Merry Christmas to all our friends and family! We love and pray for you, and hope that you are seeing the blessings of peace and prosperity in your lives that come from living “after the manner of happiness.” (2 Ne. 5:27) Here is what we’ve been up to.
We started the year with Seth, Luke, and Adrianne at home along with three young foster kids: Melissa, Yasmina, and Matthew. Quinn was in the Oregon Eugene mission, and Lindy and her husband Nick were living in Idaho Falls both working at an IT company. Paul continued his economist job at the National Mining Association in D.C., and I “attempted” to homeschool Luke while dealing with the challenges that our foster kids brought into our lives. It was a blessing to have Adrianne at home, as she really took over as Seth’s mommy while I was gone so much. And while I was home much of my time was spent working with the kids on their issues, and just being inundated by all of their needs.
After a few months things settled down a bit with the foster kids, and we got into some routines that worked for everyone. Then we got word that Lindy and Nick were going to be parents, which made us...(drum roll)...grandparents! I’m still wrapping my brain around that, especially as Seth is only three.
In May Luke and I went to Virginia Beach to assist with the three day Latter-day Saint Home Educators conference–I continue as chairman and Luke was on the game committee. It was a big success, with 800 attendees and fabulous presentations from many great folks including John Bytheway, Jericho Road, Merrilee Boyack, and Dr. Ariel Rodriguez (just to name a few of my favorites). One evening we had to move the family dance from the beachside deck of the Cavalier up to the 11th floor of the hotel because of a severe storm threatening off the coast. But that ended up being very cool because the room had floor to ceiling windows all around, and we watched the black clouds over the ocean and the big waves rolling in. John Bytheway had been stuck at JFK airport because his flight to Norfolk was cancelled, but the storm rolled away and we had a lovely time at the dance and our keynote speaker came in late that night and was at the podium the next morning–the power of prayer!
When summertime hit we had a great time at home with our new, big family. Paul and I built a play set and put in a raised bed garden, and the kids had a great time planting and watching things grow (and Seth and Matthew thought it was hilarious to run through the 20x4 foot bed in the soft dirt like it was a race track, mashing the baby plants while I ran over to yank them out). The kids spent hours of each day down at our cute little creek throwing rocks in it and building bridges, jumping on the trampoline, exploring in the woods, and swinging, sliding, and hanging on the monkey bars. We took them camping at Westmoreland state park where we have in past years found lots of fossil shark teeth at the edge of the Potomac river, but with these guys we weren’t able to spend much time there–too nerve-wracking that one of them was going to wade out too deep and get washed away–the pool was a much better fit for us.
In August we took a two week vacation to Utah and Idaho with our crew: a visit to Temple Square, an art festival on the Idaho Falls Greenbelt, hiking up to a mountain lake to catch millions of baby frogs, horseback riding, pools and playgrounds, picking huckleberries up in the mountains, family reunions, four-wheeling, fishing, and boating–we really packed it in and the kids went to bed exhausted every night instead of the adults, which was a nice change.
After our return we were notified that the kids would be going back to their mother. We were grateful for some reasons and sad for others, and just continued to try to support them as they transitioned into spending weekends with their mom.
Adrianne had been taking some online IT classes trying to get an internship at the company that her sister works at, and at the beginning of September she went back to Idaho for a friend’s wedding, got a retail job, and eventually landed the internship. So between both jobs she’s been working 65 hour weeks--she didn’t want to bail out on TJMaxx during the holidays) but is looking forward to getting back to more reasonable hours.
In October Seth and I got on another airplane to go help out with...baby Ivan Nicholas! Seth didn’t know what to think about being an uncle to such a noisy little lump, but I am in love with the little guy. A friend told me to snag a cool grandma name for myself, so I’m officially “Nana.”
On November 18th Elder Quinn Georgia returned triumphant from his mission and we got to hug and hug and hug him. He’s so amazingly grown-up and also still quite silly, so it’s great. Then the next week we moved the kids back in with their mom, which was really heart-wrenching for all of us. We were able to see them last week and take two of them up to the Festival of Lights at the temple. They seemed to be doing pretty well.
Now we’re in the process of launching Quinn back into school at BYU Provo and then getting back to normal...or semi-normal, since life is always changing. Paul and I were just called to be family history consultants and Sunday school teachers, which starts up in January, so we’ve got to do some serious homework to get up to speed on that.
Love to All!
The Georgias
