes will be Janae at 8pm and Allyson at 8:30pm and Kaycie somewhere in-between).

Of course there had to be some distant thunder so that didn't help the situation, but it ended up that Janae was going to sleep with Allyson and Kaycie would sleep in the hallway until I went to bed.  I would then put her into her own bed.

All was well for at least 15 minutes.  For the next 1 1/2 hours Allyson kept coming out every so often saying that she just couldn't go to sleep.  One time her tummy was hurting bad, but thankfully a gas tablet solved that problem.  She changed positions, she read a book, she laid on the floor, but nothing was helping her settle down.  I think her mind was just running and couldn't settle down.  Finally at 9:40 I told her to just stay out in the living room with me.  I could tell she was trying to sleep, but it just wasn't happening.  I finally decided to go to bed a bit earlier than normal, and Allyson went back to bed too.  I think she finally fell asleep somewhere between 10:15 - 10:30pm.

Right after I got into bed, I kept hearing this strange sound coming from Rodney.  I finally turned over to see what was going on.  Here he was sitting up in bed rubbing his right side.  He was in a lot of pain.  He wasn't totally sure if it was a kidney stone or his gallbladder.  We ended up going out to the living room.  I stayed up with him until around 11:00pm and told him if he needed me to come and get me.

I wasn't in bed more than a couple of minutes when I heard Allyson's door open and then close.  I wasn't sure who it was.  When it happened the second time I put my glasses on to see, and it was who I was expecting - Janae.  She was up and seemed scared.  We decided to let her sleep in the hallway, but she still was slightly crying and not wanting to settle down.  I went and got her and held her.  I asked if she had an ouchie anywhere - no.  Was she scared or nervous about going to school tomorrow - no.  I finally got out of her that she was concerned about getting up in the morning.  Not sure why this was bothering her so much, but I assured her that I would wake her up when it was time.  She finally seemed to relax a bit and went back to the hallway.  It took a while, but she finally went back to sleep.

Rodney stayed out in the living room all night, so of course when his alarm went off at 4:30am, I had to get up to turn it off and then go wake him up.  He said he really didn't sleep good until approx 2:30am.  And it seems that whenever I am up after 4:00am, it is extremely hard for me to get back to sleep.  And that was the case this morning.  I tossed and turned for the next 1 1/2 hours until my alarm went off at 5:50am.

So needless to say the Schrock family is a little sleep deprived this first day of school.  As of leaving for work, Rodney had not passed the kidney stone, so hopefully he will soon.  Kaycie is the only one who had a decent night's sleep, but I had to wake her up about an hour or so earlier than she's used to, so needless to say she was a grump but this morning.

First day of school pictures.

Summer Activities

Here are some pictures from the past week.

Allyson does pretty good jumping rope.  She can jump approximately 15 + times before messing up.  Janae is still learning and one of the last times she tried, she jumped 4 times.  She was excited.  Kaycie still hasn't gotten the hang of it, but I think that is mostly due to her young age.  One of these times I'll have to show Allyson how to double dutch jump rope.  I think I was in 4th grade when I learned how to do that.  I just remember when the teacher showed us, none of us girls thought we'd ever learn.  But by the end of the year we were all jumping double dutch exceptionally well.

Bike riding in the development behind our house.  This time Kaycie decided she wanted to ride her bike instead of riding with Rodney.  I also remembered to bring my camera this time too :o)

Took this picture while riding my own bike!  :o)

The Girls

Just a few weeks ago we finally got the girls' annual pictures taken.  Here are three of the pics.

Allyson - 8 years 

Janae - 5 years

Kaycie - 4 years

And not long after that I decided it was time to get some haircuts or trims before school started, so I asked the girls who wanted their hair cut.  I figured it would only be Janae and me, but it ended up being only Allyson which surprised me because the last she told me she wanted her hair to grow long again.  The appointment was in two weeks and every once in a while I reminded the girls about it.  About 4 days before the appointment Kaycie out of the blue said she wanted her hair cut short like Janae's.  I was shocked to say the least as she never wanted her hair short before.  So the next few days I kept asking her just to make sure she didn't change her mind - she didn't.  And then the day before the appointment, Janae pipes up that she now wants her hair cut too (she was going to let it grow long again).   So we went from just two of us getting  haircuts to all four of us.

Here are their new looks just a few weeks after their official yearly pictures.  Oh well . . . they still look adorable to me either way :o)

Big change!

Not much change for Janae but it is a touch shorter.

Big change!  don't you like how her hair flips out?! :o)

Fair Time

Today was Kid's Day at the fair and for the first time ever, I took the girls and went.  I'm glad we did as the girls had a blast!  It was to be a very hot day, but the clouds stuck around for most of the morning and even looked very threatening at times, but all we got were some sprinkles.  There was also a nice breeze.  By the time we were getting close to being done, the sun did come out, and the temps and humidity began to rise quite a bit.

I was debating on if I should get a wristband for all of the girls or just Allyson as I didn't think the other two would ride as much as Allyson.  I was wrong, and I'm glad I did get all three a wristband.  I didn't count how many rides they went on or how many times they repeated rides, but I believe I got our money's worth.

It was also nice in that Allyson was tall enough to be able to ride all of the rides alone, so that meant her sisters could ride the same ride even if they weren't as tall as they needed to be (they did have to be taller than the minimum requirement though).

When asked what their favorite rides were:

Allyson - the roller coaster, the slide, the drums (kinda like the tea cup ride), the train
Janae - the roller coaster, the swing, the train, the drums, the bears
Kaycie - the roller coaster, the train, the drums, the bears, the swing

As you can tell, I think they loved almost all of the rides they rode on :o)

It was also neat to watch Janae.  She's always the one who doesn't like to try new things (whether food or some activity).  It usually takes a lot of coaxing, and then you aren't guaranteed that she will try it.  But today Allyson wanted to go on the roller coaster.  Janae didn't want to, but Kaycie did.  So Allyson and Kaycie went on the ride.  A short time later Janae said she wanted to go on the roller coaster, and she loved it :o)  The same thing happened with the drum ride too.  I'm sooo glad she decided to give some of those rides a chance and then liking them too.

I don't have any pictures :o(    At one point before we left home, I had thought about taking my camera along, but as it goes sometimes, I forgot until we were almost to the fair.  Just imagine lots of smiles and waves :o)

Family Roots

Today we attended a family reunion that has been an annual event for a long as I've been alive, and I learned today that it was actually started back in the 1930's or 1940's!  This would be my mom's mom's parents - my great grandparents.

For the past couple of years, my brother has been working on a family tree website, and today was the first time I was on it.  It's been a great website to get a good grasp of how to place where each relative belongs and see how big our family really is.   I'm thinking that it wasn't until Rodney came into my life that I really made an effort to not just know who my relatives are but to know which family they belonged to (to which of my grandma's siblings).

Today's reunion seemed fairly large - either that or the building we had it at was a bit too small ;o).  Anyway, I decided to go on the website and count how many blood relatives there are for just two generations.  Of course there were the original two (great grandpa & grandma).  They had 10 children (my grandma was #8).  Of their children who lived to get married and have their own children that number totals 46.  That means my mom has/had 42 1st cousins and that's just one side of the family!  Compare that to my girls who have NO 1st cousins and to me who has only seven 1st cousins on one side.  Now take into account that the majority of these 46 people got married and had children of their own (this would be my generation) and on and on.

Ok, I decided to do it.  I went on the website and counted EVERY person who is under the family of Jacob J.C. Miller whether it is by blood or by marrying into the family or just a little kid.  Are you ready for this?  The total number is 712 people!  Granted not everyone is still living (there is only one son of my great parents that is still living), but that is still a lot of family heritage from my great grandparents.  I'm fairly sure that this is not a common occurrence for most people especially if you don't have an amish/mennonite background, and to have your ancestry mapped out for the past 100+ years is quite a feat too.

With this all said, I guess I'm discovering that the older I get, the more I realize how special my family and relatives really are.  And even though I may not see some of them except once a year or maybe even longer, they are still a part of me and who I am.