Almost Summer...

As seems to be typical of me lately, it's been a few months since I blogged. It seems the older my kids get, the busier we are with sports, school activities and obligations, and fun things to do (no complaining here!). Add in our busy work schedules and it leaves little time for much else. I miss blogging, and I love doing it, but admittedly some days when it comes down to sitting by myself with a cup of coffee for 15 minutes or blogging...well, coffee wins, lol.

But things in Painesville, Ohio, are going really well for the Bailey family. I will give a little update on each of us, since it has been so long!

Ava is just about finished with her last year of preschool, 4K, at St. Paul's. Tuesday is her closing program. I feel like the year went by so fast! We were really lucky this year to make some AWESOME new friends (her friend Jaylyn's mom is actually the one who watches Ava on Fridays for me, and she has been such a lifesaver!). I'm sad that they won't be at Madison Ave. next year with us, but I know we will keep in touch regardless. Ava is playing soccer at the Outdoor Y this spring and loving it as much as she did in the fall. She's pretty good at kicking when she is actually paying attention and not posing for a photo opp, lol. At home, Ava is practicing writing her alphabet and numbers and learning her sight words to get ready for Kindergarten in the fall. She is up to about 65 sight words now and doing great! We've sort of taken a break from it for a few weeks now, but we will definitely pick back up with summer bridge workbooks soon. Both kids are looking forward to the Summer Reading Club at the library again this summer, but more on that in the update about me.

Aiden is doing really well in school and feeling a little anxious about the summer coming because he doesn't want to lose touch with the friends he's made this year! I've reassured him that we will see them a lot at the pool and out and about, and he can have friends over to play any time he wants. He is doing awesome at school this year, reading at a 3rd grade level and has moved on to multiplication and fractions in his math work. He has gotten 100% on all of the advanced spelling tests for the year, which is amazing and I am so proud of him. A lot of the time he complains about being bored in school (Chuck assures me that he was the same way--not me though! I loved school and don't ever remember being bored!), so we will see how he adjusts to the beginning of the school year in the fall and then possibly talk to his teacher about getting him into some of the more advanced classes, particularly for math as that seems to be his strong suit. He was one of only 2 kids in his class picked to participate in the Read-About program, which is a computer-based reading comprehension program typically for 3rd grade and above. He's struggled with it in some aspects (mainly non-fiction comprehension in subjects that he isn't particularly interested in), but if it is a subject that he in into, he dives right in! I'm very proud of everything he's accomoplished this year, and I know that 2nd grade will have good things in store as well. Aiden is also playing spring soccer at the Outdoor Y, and he's improving a lot. His main trouble is that he wants to be great but doesn't seem to have the motivation to actually practice much, and I keep trying to remind him that practicing is the only way to improve your skills! A catch 22, lol. But he enjoys it and has fun for the most part, which is really all that matters at this age anyway.

Chuck has been busy this week with a home improvement project...he installed a patio in our backyard! He had some help digging from his nephew and another nephew helped him lay the limestone--I know he greatly appreciated both of them! But other than that, he did ALL the work himself, and it was a LOT of work! We decided to put in a patio because we are getting a hot tub next week! Initially we had discussed just pouring a cement pad for it, but then decided that a patio would look nicer and expand our outdoor living space as well. We shopped around a bit for hot tubs and even went to wet-test a few models at Ohio Pools and Spas to get a better idea of what we wanted. After leaving behind our old hot tub in GA, we've missed it greatly. Hot tubs are definitely NOT inexpensive, so this wasa HUGE decision financially, but in the end we decided it would be worth a few years of no vacations to spend the money and enjoy it for many years to come. We decided on the Vanguard model from the High Life collection of HotSprings hot tubs. It doesn't have a lounger seat, like our old hot tub did, which is great because it always felt like wasted space. It also has a larger bench seat (or cooling seat, as it gets your chest up out of the water), which will be great for the kids and I will likely use a lot also, as I tend to like to elevate myself a bit more out of the water. Chuck liked this model because it has the exclusive moto-massage jets in 2 of the seats. The water sweeps up and down your back like a shiatsu massage would. Pretty amazing! Here is the link to the tub, we went with the champagne opal shell and espresso cabinetry to offset the lighter brown of the deck and patio. http://www.hotspring.com/shop-hot-tub-models/highlife/vanguard. It is getting installed this Wednesday and we are pretty excited about it! As for other news with Chuck, his new job is going really well. He seemed to jump right in and get the hang of things, and he has some good people on his team that need some molding and coaching, but he is definitely the right person for the job!

Wow, this is turning into a long-winded post! I'm rarely brief when it comes to words, lol. Well, as for me, things are going pretty well. I'm actually recovering from a kidney infection that I came down with last weekend. Pretty terrible, let me tell you, but I'm on some strong antibiotics and my Dr. gave me some strong pain medication which has helped. I'm still having some issues and pain, but hopefully it will resolve itself soon. I am NOT looking forward to that ever happening again! As for work, it is chugging along :-) I am still really loving the job itself, though the hours leave something to be desired. I didn't realize how EXHAUSTED I would be after running the kids to and from school several times a day, cooking, cleaning, doing chores and running errands and THEN going to work till 9pm. Mondays and Tuesdays I'm totally beat. Wednesdays this summer will actually be much better, because currently I work from 9am-1pm and then head straight to school to help out in the library and in Aiden's classroom until school is out. In the summer, I will be done at 1pm and we have a babysitter coming to the house to watch the kids, so once I take her home the rest of the day can be spent playing at the pool, beach or park. Thursdays are my day "off" but of course are usually spent grocery shopping, cooking and prepping for dinner and other days, and Ava usually has a friend over in the afternoons. But I'm not complaining, really. For a part-time job, the pay is decent, the benefits are great, and I love my boss and co-workers. Story times are going really well (I even got a gift card from one of my families for teacher-appreciation week, which was so sweet and made me feel so special!) and I feel like I am a great asset to the library. Summer Reading Club is coming up, and I know that it will be a VERY busy summer, so I am prepping everything for my summer storytimes now so that I won't feel rushed or overwhelmed when things pick back up in a few weeks!

That is pretty much the lowdown on the Bailey Clan :-) We are looking forward to a fun summer, if different than past summers because I am working and Chuck isn't working from home any more. We will still make it work and have a blast. And we will have our new backyard oasis to enjoy if we get stressed out! It's going to be worth it, I think :-) Until next time...