Sixteen.

Micah turned sixteen today. Sixteen. He's been very ready to be 16 for quite awhile now, lol. I'm not sure we'll all survive it, but there you go. :) Here's his pick for his birthday photo:

Yup, a little intense, lol. But I guess that's part of who he is. :)

Let's get to the traditional height comparisons...

(He was a little grumpy. I woke him up to take pictures. It was noon, you know.)

And here are all three brothers. Yes. I woke them all up.

And these are some of the other shots I got when I tried to take a decent birthday photo...

I like the top right one, but they're all pretty good representations of my boy.

So. Let's see. The past year has been quite the transition. Micah's definitely moved into full on teenager mode and the pandemic hasn't made it any easier. Along the way, though...

• He spent fall semester online, transitioned to hybrid classes in January, and switched back to online after spring break. He was not a fan. Fortunately, the academic part was fine and he dealt with online classes without a hitch. Unfortunately, for an extroverted teen wanting to spread his wings, online classes apparently are not conducive to hanging out with friends. We made accommodations where we could and he actually did manage to spend time with a number of friends outdoors in small groups. 
• He's continued dealing with his juvenile idiopathic arthritis...had some significant flare ups last fall and winter but finally sorted out the right treatment plan this spring.
• He was able to continue climbing. The gym closed down from March to June (and we built a home climbing wall in the interim) but then reopened with restrictions. His climbing team was able to resume practices (though the team was split into small groups) and he even competed in a local competition last fall and ventured into outdoor bouldering. After spring break, though, he decided to take a break from competitive climbing and has been just enjoying climbing with friends.
• He stopped going to karate and demo team but took up weight lifting...assisted by our rearranging the basement and outfitting it with a power cage and weight bench and barbells and such over Christmas. (Fortunately, he still sees most of his karate friends with Asher.)
• He wrangled himself a job with a small group of friends refurbishing and packaging ankle monitors. It's not his dream job by any means but he's definitely enjoying spreading his financial wings.
• He's anxious to get his drivers license in a little over a week and is very much looking forward to that. 

And, so, the boy will start his junior year in a little over a week. Neither of us is ready for that. ;) 

In the meantime, we'll have some cake tonight...go out to lunch tomorrow...little stuff like that. He'll be getting a stereo for the Xterra for his birthday and has some plans with friends for the drive in. 

Happy sweet sixteen, my Micah!

The rest of the road trip...

Backing up a bit (because my Gram's party deserved and needed a post of its own)...we drove the 1028 miles from here to our hotel in Kennewick, WA last Thursday. We were on the road for about 17 hours. It was a long day. ;P Friday, we slept in a bit and then went to my mom's new house and hung out there for the day. My sister and a couple of her kids joined us and we had a nice day appreciating the new digs, eating plenty of food, helping prep some stuff for the party the next day, and playing some ping pong and corn hole. We also picked up Gram from her assisted living apartment nearby so she could join us for dinner and an early birthday cake for Micah. And throughout the day I neglected to take a single picture. (hanging my head)

Wait! I did take a picture:

Here's Micah with his early birthday cake. The "fries" are also cake. Bekah let Micah cut the cake however he wanted and I wish I'd taken an "after" picture...it was a mess, lol. (He cut from the middle to avoid the frosting.)

After all that, we took Gram home and eventually turned in for the night. The next day was the party (see previous post). After the party, we rounded up all the older cousins to go to the Yakima Family Fun Center. They got fun passes and played mini golf, rode bumper boats, tried out the batting cages (a first for mine), rode go karts and spent some time in the arcade. I took some pictures...

It made for a long day, but it was great fun! It was nice to see the cousins all spending time together. :)

Sunday was a much needed quiet day to recover from Saturday. We hung out at mom's house again and Bekah and Alexis joined us for awhile. (Quinn and Aidan were apparently too tired to come, having stayed up too late playing video games, lol.) It was lovely going through some of the bins mom had in closets and I ended up bringing a couple home to sort. 

Around dinner time, we said our goodbyes and got on the road again. We drove to Spokane for the night. We crashed early-ish and got up early the next morning to continue our drive to Montana and made it to Nathan's parents' new place just after lunch. (They bought 20 acres in Montana last year and sold their house in Yakima this May. They're currently staying in a trailer and building a home!) 

So. We were able to see the property...which currently has a pole building, the base foundation area for the home and a lot of rocks and trees. :) We stayed there and visited for awhile then headed into town and found the world's greatest candy store. (The boys and I may have gotten, um, bags of candy. Yay!!) We also stopped for ice cream and to see John & Nancy's trailer (parked at a friend's at the moment) and then drove to Butte for a delicious dinner on the patio. 

And through all that, I sadly didn't take any group pictures. Sigh. Really bummed. 

After dinner and visiting more, we parted ways...with John & Nancy heading back to their trailer and us heading onward to Bozeman and our hotel for the night. 

Tuesday morning, then, we got up early and finished out our 2500+ mile road trip, making it home in time for dinner. Whew.

ONE HUNDRED

So. We just got home. We drove to Washington over the weekend to celebrate my grandma's ONE HUNDREDTH birthday. It wasn't a huge party...just her kids, grandkids and great grandkids who could make it. Gram wasn't so sure at first whether she wanted to even be there, lol, but she perked up when the great grandkids started arriving. :) Here's the birthday girl blowing out her candles...

She's in amazingly good shape for 100...still has all her own teeth (was enjoying corn on the cob with us the day before), uses a walker but mostly pulled herself up when getting into our van or my mom's Sequoia, has a hearty appetite, had a hip replacement last year, and blew out her candles on the first try with no spitting, lol. 

And now, here are a heap of pictures I took at the party...

It was at the new YMCA in Yakima. Some of the kids took advantage of the awesome pool for a bit, and the party room had ping pong, foosball and air hockey. All of the little ones are my brother and sister-in-law's. They're adorable! (There are six of them ages 6 months to 7 years.)

And here are some random pictures of people with Gram...

...and of people just posing together...

I'm not going to try to actually name everyone. Sorry. I know who they are and they know who they are. :) And, no, this isn't all the pictures I took. And, yes, I sadly missed a number of shots that I thought of the next day.

(Also, me and mine wore masks but took them off for pictures and to eat. Yes, we're fully vaccinated but Micah is still on immunosuppressants and we have a lot of stuff coming up in the next few weeks...and my siblings, their families and my mom all remain unvaccinated. My aunt, uncle, cousins and their kids also wore masks part of the time and are also fully vaccinated.)

And we tried to get some group photos...The top is Gram with her kids. (She's survived two of her sons.)

In the middle is Gram with grandkids. Four weren't able to make it. And the bottom is Gram with her great grandkids. I believe six weren't able to make it. (There should be 23.)

And this was the group photo we managed with the help of some guy by the front desk. ;) It's not the greatest quality and one of my cousins and his son are missing (he left to go pick him up and come back and I didn't notice until after all the group pictures were done), but it's most of us.  

Seriously. One hundred years is pretty amazing to think about. She's seen so many changes in the world and tells me that starting to drink coffee when you're three is obviously a secret to longevity, lol. 

So. Happiest of birthdays to my Gram! (Technically, she turned 100 on July 26.)

(I'll be back soon with other pictures from our trip.)

Freak out Friday

Okay. I'm freaking out a wee bit. How is it already the second half of July?! What. The. Heck?!

Ack.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by stuff like...

- Micah will start school in just over three weeks.

- He'll also get his driver's license in just over three weeks.

- Colleges have started sending emails and information to Micah and to me. I feel like I *just* finished that with Asher. Not really ready for the fact that Micah's going to be a junior.

- Asher will move to Omaha in just under a month. (Preparations are well in hand. Still a small to do list, but we're getting there.)

- Between now and then, collectively, we have more than a dozen appointments...eye, dentist, well check, drive test, etc.

- A couple days ago, I took Asher to get a suit for job fairs and interviews and such (wanted to get that taken care of before he heads off to UNO). I've never shopped for a suit before, lol. (Nathan and Noah have always drawn the line at a dress shirt and slacks, lol.) The whole process went pretty smoothly and I learned a few things, too. My boy looks pretty handsome in a suit!

(We'll have to go back to pick up the suit after the jacket gets altered a bit for my slim guy.)

- We've been tackling lots (and lots) of vehicle tasks. I had to make a list of what each vehicle needs done. It's a little crazy...nothing too serious, just lots of little things that we're trying to get taken care of before fall and before Asher takes the Pathfinder to Omaha. 

(Here are both of our Nissans parked on the street after I'd taken the Pathfinder to have the air filters changed and have a coolant flush. I have depth perception issues and can't park vehicles in the south bay of our garage, lol, so parked on the street until Asher could move it back inside.)

- And, well, plenty of other things that need doing. :) 

So. That's that. Just lots of little and some big things. Lots of making lists and just trying to get things done. And now that I look at it, it's not even so much that I'm freaking out about the things, themselves...they're not surprises. It's that I suddenly feel like I'm so quickly running out of time.

Ack. 

Six on Saturday

I missed my Thankful Thursday post this week so here are six things I'm thankful for this Saturday. :)

1. New to us vehicle. Back on Asher's birthday, Nathan and I drove down to Golden to look at this Nissan Xterra. The drive, itself, took an hour longer than the anticipated hour and a half thanks to torrential rains, construction detours and two semi-truck accidents. It was a bit stressful. But. We made it and were able to check out the vehicle and (insert numerous variables and weighing of information here) decided to get it. Yes, it's remarkably similar to our Nissan Pathfinder, Reg. That was kind of the point. Asher will be taking Reg with him to Omaha so we were looking for a replacement...something with 4WD and cargo space. So, allow me to introduce Daichi...

Daichi is the captain of the volleyball team in an anime show called "Haikyu!" that we've all watched here recently. He's reliable and sturdy and a good leader...traits we wouldn't mind having in this vehicle, lol. Thankful we were able to find him and that we're in a position to add him to our family.

2. Shopping trip in Denver. Last weekend, Micah was invited to a birthday party at Water World. After we dropped him off there, Asher and I spent the day doing some more shopping for college...at IKEA and the Container Store. We also wandered around Park Meadows Mall and had a nice time just picking up a few things and chatting and people watching. Asher now knows who his roommates will be and has been communicating with them. It's starting to get real. :)

3. Reactive antibody test! On Tuesday, Micah had his covid spike protein antibody test to see whether his immunosuppressants had prevented the covid vaccine from working. While not absolutely conclusive, since there are many immune system variables at play, the results said "reactive" which means that he has antibodies. Whew!! 

4. Barbells. This past week, I started using Micah's barbell set up after boot camp. I'd planned to start a couple months ago but my sprained wrist kept me from doing it until now. I'm still working on my form and am starting with relatively low weight and such, but it's nice just being able to use them. As with getting back to climbing, it's showing me that I need to build strength back up...and it feels strangely good to be sore.

5. Streaming services. I've said it before, I think, but I just have to reiterate how thankful I am for streaming services. Having them has been such a blessing throughout this pandemic...enabling more time spent with my teenagers, together and safely. And while I miss the theater experience a wee bit, I really enjoy being able to pause shows and rewatch them...to see even some new movies in the comfort of our own home...and to subject boys to older shows, lol. We've done plenty of all three over the course of this pandemic. :) 

6. Demo team friends. You may recall that Asher didn't have an actual graduation party back in May (when Micah was still not vaccinated). With Micah being cleared, Asher opted to just get together with his demo team friends to belatedly celebrate. Yesterday, they met up at a local park and hung out for the morning and walked into Old Town to enjoy lunch and dessert and window shopping together. They even took a group picture for me...

One friend had to leave early and a few couldn't make it but they had a great time. I love that they love hanging out together even with about a six year span in ages. Having had such an atypical high school experience (homeschooling to start, having mostly community college classes, and then being shut down for a pandemic), most of Asher's friends are from homeschooling and karate. So incredibly thankful for this group!

Off now to try to be productive. Happy weekend to you all!