Bullet points

I'm finally taking a minute to catch up!

- Oksana is doing well.  Yesterday was her last day at her behavior school.  Next month she will start at her home school where Anya goes.  Her urologist couldn't find a reason for her incontinence.  They were shocked and really thought she had neurogenic bladder.  They are trying a medication that should help her hold her urine longer and empty more completely when she goes to the bathroom.  Bowel issue remain the same.  She only goes with an enema.  She had a MRI and spinal tap last week.  So far nothing out of the ordinary on those.  There are no answers.  It's incredibly frustrating.  Luckily she is pretty stable right now physically.  Emotionally she is having ups and downs but still manageable. 

- Summer school ended for both girls on Friday.  This means that we have 3 1/2 weeks to survive!  So far this summer has gone really well.  Oksana goes to camp Monday-Wednesday-Friday for the next two weeks.  Tuesdays and Thursdays she gets to sleep in and rest.  Camp is long and fun and exhausting!  After that she only has 1 1/2 weeks left with no school or camps.  Anya isn't doing any camps so we will just have to keep her entertained for a few weeks.  Easier said than done!

- Clayton is going to start his third week of musical theatre class next week.  At the end of the week they will do 2 performances of Peter Pan.  He is a pirate and loving getting to sword fight and die!  After this week he gets to just relax for the rest of his summer.  The boys don't start school until after Labor Day so they still have a good solid 5 weeks.

- Evan did a camp at the barn last week.  This one wasn't one he was working at.  It was an advanced camp learning more about different types of riding including dressage, cross country, 3 day event, and endurance trail riding.  This week he will be a camp counselor again at a camp for beginners.  After that I think he will have the summer free too!

- I think the biggest new thing in our family right now is that I got a job.  I think last time I updated on my job situation I had left the school in search of something I could do from home because managing work outside of the home with the girls various issues was becoming incredibly challenging.  Originally I had planned to take classes to become certified as a medical coder.  My friend is a coder and works from home.  She loves her job.  Back when she was certified there was an abundance of jobs available.  I took an anatomy class and a medical terminology class.  The next step was to sign up for the coding classes which would cost over $2000.  We knew this going in and we were more than willing to do it for the benefits knowing we could pay it off when I got a job.  About a week before that I got a text from my friend saying that jobs like I was looking for weren't coming around as much and I might have to wait to find a job.  I was willing to wait but I decided to do some research before I signed up for more classes.  What I found is that there is very little out there part time from home.  I knew going in I would have no experience which would also be a huge disadvantage. 

We decided to pray about it before we moved forward.  In the meantime I have another friend who works from home.  It is a position with a major corporation so I had no worries about it being legit.  She had been working for them for a number of years and she loves her job!  It just so happened that a few weeks earlier she had told me they had an opening.  I had not been interested because I was working toward coding certification.  I decided to send her a quick text and see if they were still hiring.  She said they were and sent me the description.  There were pros and cons.  It was an at home job but first I would have to do about 3 months of in office training.  It paid less money but it would be an immediate job with no wait and instead of putting thousands into training they would pay me to train.  It is 29 hours a week and I really wanted more like 20 but that wasn't a deal breaker considering it was from home and I could work any time I wanted to.  After talking it over with Larry we decided to start the process of applying and just see what happened.  It all happened fairly quickly after that.  In 2 weeks time I had a phone interview, an in person interview, a screening process to make sure I could work fast and accurately, reference were checked, and I was offered the job! 

I've been in training now for 2 weeks.  It's kind of hard to explain what I do.  The very simple description is that we manage freight invoicing for major corporations when they ship their products.  Believe me when I say it is WAY more complicated than that! 

It's been extremely challenging managing child care schedules during the summer but we have a good plan in place.  Thankfully Larry has a job willing to be flexible during this time and allow him to work from home when needed, and we have a respite worker who is also on summer break that is stepping in a ton for us.  I work 9-2 so once school starts it will be far less challenging.  The work itself is also challenging but in a good way!  It's a lot to learn, but every day I get better and learn more.  I am working on getting everything set up in my home so that when I finish training I am ready to go.

- Larry and I went through marriage mentor training a few months ago but decided not to mentor at that time because of everything going on with Oksana.  We recently learned that they have a bunch of couples waiting to be mentored and they need some help so we are seriously considering stepping in.  It seems a crazy thing to do right now but it is only a 6 week commitment.  We shall see.

I think that pretty much sums up the last month or so! 

The Boys

I'm going to do an update on the boys.  I know most of you read this to learn about the girls but our boys are pretty cool people!

Let me start by saying that I absolutely adore having boys.  In fact at one point I said I would not have any more children unless I could be guaranteed all boys.  Having said that, raising young boys is not easy work!  If you are raising boys between about 3 and 12 and you wonder how you are going to live to see tomorrow I have hope for you.  My experience is that the teen years with them are awesome.  They may be my very favorite ages yet, though 2 comes in a close second.  Oh don't get me wrong, we still have raging hormones, attitudes, grandiosity that makes them think they are the knower of all things because they have lived to be teenagers, etc.  There are days when I want to bop them upside their cute little heads and remind them that the world does not revolve around them.  I don't want to make this sound like my boys are some rare version of teenager that came from an alien land.  I'm just saying that I'm really enjoying the young men they are becoming and the relationship that we get to have with them in this new stage.  It's pretty awesome.

So let me tell you a bit about these 2 "man boys" living in my house ;).

Clayton - Clayton just turned 17 and is going into his senior year of high school!  He's really finding himself and stretching himself.  It's a cool thing to see.  He just got back from 5 days in New York with his buddy.  The fact that he did this trip is an absolute miracle.  This is my "stay in the safety of your box" kid.  It was hard.  His friend is even more of an introvert than Clayton which meant he had to step up and take control in many situations.  They spent a fair amount of time in their hotel room decompressing because the city was overwhelming to them buy the did it!  They saw 3 musicals on Broadway which blew their minds.  They navigated the airports and the city by themselves.  They did things like check into a hotel, find their shuttle, handle a room key that wasn't working, deal with rude people trying to swindle them on the streets, and more!  It was an incredible growth experience!

What an incredible opportunity to see this on Broadway!

Believe me when I say that he would have done anything to see this but walking by it and dreaming was all he got!

Phantom was his favorite.  The production blew his mind.

This was right across the street from their hotel.  Since Clayton was the constable and his friend was Tevye in Fiddler for their school it just made sense that they should see it on Broadway.  They loved it!

The view from their hotel.

This week Clayton was at a week long camp at a local college taking apologetics classes.  He spent the whole week learning how to defend his faith and answer hard questions. He absolutely loved it.  He was with his best friends and got to spend a week in a college dorm.  I kept being reminded that some day soon I will be doing this but I won't be going to bring him home in a week!  I can't imagine that.

In another week or so Clayton starts a musical theatre camp and he will be a pirate in Peter Pan at the end of the month.  When he isn't traveling or doing camps he is working as a janitor at our church or sitting in front of his computer, reading, or texting with his friends.

Clayton has chosen his college already.  We toured 2 schools with the intention of touring many more, but when we left the second one he assured me that he didn't need to do any more tours because he had found his college.  The school he wants to go to is Greenville.  It's a small Christian college and we were beyond impressed with it.  It is an hour and a half away.  I never in a million years thought Clayton would go away to school so that tells you how impressive this school was!  He wants to go into psychology but has no interest in being a therapist.  He wants to do research. Now he is working hard to get scholarships because this is not a cheap school, but he is very determined.


Evan - Evan is just about to turn 14 and will be going into his freshman year.  He's still got some little boy in him that Clayton has lost but it is slipping away faster than I want it to!  He's different than Clayton in a lot of ways but equally a pretty amazing kid.  If you have been here long you know that Evan's passion is horses.  He has been riding since he was 9.  The United States Equestrian Federation has a lettering program so that students who don't play traditional sports, but instead ride horses, can also letter in their sport.  Evan lettered for the first time this year!  The main requirements are 100 hours of riding time and proof of 3 competitions.  I'm thrilled that he has this opportunity as a homeschooled student who loves a non-traditional sport!

At this point Evan's whole life revolves around horses.  Here is a sample of some of the things he does:
- He is in a working student program.  He works a minimum of 10 hours a month at the barn.  Over the summer it's usually way more than that.  He grooms horses, does laundry, cleans and organizes the barns and tack, etc.  For this work he earns free ride time and discounts on his competitions.
- He is on an equestrian team that does one 2 hour lesson every month.  This team competes together, works together, etc.  It's a step beyond the kid who just wants to take lessons because they like horses.  This is more intense.
- He works as a camp counselor.  The barn he rides at has camps throughout the summers ranging from young kids who may have never even been on a horse all the way up to Evan's level of riding.  For camps below his he works by getting the horses for the kids, tacking the horse (or helping and teaching the child to tack if they are able), leading the horses with kids who can't ride independently, and overall doing whatever the instructor needs him to.
- He has his own camp too.  This year they are doing an eventing camp.  Each participant is assigned a horse for session and will be caring for their horse daily, stall cleaning feeding, grooming etc as if it was there own horse. Also, they will focus on learning about other disciplines including 3 Day Event, Cross Country, Dressage and Endurance Trail riding.  He is going to love this!
- As if that wasn't enough, remember that he still has his own weekly lessons!

This is Evan when he first started riding at 9!

This is Evan now!

Now you see what I mean when I say his life revolves around horses!  When he isn't with horses you can find him playing games on the computer with his buddies from school or reading.