Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

Day two of VBS was good. We're in more of a routine now and the kids have opened up a bit more and are feeling more comfortable. I need to spend some time praying for them tonight. I snuck this picture today. We're not supposed to have our phones out OR take pictures of the kids, but since she's mine, I made an exception for myself. 😬 I don't know why she's always got to be so dang miserable around other people, though. That's just the face she puts on nowadays! I'm sure it's just a phase, but I do miss her being openly happy and not hiding her happiness behind a mask of indifference and/or disgust. She's only 7 for goodness' sake! I went to Graeter's with Kristen after VBS today and it was good to get some real time to talk to her. We're going through some similar things with our husbands and our own emotional/mental health. We have similarly aged kids and both have four of them. We got to talk about homeschooling, and discipline, and m...

Today was the first day of VBS at Meadow Park. I agreed to help out, somewhat regrettably, under the pretense that the spot I would fill was the "easiest spot ever", just ushering kids from activity to activity, but not actually doing anything myself. FALSE. Lots and lots of stuff for me to do and I had to be a part of every activity! 😭 Despite that, it wasn't a bad day. My group of kids is pretty sweet and my helper is a great guy...a college student who is really involved, so I don't have to direct him at all. I was just completely beat when the day was over and had to go lay down with the door shut for two hours.  My grocery delivery came almost 12 hours late today, so I pivoted and made pancakes for dinner. Thankfully, I had a pack of turkey bacon in the fridge, so it was more of a complete meal. After dinner, I took Jonas to BJJ and when I picked him up, I got there in time to see him get a new stripe! He was so excited and there were a TON of people in class th...

We decided to go as a family to Clear Creek Metro Park this morning and we spent a few hours there, hiking around and playing in the creek. As picturesque as it sounds, everything is just kind of tainted lately. Tainted by my anger towards and frustration with Ben. Tainted by his terrible moodiness and everyone's fear of his outbursts. I know Ben wants to get back some of the family togetherness and fun we used to have--so do I--but I'm afraid I'll never be able to trust him again, which definitely puts a damper on the fun. I don't know what to do. We spent the rest of the day at home. Lots of TV around here lately - Ben's choice, of course. TV, alcohol, moodiness. Yay.

Today was nice. The morning was spent making biscuits and gravy from scratch for Ben's belated b-day breakfast. After he went for a run, we went out to lunch, then visited the new, little grocery store next to the BJJ gym. It obvs caters to the Muslim community, but it was a great store! Much more welcoming than I expected it to be and it'll be a great place to grab some last-minute groceries if I need them. They don't really have milk, but they have eggs, bread, decently priced meats, and pretty much any other meal ingredients I'd need. And it's so convenient! The owner was there and greeted us. When he found out it was our first time in, he gave us some samples of their pre-prepared food they're selling. They have a bakery, a desserts counter, a butcher, and cooked food, along with groceries. It's a cool place! Jonas got his hair cut (he went alone), then he headed to the gym this morning. When we picked him up, he was really sad about his hair cut. I have...

The girls were playing library for hours last night and today and it was the cutest thing ever. They have their desk set up and their books on display. I just love it. I'm not loving that it's now nighttime and they stopped playing 12 hours ago and everything is still out in the hallway though. 😅 Jonas went to BJJ today and then we had Seth and Max over to hang out with Jonas for the day. I worked on getting Jonas signed up for wrestling at Davidson for, literally, three hours. SO MUCH PAPERWORK. He's not even sure he wants to do it! It's absolutely crazy to me how many forms need to be signed and just how much work I had to put into getting the admin part of this process done. Hate it. I spent hours yesterday trying to get him registered for classes at Columbus State. Such a long process! Everything related to Jonas is hard work nowadays, it feels like.  In the evening, we had the Shauls over for a hangout. I got Aldi pizzas and made some caprese salad with basil and ...

Happy birthday to Ben!!! Things haven't been easy in our home for a while now, but I wanted to do my best to celebrate him today. I got him lots of great gifts and so did the kids and I went and picked up BWW for dinner for him. I made pecan bars...that I overcooked. But they were ok! Ben had a decent day. He had to go into the office, but midday his boss told him he could work from home for the afternoon, which he really seemed to appreciate. He was a little more sad today than usual. I'm assuming it's because of his dad, but I guess I don't really know. In the evening, we all sat and watched The Hail Mary Project. The book was incredible and the movie was actually great too. We really didn't think we'd all make it 2 1/2 hours to get through the entire thing, but we did! 

We had a CACH hang out today at the playground near the "big, big pool". It was really good time! I met two new members and got to talk to Leslie for a while, since she got into my co-op too. :) Time moved quickly and the weather was perfect for being out at a park. The weather was less perfect for going to the pool, but we went over there afterwards anyway! The upside was that there was nobody there. We basically had the whole place to ourselves. The downside was that it was cold. I was literally TOO cold in the shade. I had a jacket on too! The poor kids were freezing. And Jonas cut his toe. So we left after two periods and headed home.  In the evening we went to small group. Admittedly, I wasn't having a great attitude about it. BUT I tried to go in with some positivity and, it turns out, I actually missed some of those ladies! I had a really nice time catching up after the so-called teaching. I even stayed late and hung out until 9, which is not like me at all. Ben an...

We were all SO excited to go to Wild & Free today! I had texted with all of my closest co-op friends to make sure they'd be there, the kids were all prepped, and I had lunch planned. However, late last night, we realized it might be raining. This morning, the weather predictions proved true and it stormed between 9 and 11. *sigh* All of my people backed out, and we ended up staying home too. You know I'm not going out hiking in the rain. That's a big, fat NO from me.  I spent the day, instead, researching new curriculums! I'm good with our main subjects curriculum through Sonlight. I still love that. But we need a refresh for our extracurriculars. I found some really cool art, music, and French plans and also found a great science book that I'd love to do with the kids. It's more functional science, like our bodies and how they process foods - how foods interact with our bodies. It sounds really useful! I'd like to get it, but it's pretty expensive a...

  Today was about as perfect as the day after coming home from vacation can be. Laundry, relaxation, tea, lunch out with Ollie (more on that later), picking up the tortoise, and some gardening. It was a nice day. I did get my period and had a killer headache all day, but since I had nowhere to be, it wasn't so bad. Ollie, however, was a pain in the ass. She's been really whiny lately and getting this entitled kind of attitude. Ben and I are both feeling very frustrated with her. I had enough today though. I took her on a date to Panera, where she did not thank me for lunch. Then I took her over to Target to look for sparklers, which they did not have, and was complained to for the entire time we were there. I did her makeup in the little fancy makeup area and sprayed her with perfume, and we walked all around looking at art supplies and whatnot. On the way out the door she said, "I thought dates were supposed to be fun" with a grimace on her face. I told her our next ...

We drove home today and it felt like it took forever. We managed to get out of Cherrystone by 6:15am and Ben and I were incredibly tired, so we had to switch off a couple of times throughout the drive. Ben was very grumpy for the first half of the trip. I'm not sure what was going on, but I DO know that he drank waaaayyyyyy too much last night, so that could have had something to do with it. Zach was making these drinks he was calling "transfusions", which were basically huge cups of vodka with a splash of grape juice or fruit punch. 🙄 Anyway, we made it home without incident.  Jonas and Clem got home just in time to make it to their groups, which they were very happy about, and I was a little annoyed about since neither of them helped us unpack. We unpacked and cleaned up for about two hours, then I FINALLY got to go out to my garden to check on things! Yay! It's looking AMAZING. I'm so excited about it! I'm also excited to sleep in my own bed tonight and to...

Today was so hot. So, so hot and muggy. It was hard to think about anything besides packing and the gosh darn heat. We went to the pool with Evie, JJ, Harrison, and Bailee and it was just terrible. 😅 The pool water was hotter than my skin and it was PACKED in there. Hair was floating around all over the place. It was so gross and hot and awful! Then we had some crabs for lunch, which was awesome and then I kept whining to Ben that I wanted to leave today, instead of tomorrow. But, honestly, that wasn't feasible. I'm just sick of being hot and my period is starting and I'm ready to get the f home. I'm also pretty annoyed, in general, and miss my family.  I hate that this is the only week each year that I can actually count on seeing people and building in with them. I told Ben that there was definitely a part of me that feels like if it weren't for him, I'd be able to be with my family all of the time. He did not like that. He's been pretty quiet since I let...

I'm just an emotional rollercoaster today. One minute I'm Miss Congeniality and the next I'm Medusa. Thanks hormones!!! It's a mess. It's also still incredibly hot. ALSO, the air quality is supposed to be terrible today and nobody is supposed to spend prolonged time outside. Kind of an impossibility when you're camping! I mean, I guess we could ignore our entire family and sit inside all day, but that would be ridiculous.  There has been a lot of drama about the Cherrystone dates for next year. So. The sites we want are not available for this same week next year. Or really, any convenient week. There is one week in June, when Clem (and maybe Ruby) will be gone at Blowout camp and then there's a week in August. I was talking to Kelly and asked her about her date preferences and she said she didn't want to go in August because it'll be too hot. So, basically, she was saying that she'd rather go in June, even though it means we can't go. I wasn...

Today was another excruciatingly hot day. We were dying outside. My mood was still pretty terrible, but I tried to be less grouchy! We went to the pool for a couple of hours, ate some food, hung out outside for eternity, and got some pizzas for dinner. I got to have some good conversations with Skyla, which I really appreciated because I just don't feel like I've ever actually gotten her to talk to me. A bunch of people played pickleball in the evening, then we went and got ice cream afterwards. It was hot, but it was a good day. 

Today was the first boring day at Cherrystone, and the hottest so far. It felt like it was 110 degrees. Absolutely sweltering, humid, sun-beating-down, awful. At home, when it gets like this, I just stay inside. When I'm on a camping trip with 40 members of my family, I don't have the same luxury. I have to be out there or I'm being a jerk.  Ted and Tasha's family left right at noon today, so we spent the morning visiting with them and getting some laundry washed. Ollie was completely out of clothes and I think Ben was out of underwear. Laundromats tend to go a lot quicker than home though! So it was all done in about an hour. Then, Ben and I went on a quick lunch date to this BBQ place right outside of the campground. The food was delicious, but we were only there for about 30 minutes because service was very prompt too. It's always weird to go on a date, but everything goes really quickly, so you kind of feel like you have nothing left to do so you might as well j...

This morning, Ted and Tasha made a family breakfast for my family, theirs, dad and MJ, and Skyla and Zayden. They thoughtfully included turkey bacon, which made me and my girls happy. We hung out at the table for a while afterwards, really until it was about time to get the crabs back out. Ben went for a run. The girls and Jonas went off and hung out with cousins, doing their own things. Actually, the kids did a campground-hosted scavenger hunt and Clem, Ruby, Ollie, and Bailey WON!!! I sat at dad's and visited with him, Marme, Ted, and Tasha. MJ fried up some crab bodies for me with butter and garlic because she knows it's my favorite. :) In the afternoon, I went over to the pool with most of the kids and it was actually hot enough for me to get in. Honestly, I got a little too cool in the water, though, and had to get out pretty quickly. Ben and all of the kids left me, and I hopped in the pool one more time before leaving. It was a pretty relaxing afternoon. There was an imp...