Slip and Slide

 July 17-

Funny how your perspective on things change when you become the parent.  I only had fond memories of the slip and slide as a kid, but now it has become a yard crushing mud pit!  But the kids had fun and soaped it up to make it even more slippery!! And when it's been over 100 for weeks on end, you've got to do something!

Kingston's a teenager!

 July 12-

I have a teenager! 

This kid is something else! He makes parenting a teen look easy (for now! but I actually think this will always be the case), he is the kindest kid with the biggest heart.  Kingston is one of those people that doesn't know a stranger or an awkward situation.  He can talk to a peer just as easily as an adult and he is confident with who he is. He is always up for trying new things (except running, I've tried all summer getting him in shape for football) and always willing to play games with his mom.  I wouldn't call him the best loser, but eventually he can laugh about it!  When Jonathan injured himself skiing he was right there wanting to help and go whatever he needed.  When his cousins invite him on a trip, he is there.  He is just an all around great little human.  Even when he is hurting or left out, he holds it in and then leans on me and lets it out when he isn't around everyone, and I hate to see him hurt, but I love that he has this tender empathetic side to him, too!  

He is a great big brother for Julienna, too.  They fight a lot, I mean a lot, but there are sweet times between them too.  He is actually really great at including her when she tags along with him and his friends.  And he has really paved a path for her in school.  He makes friends with all the teachers at school, whether he is in their class or not and this has really helped Julienna be able to have a place at school.  He rocked his first year in middle school and even ran for student council, on a whim, and beat out 16 other kids. He is going to play football for the school this year  (and took home a flag football championship ring this spring) and is also playing percussion in band for a second year.  He is just a well rounded kid, who procrastinates school projects and keeps his parents up way to late helping him get it all done the last week of the semester, and still gets straight A's!!

Video games have definitely taken over a lot of Kingston's free time, but he still loves playing with Transformers, Legos, and plus pluses.  He still has a crazy good imagination and is so creative at building creations.  His nana has bins and bins of plus pluses and he will go hang out at her house all day and play with them.  He loves skiing and officially passed my level of expertise this last winter.  He idolizes his dad and is quickly following in his tracks.  He can also out bike me on the downhill trails (in my defense I do look around and enjoy the experience), but this year I got an e-bike so he can't keep up with me on the uphill! He also loves fishing, especially with his dad.

Kingston is just a sweet kid.  He loves his grandparents and enjoys spending time with them.  He is officially taller than his grandma! He has a handful of friends that share different hobbies with him.  He is crazy about the cats and works so hard to try to get them to like him better than me.  He has the second longest hair in the family and he loves it and I hate to admit it, but he pulls it off.  I think we could work on styling it a bit more, but he wears hats so often that it isn't worth it.

He loves to talk and talk and talk and tell you stories about shows, or games, or even made up things about a game he is playing, but he gets so excited that you just let him!  Can't crush his spirit! He owns who he is and he really draws strength through his connections with others.  He has a hat that he found at Grandma Cecrle's house and he wears that so proudly and I can tell that he thinks of her when he wears it!

So, we will see what the next year brings.  He is one of the "only kids" without a cell phone, but he is managing with his watch that lets him call a few select people.  But otherwise, he is a pretty spoiled and loved kid with so much to offer the world and he still hugs his mom and says "I love you"!!!

His birthday was bad timing this year with Jonathan's surgery right before, but we managed to pull off a pretty special day/month for him! We had a family dinner (salmon and broccoli and icecream pizza) with the grandparents, where he was the recipient of the most ridiculous pair of shoes I've ever seen!  He spent the weekend with cousins biking Brundage and then later on he had a friend come sleepover and went to a jump place. Low key, but still special.

Jonathan's surgery

 July 10-

The time has finally come...Jonathan is ready for surgery!  No one could have guessed the recovery duration up to this point, but the surgeon really wanted him to have full extension prior to surgery. Jonathan is a few degrees shy, but the doctor still felt comfortable going ahead with surgery with the warning that he will have to work hard to get back to that point.

The last surgery of Jonathan's wasn't the best experience, so we were all a little nervous about this one.  He didn't stop breathing this time, so I would call it a win, but of course Jonathan has to have little hiccups along the way.  His eye got scratched during recovery, so he really had a hard time focusing on anything else, and the staff wasn't well versed in eye injuries (on the way home he was so mad and irritated he wrapped a shirt around his head and just ranted).  Jonathan still likes to stop breathing when he is in pain so we had to remind him to breath, luckily once the anesthesia all wore off, that wasn't an issue anymore.

They replaced his ACL with a piece of his femoral tendon and then put 2 stitches in the lateral meniscus.  The surgeon showed us pictures and it's pretty cool what they can do thru just a few little punctures in just a few hours.

Since he has been home, things have gone better than I expected.  He slept a lot the first week and pretty much just woke up to take the next set of pills and eat a little. But now, we are a couple weeks out and he is doing physical therapy and is able to crutch around pretty easily.  The bandages are off and things are bruised, but otherwise look great. This week he is allowed to bear weight on his knee as long as his leg is locked straight.  So, we are making progress!

McCall for the Fourth and Birthday

 July 4-6

Kids and Jonathan came up the night before so when I got there in the morning it was all decorated!  We hung out for the day and played in the river and did arial silks, and for evening festivities watched fireworks from the Shore Lodge Docks were we ran into the Gabby family. We rode Brundage for my birthday (and brought along Alex, Kingston's friend) and Jonathan and Joan met us for lunch.  I ended up riding away on a brand new e-bike!!!!  Jonathan and Joan scored me a killer deal that I just couldn't walk away from! Then back to Joan and Cam's for cake! It was a pretty spectacular birthday!