Surfacing

Hello, dear blog.  Hello, dear few and faithful readers.  I am surfacing after my bloggy break…. let me skim just a few highlights of the last few weeks:

• We are now a household of 11, up from 9 – that includes six Heidmanns, two Holstons, and three Fosters. If you imagined that adding two small people to our numbers wouldn’t increase the volume level by much, you’d be very, very wrong.  Not only are there two additional voices in the throng, each of the other nine voices all has two more voices with which to interact, and oh, the energy in the house is off the charts! 🙂
• Understandably, the many other adjustments to routine and in all family dynamics with the addition of two new members of the family have been a primary focus during this hiatus for me, as the Mother Unit, as well. I have two three-year-olds clamoring for my attention and loves, a seven-year-old suddenly (and without curriculum) added to my home school where I had only teenagers before, and I can only say, God is gracious to give me such amazing older kids, who are a constant source of support and cheerful assistance, both around the house and with the littles – not to mention my dear husband, the Best.Dad.Ever. I am greatly blessed indeed.

A few snaps from day one, when “Lemur” and “Bobbin” arrived, and Lemur was first introduced to Minecraft, and Jr. and Bobbin got all Twinsie with their Ninja gear and played and tumbled together like they’d been together forever and always:

•  Good thing I have my photos dated or I wouldn’t remember that the Arizona Hurricane came through town on Saturday, September 27th.  And I have photos of that day because we decided it would be a really fun idea to take the family out to a park that day.  When we left the house, the clouds were looking mighty ferocious, and the wind was whipping somewhat threateningly … but this is Arizona, we thought… likely as not there will be some wind and maybe a sprinkle, but nothing more than sound and fury, signifying nothing.  Could not have been, as the song says, “more wronger”!  We barely had arrived at Steele Indian School Park and disembarked from the vehicles, when we saw a photo shoot for a quinceañera party being blown toward us as they tried in vain to keep their hoop skirts from lifting them off the ground while racing to their cars. Even so, that still wasn’t quite enough to convince us we should turn tail and git outta Dodge, as they say. No, we thought, what could be better, we’ll have the whole place to ourselves! We did not get very far from the parking lot before we were drenched to the skin in the sudden tornadic rain storm – and I say tornadic, because it seemed the downpour was coming from every direction at once.  We managed to make our way back to a building with some shelter, and stand on the side with the least wind, and there we stayed, dripping and shivering in the wind, shouting to make ourselves heard above the roaring winds, and watching as the trees lashed and lighting flashed, and before it let up one tree even cracked in half not far from our van! Finally we sensed an easing in the storm and raced to our cars. We dared not drive far though, as the electricity had gone out while we were standing under the shelter, and the traffic lights were all out. We found a nearby McDonalds where we sat, dripping and laughing at ourselves, ate some fries, and waited for a little better look to the out of doors, before finally heading home. It took more than an hour to get home due to several square miles of power loss. All in all, it was Saturday outing to remember.

And finally, few pics from after the rain.

I think  I’ll pause and resume my updates in another post, as this is long enough for today.