Date

I think it helps my attitude to be able to spend so much time outdoors. It also helps to hang out with some wonderful people. Today will another day of splitting up so we can be everywhere we need to be. Steve is taking Anthony and Zeke to watch Riley's football game here in Brookings this morning. Riley & Zeke's bio grandma (dad's mom) will be driving up with some other bio relatives to watch the game. Then we're inviting them over for lunch at our house. I'm taking Taylor and Sophia with me to Joan's house for a party this morning. Brittney is babysitting for my sister.

This afternoon, Riley has a football camp and Steve needs to be at SDSU by 3pm to help with the 1st Bank & Trust tailgate party. The other day I traded Brittney for some babysitting time so she's watching the little kids for me tonight so I can meet Steve for a bit of the tailgating at 5pm and then we'll watch the football game! It's a legitimate date! :)
.

Overwhelmed

I'm temporarily overwhelmed with paperwork, schedules, the past, the future and everything yucky in between.

Yesterday after I finished with the kids at headstart, I walked down to the office. Laurie was busy typing on her computer so I asked her if she had a minute. She asked me to wait just a second so she could finish up what she was working on, then turned and asked what I needed. I simply said, "a hug." She didn't even ask any questions, just jumped out of her chair and enveloped me in a big Laurie hug. Isn't she amazing?! I work with some great people. And it just shows how far gone I am if I'm actually requesting a hug.
.
Steve and I are meeting with my therapist in Sioux Falls next Wednesday morning. She's amazing, too. I met her a few years ago through adoption/attachment and lately she's been helping me figure out how to parent Anthony. Unfortunately, she's so good that she thinks that the past affects the present and the future ;) Which means we have to deal with all of it.
.
Headed off today to work at the produce stand. Great fall day to be outside!
.

I've been pretty intentional about posting every day on the blog. Obviously, I've missed a few days lately. The kids are doing ok but I'm a mess. Past and present are colliding and I'm not dealing with it particularly well. I may or may not post about that later. I'm thinking I might need to pull out of my self-induced seclusion and discuss it with a few close friends. We'll see. I've kept myself so busy it's not really an option anyway.

On top of my own issues, we're scheduled to go to a birthday party on Sunday afternoon for the boys' birth half-sister. Included will be all of our family, the boys' birth mom, bio grandparents and probably other friends. Riley has met his bio mom before (see previous posts) but Anthony and Zeke have not seen her since they were in DSS custody (remember abuse/trama issues were most likely caused mostly by bio mom and in the past even her name triggered severe behavior issues). People have lots of questions about why we would even let her see them with all the past issues but that's another post for another day.

I really don't know what the reprecussions of this visit are going to be for any of them. The kicker is that I don't think I'm at the right place in life to help them through it right now. I wish I had more time to prepare them and that I wasn't so overwhelmed with my own stuff right now.
.

I'm fully aware of the fact that I stay incredibly busy so I don't have to think very much. The past few weeks seem to be so full that there isn't any time for anything extra. But the difference this fall is that the kids' and their activities and homework are taking one of the priority spots. I've mentioned before that I've pulled back from a lot of the things that were keeping me so busy in life and preventing me from doing things that will matter in the long run.

I'm not active in the foster parent network anymore and we have let our foster care license expire. (*We do still maintain our adoptive license for up to three children and we couldn't foster right now anyway because the state limit is 6 kids in the household, so we're full).

I am still secretary of the board for the Brookings InterAgency Council but we only have to meet 4-5 times a year so it's not a big time commitment. I'm still on the advisory board for Camp Adventure but that only meets a few times a year also, mostly in the spring/summer months.

Steve and I had really pulled back from church activities during the last year also. We used to attend a class Sunday mornings, church Sunday mornings, class Wednesday nights and I also went to a Tuesday morning bible study, all at the Wesleyan Church. About six months ago, we began attending less and less, until I found myself not going all all. About 4 months ago, we started attending Bethel Baptist church on Sunday mornings. We had a few friends who were on staff there and also knew a few people who regularly attended there. The preaching was biblical and sound and the music was heartfelt. We worshiped there and fit in well but it wasn't home for us.

We were really praying about what our future would hold, partly for a church home, but also because we were coming up on Sophia's adoption and we knew we wanted to have her dedicated in our home church. The problem was, we didn't really feel like we had a home church anymore. For us, dedication has two very important parts. The first part is our comittment as parents and a family to raise Sophia to know God. The second part is for our church family to come along side us and commit to helping us. We needed to be in a church we were committed to and who was committed to us.

The week before Sophia's legal adoption, I received a text that some changes were occurring at the Wesleyan Church. Because of the changes, Steve and I felt peace about returning. We had Sophia dedicated the following Sunday. The legal adoption was to fulfill the law; the dedication was our committment to God.

I know there were a lot of questions and assumptions about our church switch. I want to make clear the fact that our decision to leave and return was not based on any one person or our likes, dislikes and preferences. God does not build his kingdom based on what I want. He builds it according to His will and His love of people, regardless of differences. Our decision was based solely on a heart issue. There was a tension and a selfishness need by some to make sure they got their own way without regard for others. I didn't want to be someone who caused dissention by creating conflict or drawing attention to what needed to be worked through by others. As the bible says, before you point out the speck in your brothers eye, get the plank out of your own!" I'm paraphrasing a bit but you get the idea. It's always a good idea to be a part of the solution - not a part of the problem. I just wasn't sure how to do that and still maintain my healthy spiritual walk.

The gist of it is that I didn't feel at peace or at home at the Wesleyan Church anymore. But peace is back and I'm so thankful that God's got it under control.

We've been back for a few weeks now. I've started a new Beth Moore bible study on the book of James. I'm really excited to get back into learning and studying!

***Bad Mom Side Note****
Just got a phone call from the orthodonist. I forgot Taylor's appointment this morning at 8:15am
.

We started the day by splitting up our family.

Steve, Riley and Anthony headed to Huron for Riley's football game. They won their game and his team is still undefeated at 3-0.

Brittney stayed home, snuggled warmly in her bed, then went out to lunch with Grandma Connie and Grandpa Larry.

Taylor, Sophia, Zeke and I went to Zeke's Special Olympics State Softball tournament here in Brookings. After the first hour at softball, I had to call Grandma Sandy to come and pick up Sophia. It was so cold that even with her two jackets and a blanket wrapped around her, all she would do was cry. It wasn't any fun for anyone. Although it was so sweet to see everyone worried about her. One of the special olympics participants was so concerned that she came over and asked Sophia if she wanted her gatorade. I told her she could keep it because she might need it but she insisted that Sophia needed it more. Sophia stopped crying and thanked her! A little while later, my friend Dorothy gave Sophia a pair of purple mittens and that made her smile too.

Here is Zeke and some of his Brookings teammates holding their sign at the opening ceremonies. This was right before they lit the torch and declared the games open.

.

After their divisioning game at 8:30am to determine which teams would be best matched, Zeke's team didn't play again until 2:30pm. I went to grab another chair and left Zeke in my chair with a blanket, letting his coach and a few moms know he was there. When I returned, my chair was empty and I didn't see him anywhere. A friend pointed to Adam. Apparently Zeke was cold so he climbed into Adam's chair and they kept each other warm.

.

Zeke is on the Brookings Red team.

Brookings also has White, Grey and Black teams.

Zeke's team played two games today and they won both.

They play again tomorrow at noon and 3pm.

.

 

.

Batting

.

Catching

.

After they finished their last game around 6pm, Brittney and I took Zeke over to the middle school for the special olympics supper and dance. There was something special about my oldest child driving my middle child to his first dance. He was so excited!

 

When I picked him up a couple of hours later, this was our conversation:

 

M: "Did you have fun?"

Z: "Yeah! I danced with a girl!"

M: "Wow! What was her name?"

Z: Shrugged his shoulders and smiled, "I don't know but she was this tall." (holds his hands a few inches above his head)

 .

 

 

I always put the kids' new 8x10 school picture on top of the previous year's picture in their frame. As I was putting in Riley's current picture, he was complaining about some of his past ones. He said they were ugly.

Me: "Riley, everyone, including me, thinks some of their own school pictures are ugly. But to a mom, they're all good! We like to look back at them."

Riley: "Yeah but your school pictures were in black and white."

Me: "They were NOT."

Riley: "Really? When did they invent color anyway?"
.

Thirty quart bags of corn frozen so far and thirty quart jars of pickles done. Hoping to finish the corn this week but I've got an Inter Agency Meeting tonight maybe tomorrow. I've also been reading a new book that's got some great ideas for instilling responsibility into my children. I can't wait to put some of it into practice! I'll write more as I figure out how I'm going to utilize it. I'm off to work! Have a spectacular day :)
.

Thankful

Riley was walking home from school this afternoon and was just a few houses away from home when a car hit another car and jumped the curb, heading right for Riley. He scrambled and fell but got up and started running. The car didn't hit him and he only has a few scratches on his leg - but it scared both him and me. I'm not sure exactly what happened but the two cars involved had a significant amount of damage. Riley, thankfully, did not.
.

Zeke is officially moved back into the upstairs bedroom with Anthony. We'll see how it goes. Riley brought home his percussion band stuff yesterday, including a snare drum and a zylophone, and we can't afford to have Zeke break it so he needed to move. I'm giving Riley's bunkbed to a friend who needs one and he'll be getting a regular bed like he's wanted. I'm hoping we can finish up that project this weekend but I also want to finish canning and freezing. Maybe I'll just sleep a bit less so I can accomplish a bit more  ;)
.

Brittney Says

This week is homecoming so the kids all have different dress codes each day. For example, yesterday was western day. Today, the Camelot kids had Black Out day so they were supposed to dress all in black. When pulling up at the High School to drop off Brittney, I noticed some uniquely dressed kids. Brittney informed me that it's Toga Day. I asked why she wasn't wearing a toga.

Brit: "It's only Toga Day for seniors. Each high school class has different colors today. Freshman are supposed to wear white."

I looked at her and noticed she was wearing all white except a little black jacket so I inquired about the jacket.

Brit: "Dude! Mom!" (She puts the word dude in front of my name a lot) "My boot for my sprained ankle is black and I have to coordinate with it!"
.
Who's child is this!?
.

Complicated

One of the things about having six children is that I sometimes feel like I run my own private bussing system with a super complicated schedule. In the mornings it's usually just to a round of schools but after school it gets a bit complicated. Take tonight for instance.

Zeke's bus drops him off at home- 3:40pm
Brittney has cheer - 3:45pm - 6:00pm
Taylor has piano - 4:00pm - 4:30pm
Zeke has bowling - 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Open House for orchastra for Taylor - 5:00pm - 6:00pm
Riley has football - 5:45pm - 7:15pm
Zeke has softball - 7:00pm - 8:00pm

Somewhere in there I need to get everyone fed and also work on freezing 50 quarts of sweet corn. Thankfully, Steve should be home sometime after 5:30 to help :)
.

Matt & Julie's Wedding Reception

Sartell, MN

My cousin Matt got married a few weeks ago in the Florida Keys

but they had a reception in MN this weekend.

Matt's mom, Patsy, and my mom, Connie, are sisters.

.

I wish I would have taken my good camera instead of just my cell phone.

The colors were gorgeous!

.

Taylor, Sophia, Riley, Aubrey, Jaden

.

Heather & Brittney

.

Uncle Barry & Matt's daughter Jaden

.

Matt, Jaden & Julie

.

Jaden

.

Trying to convince Jaden to get in the picture

.

Matt & Uncle Barry

.

Brittney entertaining herself with athletic tape on the back of Steve's head

.

Sisters at McDonalds on the way home :)

.

Taylor

I came home after work yesterday and saw Taylor with a towel wrapped like a turbin around her head and the top half of her face. My dark eyed, dark haired child informed me that she didn't like her eyebrows so she shaved them off. Sure enough, when I unrapped the towel, she had absolutely no eyebrows left. I didn't know whether to laugh or yell. Now she's refusing to go the the reception that we have in St Cloud today because she knows she looks funny. She's really really embaressed about it now and it's turned into a sensitive issue for her. But it's still hard not to laugh when I look at her! I had to bribe her with a cupcake to take her picture but she made me promise not to post it on the blog or facebook. So I guess you'll have to see her in person and try not to laugh!
.

A Few God Moments

I am officially anti-social again. I simply don’t have the time or energy to do anything with anyone anymore. I guess part of it has to do with the fact that I get up before 5am and stay busy all day. But I have absolutely no urge to do anything social outside of my house. So it’s a good thing that some of my friends come visit me or I probably wouldn’t see anyone anymore!

....

Thursday didn’t go exactly as I planned. I rolled down my van window when I stopped at the ATM on my way to work. When I attempted to roll it back up, nothing happened.  Steve met me at work and tried to get the window back up but he couldn’t get it either. It was a nice sunny day so it wouldn’t have made much difference except I needed to take Anthony to Sioux Falls at 2 o’clock. I ended up driving down the interstate at 75 mph with my window completely open. I was not a fan of the fresh air or wind. I knew we would be driving to St Cloud on Sunday so I was thinking it might be a good idea to get it fixed before then. Ironically, Steve had a window on his car do the same thing about a month ago we still haven’t fixed it. We just taped it until we could get a new motor for it and have someone fix it.

So as I was driving Anthony and myself back from Sioux Falls that day, I tried the button for the window repeatedly just in case. I tried banging on the door to try to unstick the window. Nothing worked. We were halfway home before it occured to me that I never asked God for help. Why does it always take me so long before I remember?! So God and I had a conversation about my frustration with the window and I asked Him to fix it. Then I tried the button one last time and the window rolled right up!

....

Last week I was also discouraged by the current lack of income on my part and that I couldn't go to the grocery store when I wanted. I turned that one over to God right away! At least I've learned from experience on that one. That evening, a message popped up on my phone from a friend who works for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). She let me know that they had lots of leftover ground beef from a fundraiser and to give them a call if we wanted it. By the end of the night, I had probably 15 pounds of hamburger delivered right to my door!

.

I was reminded again by a friend I ran into at the produce stand that God can't pour anything into our hands if our hands are already closed tightly around something else. The more we hang on to something for ourselves because we're afraid to let it go, the less opportunity we give God to show His power and mercy by providing something better for us. Just like children, we only see what we have or want right now. We have no idea what awesome things God might have in store for our lives if we'd only turn them over to Him instead of our constant struggle to provide for ourselves. I need to remember to keep leaning on God instead of myself. That's a really hard one for me :)

.

 

 

.

Glitches

Nothing is going quite as planned this weekend. Brittney can't compete at the cheer competition, Riley's coach forgot to pick him up this morning for the football game in Huron, I'm headed to the produce stand because they needed someone today, etc, etc, etc. At least I haven't been stressing over any of it. Wish I could say the same for my husband. I have, however, become anti-social again. I simply don't have time to be anything else right now. Maybe I'll try to have friends again next week.
.

Brit

Brittney's on crutches after an emergency room visit at 9:30pm last night. She went to the gymnastics gym downtown to work on her tumbling for cheer and something went wrong during one of her flips. It took 4 staff people to help her out of the foam block pit. X-rays showed that it's only a bad sprain and not broken but the bad news is that she won't be competing on Saturday :(

Favorite Moment

I know I still haven't posted about the dedication day or the rest of the Colorado trip. But my house is finally getting back to normal and on schedule. This afternoon after work I need to take Anthony to Sioux Falls and I'd try to post then but my internet connection isn't the best in that waiting room.
.
My favorite moment of the morning:
Riley playing his keyboard with his arm around Sophia as they both sang 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'. He has got to be one of the best big brothers ever!
.

Yikes!!!!!

We had a busy day yesterday for Sophia with her early headstart teacher, early childhood teacher and her physical therapist all in the same afternoon. I will blog about the dedication and party on Sunday but not today. I think I can even post the video of the dedication.
.
Yesterday I also had an email from Zeke's teacher and am really frustrated with Zeke right now. They caught him with peanuts yesterday. That may not seem like a big deal for most people but there are two reasons that it's a big deal for us. The first, and least important, is that Zeke has been pocketing lots of things that don't belong to him. We've talked to him, given him consequences, etc but nothing seems to work. If he wants it, he takes it. The second and most important reason it's a big deal is because Zeke has two kids in his class who are severely allergic to peanuts. Zeke having them is just like taking a knife or gun to school. He could hurt or kill someone. It sounds dramatic but it's a fact. His teacher talked to him, his resource teacher talked to him, I talked to him, Taylor talked to him (she was almost crying :( .........but I'm still not sure he really understands the severity of what he did. He does, however, understand that he's never to have peanuts again! The worst part is that we don't even know where he got the them! We don't have peanuts in our house. He says he doesn't remember. That they were just in his pocket. So I don't know if someone gave them to him or if he took them from somewhere. But I think this finally convinced his Camelot teachers to keep a closer eye on him and search through his things like I told them too!

We're thankful that God was watching over the situation and kept everyone safe!!!

Back to Work

I've started back to work. I love my new hours and schedule! It fits perfectly into our life. I usually get up by 6am and have a few minutes of "me time". Then I get the kids all ready for their day and have them dropped off at school by 8am. This year we're making rounds to the elementary school (Anthony), the intermediary school (Riley, Taylor, Zeke) and the high school (Brittney). Steve drops Sophia off at daycare on his way to work.

After the kids are dropped off, I head back home and spend an hour with a specific cleaning or organizing task. Currently, that involves all the cleaning that didn't get done well over the summer when all the kids were home all the time. We're also in the process of re-doing the hall closet and office by the back door. As the kids are getting bigger, the space needs to be reconfigured. I should have taken a before picture. I'll try to update along the way because it might be a long process. As already noted by the bathroom projects, we only proceed with projects as we have the cash funds to do them so sometimes they take a while.
I go in to work at Headstart by 9:30am and I work one-on-one with a little boy with Downs Syndrome. It's been fun to be back with the kids and staff that I love!

Then by 2 pm I'm done with work for the day so I can go back home and work on paperwork, laundry and supper. The kids all walk or ride a bus home after school so I'm also not spending an hour after school driving around town doing pick-ups this year. As they come in, I have them sit in the dining room and work on homework, spelling and/or reading. When each kid's school stuff is done, they can go into the kitchen for a snack. This is only the third week of school but I feel like it's working well and we're keeping on top of what the kids are supposed to be doing - rather than last year's feeling of getting everything done right at the last minute and not spending the time helping them like I should. It also give the kids time to get everything done before their sports activities and church in the evenings. I'm still working with Dawnna at the produce stand until mid/late October so the kids are on their own on  Wednesdays and Fridays.

I should also mention that I don't work at Headstart on Fridays. Their class schedule only runs Mon - Thurs. There is an occasional Friday meeting and I'll be doing produce for another month, but after that, I'll have Fridays to myself. Kind of. That will be the day I'll schedule most things - like Zeke's doctor's appointments, Anthony's therapies, etc.

So far, I'm loving the schedule! I still get to work doing what I love and I still have time to do what I need to for my family. Granted, money will be a little tighter because I'm not putting in so many hours but it's still the best thing for our family in the long run.

Riley's Football

1st game of the season.

Riley's team scored four touchdowns.

Bobcats are 1-0 !

.

While I was going through pictures of Sophia for tomorrow,

I came across this one of Taylor when she was little.

The picture was taken right before the penguin tried to eat the zipper on Taylor's coat.

Guess who passed her written driver's test

and now has her permit!?

.

At the Courthouse

This morning we were able to go to court to finalize the adoption of Sophia, who's lived with us for over two years! :) And I can post pictures of her on FB. We're now officially a family of 8! And there are more of us adopted (4 kids & me) than not (2 kids & Steve)
.
At the courthouse:

• Even though we were scheduled at 8:50am, we had to wait until lots of other cases were heard. So we got to hang out in the hallway of the third floor of the courthouse for an hour. It's a good thing there was construction going on with jackhammers that drowned out all our kid noise or else the bailiff would have had to come out and tell us to be quiet.
• Sophia got to see her Sara again. She didn't really care about any of the rest of us once she saw Sara. I think she was suffering from withdrawl because they hadn't seen each other for two weeks. We almost had to have Sara sit with us at the front table in the courtroom because I couldn't convince Sophia to leave Sara. Don't worry, I told Sara long ago that even after the official case was closed, she has to stay part of our family!
• Anthony tried to stick his head in the security X-ray machine.
• Taylor refused to wear shoes in the courthouse. I finally made a deal with her that if she would wear them during the proceedings that she could leave them off the rest of the time. So she was the child who was all dressed up with no shoes.
• I'm pretty sure I caught all my children trying to push the large red button on the wall that had a sign beside it that read, "FOR HELP, PUSH THE THREE INCH BUTTON." I guess they thought we might mistakenly try to find another button to push, even though the big red one was the only button on the entire wall.
• The actual adoption itself was pretty anti-climatic. Fortunately we've done it before so we knew what to expect. After waiting for a long time in the hallway, we all finally filed into the courtroom. Our lawyer presented the paperwork to the judge, told the judge why we were there, the judge signed the paperwork and then said congratulations. The whole process took maybe 5 minutes. Then we took a picture with the kids and the judge and filed back out into the hallway.
• Riley had a meltdown in the courtroom after the conclusion of the legal proceedings but before we could take a picture. The short version is that he was dealing with a lot of his own memories and feelings about courtrooms, judges, adoption, etc. After all the other kids went back to school, I took him to Taco Johns and we had a good visit over nachos and burritos. I'd love to say it's all better but that wouldn't be the truth. He's doing ok and had a smile on his face when I took him back to school but the truth is that this is something he will be dealing with his whole life. I do know that it makes him feel better that we're facing it together. He knows that I have a lot of the same feelings and confusion that he does and we can share with each other.
• After court, Zeke shook our lawyer Jared's hand and asked, "Is Sophia my real sister now or my foster sister." Jared let him know that she was, in fact, his real sister. Zeke, still shaking Jared's hand, said, "Thanks for giving us Sophia!"

Pictures later :)

Three Mistakes

1st Mistake:
I was working on paperwork at home and saw Val walking up to the door. She was there for Sophia's early headstart appointment. I had totally forgotten and hadn't seen her reminder text. Fortunately, we were home and it fit into the morning schedule anyway.

2nd Mistake:
I rode with the head teacher, Diane, to the home of the little boy I'll be working with for headstart this year. Before we went into the apartment, I put my waterbottle and keys in the door of Diane's car. Then the visit started a half and hour late and I forgot about my stuff. The home visit lasted an hour and the teacher had another visit immediately following. So we drove back to headstart where my van was parked. She dropped me off and rushed to her next visit. As I watched her car disappear into traffic, I realized my keys were still in her vehicle . It was now 5pm and I had no keys and needed to pick up 6 kids for various activities and make it to parents night. I had to call my friend to pick me up and then figure out where Diane's next home visit was located. Once we found her car, I had to humbly knock on the door of a stranger and ask for Diane. Then I had to explain so I could get my keys. All's well that ends well. Except I felt like an idiot :)

3rd Mistake:
Last night, in addition to homework, cheer practice, a headstart home visit, football and softball, we also attended 5th grade parents night for Riley. Because Camelot is set up like a little middle school, we started in Riley's homeroom and listened to his teacher for 20 minutes. I sat by someone I haven't seen since the last school year ended and found it hard to stop talking when the teacher started talking. Then I saw a few more parents I haven't been able to chat with for a while and tried hard to only talk when the teacher was done. 

After the homeroom teacher finished, we were supposed to progress as a group to the kids' next class, which was math with Mrs Books. Because I found more people in the hallway to talk to, we ended up not really following the group anymore. By the time I stopped chatting, the halls had cleared and I wasn't sure which room we were supposed to go to next. A teacher I recognized was still standing outside a door and said, "This was math with Mrs Books." So I said ok and drug Steve into the room with me. I immediately found some new people to talk to and commenced chatting about their son who had just left for Italy. I thought all the kids must switch around classes and classmates like high school. Apparently they don't. All the kids stay together and just switch rooms. By the time the current teacher started talking about the reading and language program, I finally realized that we were in the wrong room! Whoops!!! Turns out she was telling me that this was the group of parents that had just come from Mrs Book's room.........not that the room was Mrs Books!

I waited until the teacher was done before I informed Steve quietly that we were in the wrong room. The group we were supposed to be with was now coming from math into the room we had just left. So I pulled Steve into the math room with an entirely different set of parents. No big deal. Different parents for me to talk to. Although I think we were probably getting some strange looks by this time because we were the only parents to be with a different group for each class. By the time the math class talk was over, we proceeded to the social studies room with our original class. They welcomed us back with open arms!  And I got a chance to to see lots of different friends! And Steve got the chance to be embarrased by hanging out with me! :)
.

A Million Words or Less about Riley Wilkins

I had an assignment from Riley's teacher to use a million words or less and tell her about my child. The instructions stated that "each child is special and unique in their own way. No one knows this better than a parent." The point was to help the teacher know anything and everything that would help her to know and understand the student better. I could probably write a book about Riley. He's come through so much, is such a good kid, but still makes me crazy sometimes with his reverting negative behaviors.

Every year I struggle with how much information to give to the kids' teachers. I want to give them enough information to enable them to help my children to the best of their ability and also to give them insight into some of my childrens negative behaviors. At the same time, I don't want my childrens' past to be an excuse for their current behavior or for people to feel so sorry for them that they don't hold them responsible for their current actions.

Since I had to write this for Riley's teacher anyway, I thought I'd post it here too:

Riley is a very loving young man who likes school and thoroughly enjoys sports. He’s currently playing football on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. During the summer, he played baseball, loved riding his bike and swimming with his friends. Riley enjoys math and science and thinks it's fun to learn new facts. He generally does well in all his school subjects when he stays focused. He does tend to chat with others and can be very easily distracted.

Riley is very social and energetic. He really wants people to like him, which can be both positive and negative. He wants to please but can also be very susceptible to peer-pressure. With positive reinforcement and support, he will attempt almost anything but he is also very easily discouraged by negative comments. He sometimes struggles with authority and will argue his point of view, even when it gets him in trouble.

We have a large family and even though we try to give each child attention, sometimes it’s difficult to squeeze in everything. Riley’s siblings are: Brittney (14yrs, 9th grade), Taylor (10yrs, 4th grade), Zeke (9yrs 4th grade), Anthony (7yrs, 2nd grade)and Sophia (2 ½ yrs). Two are biological children and four were adopted.

It's also important to understand that Riley was adopted through the foster care system when he was 5 years old. There was significant abuse and neglect and various living situations before he was placed in foster care. He has quite a few memories of his life before living with us and most are not positive. He also felt responsible for his younger siblings at a very young age because of a lack of responsibility from his biological parents. Sometimes he will talk publicly about being adopted or his life in the past, but we usually leave that up to him and he doesn’t choose to talk about it very often anymore.

All in all, he's a good kid who takes a bit more patience, love and structure than might be typical for a kid his age. Thanks in advance for a great school year!

If you have specific questions or concerns, I would love to visit with you in person or via email anytime. :)

Tricia Wilkins

Brittney Says

Now that Brittney has turned 14, she can officially work at The Valley restaurant and receive a paycheck. She was determined to fill out the W4 so she would be paid this Tuesday. She'd ask me what boxes to check and I'd tell her the answer. That worked well until she got to the bottom portion where you fill in your name and address. She thought she could do it herself but she didn't know her social security number or where to find it. Her next question to me was, "Can I just google it?"
.

Colorado Trip - Thursday

Here's the view from our hotel room. You can barely make out the mountains in the background. We started out the day on Thursday by heading to the Volkswagon dealership to have them hook up the car to their diagnostic computer. They originally said it would take about two hours to run the complete computer scan. Even though VW has a great waiting room with snacks, drinks, coffee and TV, we didn't really want to spend a long amount of time there so we had their shuttle take us to the Cherry Creek Mall. It was ok for a while but most of the stores were higher-end shopping and we aren't really into shopping anyway so we didn't buy much. Actually, I didn't buy anything but Sara found a fleece jacket that she liked, so she got it. I should have taken her picture in it so I could post it! Mostly we waited to hear back about what was wrong with the car and how much it would cost to fix it.

While we were at the mall, I received my first official meltdown phone call of the trip. Brittney had gotten a haircut and I guess it didn't turn out exactly how she wanted it. Combine that with being extremely tired and you get a phone call in which nothing is right and her life is over. I was on the phone with her for 15 minutes and then she just kept calling me back over and over. I really just wanted to tell her to go to bed and try again in the morning but I figured that would just make it worse. And what do you know, by the next day, her 14 year old world was fine again!

One of the best parts of the mall was discovering an awesome restaurant. Sara found it while I was on the phone with Brittney. It's called California Pizza Kitchen and the food was awesome! Even though the name says pizza, they had a great variety different dishes.We want to go back with a big group of people so everyone can order something different and we can try lots of different things. I was so busy enjoying the food that I didn't take any pictures there!

While we were there, I received word from the mechanic that the issues with the car weren't going to make a mess of our trip. There was a tire rotation sensor that just needed to be taken out and cleaned, which they did. There was also a broken hose that was supposed to shoot air into the engine. Something about the air 'tricking' the engine into thinking it was already at highway speed. According to the mechanic, the hose wasn't a big deal to the performance of the engine and wouldn't make any difference to the drivability of the car. It was something we could fix once we got back home again. Good thing because that would have cost us another $900, as opposed to the $200 I spent.

Once we got the mechanical ok to take the car up into the mountains, we headed for Boulder. We contemplated hiking up Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder but decided to drive instead. I'm glad we did. It would have been an all-day hike!

.

I though it was pretty funny that they had a Half-Way House on the mountain!

.

About the time we reached the half-way mark, I was thinking about turning around. The road was really steep, narrow and winding. We were a little nervous about our little car making it.........

until we saw a UPS truck and a school bus coming up the road behind us.

We decided we could probably make it!

We also saw quite a few of these signs. We laughed the first time we saw one but after seeing them numereous times and hearing the concern of the locals, we didn't laugh quite so hard.

Sara'a favorite is the second bullet point. We still laugh a lot at that one!

At the top of Flagstaff Mountain, we stopped at the ampitheater. The view was beautiful.

I don't mind heights and the view was great but it was a little nerve-wracking when a dad was dangling a little baby over the edge to make her smile. The mom was calmly taking pictures.

From Boulder we headed to Estes Park.

I could never seem to remember the name and had to ask Sara a million times what the name of the town was. It was on the way there that we saw our first Colorado elk.

Since we're used to our little South Dakota deer, they were a lot bigger than we were expecting. They were just standing by the side of the road and the two cars in front of us stopped for a while to watch them. Sara rolled down her window to take this picture and then turned towards me to look at her phone to see if the picture turned out ok. I was still slowly driving and the elk were right beside us when I calmly asked Sara if she thought it would be a good idea to roll up her window. All I could imagine was one of the elk sticking his head inside the car and getting his huge antlers stuck. They just kept calmly eating the flowers by the road. One had a bunch in his mouth like he was presenting us with a bouquet. The other one was tossed a branch on our windshield. That was about the time we decided to move on. The elk picked that time to move too. They ran beside our car for a while before we finally left them behind.

Estes Park is a quaint little tourist town with a creek running through it. 

Not a very good picture but you get the idea.

 We walked around searching for the taffy store.

 Turns out they have like five different taffy stores but all but one of them close at 5pm. Wouldn't you know it, we were there at just past 5pm. Darn elk slowing us down. We did eventually find and purchase some homemade saltwater taffy and then ate at a local place. Sara had heard about an old 'haunted' hotel in the Estes Park area so we went to find it. I'm always up for a little mystery.

Once we found it and took a couple of pictures, we went inside. The Stanley Hotel is a 140 room hotel that opened in 1909 and caters to the rich and famous. It's still set up just like it was in the 1900's, with real metal keys for rooms and an old metal elevator. It's also famous for hosting novelist Stephan King and inspiring him to write his novel The Shining. Parts of the mini-series version of The Shining were also filmed there.

It's said that the hotel is haunted and we really wanted to go on one of the haunted tours but the tour would have lasted over two hours and it was already getting late and dark so we just walked around inside instead. I told Sara that I'd be willing to spend the night in one of the haunted rooms but I don't think she was a fan of that idea! Plus, we had a nice, free condo waiting for us only two hours away. So we programed the GPS for the condo and started our drive on mountain roads in the dark. Thankfully, we didn't hit any animals or drive off any sharp curves on the way.

.

Stay tuned to find out what we did on Friday!

.

.