Teachers are done down here in Georgia (sorry Michigan friends and family teachers), which opened up my schedule immensely. This is a phenomenon I always tend to forget until I am living it again. Although the large elephant still sits in the living room, I feel like we are managing our time and my heart is currently full on quality time!
I have been posting a lot about our 19 in 2019 list on the social medias.
This is a sort of family bucket list we started doing last year with 18 for 2018. Everyone gets to put items on the "wish list", and then we do the best we can to cross them all off. Only rule is we all have to be together for it to count. All 4 of us. This was an important rule as many would be shocked at the little amount of time we actually get as all 4 of us (Team Larkin as we refer to it), due to my school hours (and I admit I probably did a whole lot extra this past year, I am scaling back for this coming school year, I promise), Jacob's odd police hours (yup, cops work most holidays, extra shifts during busy times for the city, big example- Superbowl...yeah we barely saw him, and weird hours and weekends), and then add in his military commitments. You all get the picture. When we made our 19 for 2019 list this year, we had a pretty good indication that Jacob would be deployed at some point. However, we didn't know specifics (honestly until he is on the plane you don't know specifics with the military), so we went into the list as if we had all year. We have committed to getting it done, or as close as we can.
When I am stressed I make lists. Then I make lists to add to the lists. And then I probably break down each task on the list on a separate list. Then I put it in the calendar. Of course it is color coded. All that for another post. As of right now every 2019 item is completed, or on the calendar, except the 12 date nights. I think we will finish with around 8 date nights, but those are hard to squeeze in when we already go to a couples small group (almost weekly) and attend counseling twice a month, both of which we decided not to count as dates. But we could...
Oh, and the kayaking. Very sad, but Ellee has to be 5 years old, and she is just 4, and not even close to the suggested weight so I called a defer until next year on that one. We have some ideas up our sleeves and Colorado is on our radar for next summer so that would be an awesome deferment.
But in the last couple days we completed:
#13 - 500 Piece Puzzle (Ellee pick)
The kids love puzzles and they can do a 100 piece puzzle in less than 30 mins. They asked for something a little harder. We picked a Disney themed one so we could have fun seeing the characters they will be visiting in just a few days!! Low and behold there are not that many Disney 500 piece puzzles, so the one we ordered (from somewhere in Asia), came with almost see-through pieces that were 1 cm long. You read the right. 1 centimeter. Although one might think the size and the clear pieces would be an issue, the only real hard part was that we all had to be together to work on it. Aside from Cade's face in the completed photo they really did enjoy it. We finished on a Friday afternoon, and man, oh man, both our kids are so beat by Fridays we actually do early bedtimes most Fridays. Hence, his mood for the picture...
#15 - Ice Skating (Cade pick)
Although Cade was thinking about the outdoor ice skating rink in Marietta Square when he added this to the list he is aware why we had to settle for an indoor ice rink at the end of May. Both kids had great attitudes going in, and Ellee was determined to never take a break, no matter how many times she fell. And she fell. A lot. And hard. But that girl figured out how to get herself back up, eventually could get herself back to the side to "catch" herself, and she was skating pretty fast by the end. Cade a little more cautious (as with most of life for him) he hung onto the wall for quite a while. Once he fell and realized it was okay to fall and get back up he became much more confident. He too was pretty sturdy by the end. Jacob fell right back into old habits and could really pick up speed when Ellee would let him go around by himself. He ended up on the ice only twice, and both times he was taken out by Ellee. I got one of the times on film (is that the phrasing here?!?!). I also peed myself a little laughing so hard. I didn't pick up as much speed as Jacob on the rink, but I fell right back into skating pretty easily. I was surprised how quickly I was able to spin, turn, and skate backwards (which made me a rockstar to both Cade and Ellee)!
#14 - Visit an Aquarium (Jacob pick)
This was suppose to be a "new to us" aquarium, but that wasn't how we wrote it down...so a visit to the Georgia Aquarium right here in Atlanta was a good compromise. Cade and Ellee both said they didn't remember the last time we had visited, and honestly they have made so many good changes to our aquarium I was happy we revisited. We did the early morning on a Friday, so it wasn't super crowded as it had been when we visited before. And the dolphin show is a great add on! Everyone had a great day, and Jacob just loves being with his fish.
#17 - Family Art Project (Cade Pick)
This pick was also originated by Cade who wanted do some sort of "snow" art with everyone so we called it Family Art. But he couldn't tell us exactly what he wanted. So we showed him a lot of pictures (not snow related to help move away from that specific idea) on Pinterest and he picked a letter string art. We totally winged the whole thing. And I think it turned out pretty cool. Each of us picked a color we wanted to represent us, Jacob - Green, me - pink, Cade - Blue, Ellee - Purple (only because the kind of string we picked didn't have rainbow). The whole project did take over an hour, and we took a break for dinner, mostly because the two adults were having back issues from being bent over for too long, but I love, love, love the finished product! We put the date on the back, all signed our names, and it is up on the mantle. I love it!
I have to admit putting the time in to get these items accomplished has really helped me mentally prepare for what is coming. There are actual moments I completely forget our time as a team of 4 will be put on hiatus for a little while. I also think these memories are going to help the kids move through the longest period they have been without their dad. And if I were being completely honest that is my biggest fear this time around. I know I can do it. But can I support two littles through it too? All of these thoughts will be left for another time as right now I will push the tears welling up in my eyes away for a little longer. These past couple of days have felt so special I won't allow the fears of tomorrow creep in.
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