Adulting

Sorry it's been so quiet here on my blog. We've just been busily adulting over here. :) Nothing overly exciting...just things like paying college bills, getting Nathan's eyes checked, and getting some work done on Daichi. 

Along with all that, we've also been very adult-y and have been doing some estate planning. We redid our wills (now that only Micah is a minor), added power of attorney documents and advanced directives, updated beneficiaries all around, and added life insurance policies to last longer than our current ones. I've been reorganizing all our records accordingly, too. 

Oh, and Nathan, Micah and I got our flu shots yesterday. Honestly, we've never gotten flu shots before. (Other than Nathan, none of us have had the flu before either.) Micah's doctor, though, wanted us to get them this year given Micah's immuno-suppressants and continued auto-immune issues. So, we got in the line for the drive-thru clinic at our doctor's office:

It took a little longer than we initially anticipated but not as bad as we worried it might be. And after we were done, we treated ourselves at the new ramen place, Kujira, that Micah's been telling us about:

It was delicious. :) 

And that's what's been going on here. Very productive but really not exciting, lol. 

Thankful Thursday

Time for another Thankful Thursday! I actually have a top ten list this week...so blessed! In no particular order, here are things I'm thankful for today...

1. Time with Nathan. On Labor Day...with two boys off at college and Micah working that day, Nathan and I went for a hike. It was not an overly long or strenuous hike, but the view was fabulous at the top...

It was a little hazy due to smoke, but it was a full 360 degree view. 

That top left photo is from the start of the hike looking up toward the finish...the summit was actually a peak just behind that one in the distance and slightly higher. The other photos are from the summit area. It involved a bit of scrambling and climbing to get to the top but was worth it.

And here are some pictures of us along the way...

After our morning hike, we continued on into Estes Park for a lovely lunch, wandering the Arts & Crafts Fair and getting ice cream and coffee. Sweet.

(For those who are interested, the hike is called Palisade Mountain and is just up from Drake. It was nice because it was outside of Rocky Mountain National Park, so we didn't have to pay admission or worry about the timed entry tickets. It's not easy to find or particularly well marked, though.)

2. Fort Collins. Just want to say that I love Fort Collins and am so thankful for the many opportunities to be found here. 

3. Car conversations. With Micah having had his license for almost a month now, I've been missing my car conversations with the boy. Boys end up talking more when they're captive, lol. Today, Micah and I drove down to Children's for his regular check-up with his pediatric rheumatologist so we had some time to chat and catch up. Yay! (Also, all good on the appointment...just normal follow up stuff and he's doing well on the meds.)

4. The light switch in my bathroom that's illuminated at night. It's a little thing but I really appreciate it. It's one of those rocker style double switches with the switch that controls the overhead light illuminated in the dark. It comes in super handy in the early morning when I'm stumbling to the bathroom before the sun's come up. :)

5. Information on the back of print photos. Back in July when we road-tripped to Washington for my gram's 100th birthday, I collected a couple of big bins of photos from my mom's house to sort through for her. I've finally been going through those recently and must say that I sooooo appreciate when there's something written or printed on the back telling me anything...like when the photo was taken or printed or who's in the photo or where it was taken or all of those things. It's going to take a bit yet before I get these all sorted. Most of the pictures don't have any indicators/notes and I'm having to go off of hairstyles and fashion trends, lol. 

6. The ability to rewatch old shows. While I've been sorting photos, I've been rewatching old shows to pass the time. Some people think it's odd but I love rewatching old shows. It's like music in the background for me. :)

7. Rearranging Micah's closet. With all the legos gone now, we recently took most of the shelves out of Micah's closet and reinstalled a closet bar so he could hang the tops he's been collecting from shopping, thrift stores and work shirts. Until now, none of the boys had any clothes that they hung, so we'd removed all the bars from all their closets in lieu of shelves. The few things that did need hanging ended up in our master closet. Thankful to no longer have any of their stuff in my closet. :) 

8. Online gaming. Even though the time boys have spent with online gaming has been sometimes annoying, I'm thankful for it these days. It allows brothers to stay connected across states. Gotta be grateful for that.

9. Texting and similar technology. Relatedly, I'm so thankful that I can so easily talk to my boys away at college. Remember back in the day when we needed prepaid long distance phone cards and had to time our calls so that we could have some privacy since we'd still be corded to wherever our phone was?! I'm very aware of how fortunate we are these days and am so happy when I hear from my guys. 

10. Homeschooling time together. And while I'm still adjusting to boys being grown and away and am so proud of them for doing their own thing and making their own way...I'm ever thankful for the time I had with them during all of their early years. So thankful to have chosen to homeschool and had all that extra time with them. I try to remember that when I'm missing them. ;)

Okay, that's my list for today. And just while typing that up I thought of more. So very blessed these days and thankful for it!

Sunday

Oy. Sorry. It's been a bit. Here's a bit of what's been going on the past couple weeks...

1. On Monday, August 23, after receiving official word from his doctor, Micah received his 3rd covid vaccine shot. Because of his immunosuppressants and auto-immune condition, he qualified for the booster shot. It meant he had to go off of his medications again for 1-2 weeks, and he only made it a week before we opted to go back on the meds, as his arthritis was starting to flare. But, now that he's back on the immunosuppressants, he's all better (and hopefully better protected).

2. All three boys are fully into the school year now. Things seem to be going well.

Noah's been assigned his senior project group and got his first choice...the Spaceport America Cup rocket team. Should be a great experience and lots of fun! Things appear to be well on track for his senior year.

Asher switched a couple of his classes during the first week and now has a schedule he's happy with. (So proud of him for advocating for himself! After his advisor told him it wasn't possible to switch, he arranged a meeting with the head of the honors program who was able to get him switched around easily.) So, now two of his classes are fully online, which allows more flexibility to his daily schedule, and he's in the honors chemistry lab (instead of an honors history class). He's done at least some laundry and seems to be adjusting to college life just fine.

Micah's classes are going fine. He's got a pretty light class load. (He'll have a light load throughout his time at CEC since he started college courses early. Technically, he could graduate at the end of this school year but we're spreading things out so he doesn't graduate at 16. He's good with that since he enjoys his time with his friends and isn't in a hurry.)

3. Last weekend, Deanna and I had our monthly lunch, which was also a celebration of her birthday. It was a much needed opportunity to catch up and enjoy the sunshine.

4. We've been adjusting to life with just one boy at home. It's strangely quiet, and Micah's gone a lot now that he has his license. It's too soon yet to really see the numbers, but we're looking forward to hopefully seeing some lower grocery and utility bills. I'm sure there will be more to say on this topic... 

5. Micah got a new job! Though he's been enjoying the financial gains of the job he's been at since March, Micah was looking for more of a challenge. Since the school year started, he's been looking for a new job. Given the rising covid numbers here and his continued immune-compromised state, we agreed that he needed still to avoid jobs in retail or the food industry, which didn't leave too many options (though at least more things are open to him now that he's 16). The boy was determined, though, and managed to get himself interviews with a number of companies and job shadows with a couple of them. After a bit of that and some additional training, he signed on as an independent contractor doing door to door scheduling of sales appointments for Ion Solar. He went out for his first day working his assigned territory yesterday:

Fortunately, the boy loves talking to people and loves driving. So far, so good. :)

And that's some of what's been going on here. I'll try to do a better job of staying caught up. Happy Labor Day weekend to you all!