Vacation Update and More July Fun

Two weeks after my last update and I'm back again....blogging, for me, may be making a return.  

Ok Lindsay, don't get too ahead of yourself!

I did make it through the 5 days without my family while they enjoyed our family vacation.  Declan missed me and was a bit sad during our nightly FaceTime calls but Connor could have cared less if I was with him.  It definitely speaks to their personalities.  Declan is a bit of a mama's boy who is full of compassion and empathy and Connor, well Connor is just a pistol and typical 2nd child that does whatever makes him happy.  Nothing speaks more to this than their trip to Silver Dollar City too -- Declan was too scared to ride Fire In The Hole and Connor thought it was an absolute blast.  My 3 year old dare devil!

Here are a few pics of all of the fun they had:

Mini Golf

My little dare devil

Lunch at Lamberts

Marvel Cave

Have you seen two cuter firemen?

Ice cream!

What characters!

I was super glad to have FaceTime available to be able to check in and see how the trip was going, but I ended up enjoying some time decompressing, reading, and making a few recipes.  Thank goodness for the technology of FaceTime, Find My iPhone, text messages and cell phones in general so I could check in with them.  I think it definitely helped me when I was feeling sad for not being there.

Now that the boys are back from vacation, we had a visit from D's mom and step-dad last weekend on their way back to Michigan.  They spent Friday and Saturday night at our house and the kids were glad to see them, do art projects and show off their reading skills.

This weekend Declan started his 8U summer hockey 5 week program to get ready for the upcoming hockey season.  A few weeks back we got him fitted for his St. Peter's Hockey jersey for fall league and he picked his number.  Since he was born in an even year, he had to pick an even number for his jersey which was not as easy as you would think because a lot of his favorite numbers are odd numbers -- 77, 23, 5, but he settled on 78 and his reasoning was because it is 77+1 and it's also Crosby's number but backwards.  Late August he will have tryouts and get assigned a team and start his St. Peter's hockey career and we'll have a full fall of hockey practices and games.

My hockey player!

As for what is up next -- we're enjoying the rest of what summer has to offer before school starts in a month.  Connor moves to his PS2 class and Declan starts first grade on August 18th.  Next weekend, I'm taking a 1 day trip with Shell who's visiting from New Zealand to Meramec Caverns.  Our girls trip, which was supposed to be a bit longer, is being cut short by me not being able to take any time off from work and her trying to work remote while visiting the States, but we still wanted to get away for something small.  I threw out the Ozarks, Ste Genevieve and Meramec Caverns as potential trip ideas and we both loved the ideas of the Caverns as we haven't been there since we were much younger.  So we'll visit the Caverns and explore and then spend the night in a hotel along the route.  I'm looking forward to catching up and doing something fun.  And we'll probably spend some time reminiscing about our last trip in our early 20s where we went camping and I accidentally singed Shell's eyebrows building a campfire with kerosene.  I'll never live that down!

That's all I have for now....hopefully I'll be able to check in again soon and update on all of our happenings.

2025 half year update

We're halfway through 2025 and let me say, this year has kicked my butt so far.  Nothing is seriously wrong and we're not in dire conditions but nothing has gone as expected and right now, I'm feeling a bit of pity for myself and the choices I've made this year.  I'll explain more....

Right now, I'm sitting at home while my family goes our on summer vacation to Branson without me and I'm sad.  A month ago I started my new job, a move I desperately needed to make to restore some sanity in my life.  When I started my job, I knew we had this vacation planned and my boss was fine with me taking off a few days as long as we had a stable team in place.  

Two days after I started my new job, the stability fell out and the most tenured member of the team suddenly resigned.  That teammate, who had been there about a year and a half, had the most knowledge out of the 3 of us at that point.  On a positive note, that person leaving actually allowed me to jump in full force and learn absolutely everything I could and as quickly as I could without stepping on toes.  However, it has also been a bit of a negative thing because it's basically me running the show after only 2 days and trying to figure out what the heck is going on without falling too far behind on day to day responsibilities.  On top of it, the other accountant on the team has only been there a month longer than me and from what I can tell, doesn't know much or just doesn't feel comfortable to work independently relies upon me for keeping him on task all day, every day.  I don't like being a micromanager, but with him I have to be and it's wearing on me.  And since we haven't found a replacement for the accountant who left, the only option for me was to opt out of my family vacation and work to keep things afloat at the office so I can keep my job without looking like I don't care.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my new job and many of the people I work with, but in my head I'm thinking, "Did I make the right move by leaving my old job? 

Should I have stuck it out at the old place and just sucked it up even though it sucked the life out of me every day?"  

Honestly, I probably did make the right move by leaving and this is just a rough time where I'm doubting everything since I'm home without my family and missing out on some core memories with my kids.  Plus, I enjoy getting away to the cabin in Branson each year and having fun at Silver Dollar City and White Water as it brings back happy memories for me as a kid when life was much simpler.

Anyway, here's hoping the 2nd half of 2025 brings back some of the happiness I used to feel.  The last few years have really taken it out of me personally and professionally and I'd love to just get through life without worrying about what people think about me and if I'm doing enough for everyone.  Also, I'd love to be egocentric but that's just not in me.

In the meantime, I hope D, my kids and my parents have fun on vacation and I'll just dream and hope that next year I get to be a part of it all.