School starts again for the kids in twenty days.  It’s hard to believe how quickly the past couple of months have flown by, and Sidney just asked me today when we are going shopping for school stuff. We had Brad’s best friend with us for a week (he moved to Denver last month) then they headed to Colorado with Travis and a group of other guys from church.  Sounds like they had a lot of fun camping, hiking, biking.  It was very rustic and our SUV still doesn’t smell the same after having seven guys drive home in it after not showering for four days.  But what’s important is that they had a lot of fun and made some great memories.  And the weather was fantastic with highs in the 70’s up in the mountians.  So very jealous!  I think everyone is tired of the heat around here. Thank you God for the blessing of air conditioning!

Trevor is at Camp Sonshine this week from 9 am until almost 430 pm with a friend, and they are outside all day.  My sweet neice is there as well having a fabulous time too. They are all having so much fun that I don’t think the heat bothers them all that much although Trevor is very tired at night.  And Brad has football camp this week then has a week off before football practice starts.  I still can’t believe he’s heading to high school already but know he’s going to love it.  And Sidney and Trevor are ready to head back to school too; Trevor is very excited to start jr high and isn’t nervous at all.  Ryan will only be going to school in the afternoons again and we are in the process of trying to work those details out with his school.  He still sleeps for three hours every morning plus another 1-2 hrs in the late afternoon in addition to sleeping for ten hours at night.  The neurologist thinks with him missing 1/4 of his brain, being on six seizure meds every day, and with the number of seizures he’s having daily, he needs his sleep. His poor little brain just can’t keep up.  I can’t justify sending him to school only to have a para sit in the room while he sleeps all morning so we will take him when he wakes up.  He needs the socialization but isn’t making any gains developmentally at all so it’s not like he is missing out on a lot of academic time.  In fact on Monday his OT at Madonna was saying how much strength and tolerance to touch he’s lost in his left arm because of seizure activity. 

Travis and I were just saying a few days ago how excited we are to start Ellisbrook and how much our hearts have changed especially over the past year.  We are in a waiting period though as we don’t feel like God has clearly made the way for us to move forward.  The kids are excited too and I pray we are able to get moved and started while the kids are still in school so they can experience this next phase of our lives firsthand.  It’s amazing – and such a blessing – to see how God has really moved their hearts toward caring for special needs adults as their vision for our family has also changed.  It’s hard to be patient as we wait for God’s timing when we are so excited to move forward in this ministry!

Prov 16:9 ~ A man’s heart plans his way but the Lord directs his steps.