Summer is drawing to a close

It has been a busy, fun, trying, super emotional summer! We have kept busy with one thing and another since my last post.

Bella did her soccer camp and had a BLAST. The coaches were impressed with her and even though she was the youngest girl there she excelled. We now have her (and 3 of our 4 bios) signed up for AYSO soccer this fall. They should be starting practices this coming week. For the next 8 weeks all Saturdays will now be soccer days! Bella has been looking forward to it ever since her camp ended.

Hubby and I had a training with our agency, and for the first time we let Sunshine, Bee, and Bella babysit our little ones. We were initially told by our agency that they could not ever watch our kids, and that the older girls themselves were not to be left unsupervised for more than an hour or so at a time. This mad things very, very complicated when Hubby and I had to go somewhere, or even if I just needed to go shopping. Let's just say we ran into a lot of "gray area" and even broke the rules a few times out of necessity when it came to leaving one or more of the girls on their own. These girls are 13, 14, and 16 for crying out loud! So, the girls finally asked their caseworker if they could babysit our kids (they had been asking to be allowed to sit for us to earn $$, or to sit for other people). Turns out the state has no regulations against the girls babysitting for us or anyone else. So we decided to give them a chance at it. The kids all did wonderful. The older girls are wonderful babysitters, especially Bee. Our little ones do very well with them. Our caseworker was not thrilled with this change, but she hasn't told us to stop either. That is good enough for me.

The kids and I also attended a Family Fun Day at a nearby lake, hosted by our licensing agency. I took my sister and her two little ones along and we had a super fun day. Sunshine, Bee, and Blondie (bio daughter #1) ended up in the lake when Bee capsized their canoe. Bella was in a nearby boat with my sister and myself and the dog we rescued from their canoe just before Bee got ornery and tipped them kind of accidentally on purpose. It was pretty hilarious. The whole day was tons of fun.

We finished up all the dental, medical, and vision appointments.

Right after our Colorado vacation Bee surprised us by asking to meet with the missionaries from our church to learn more about what we believe. (The girls have all been going to church with us every Sunday since they came to live here. They have been raised as Christian, but have attended various denominations so were not specifically affiliated with any particular sect. We gave them the option of going with us or finding another church they liked in the area and they all opted to just attend with us. We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as Mormon.) We put her off until we could speak to her caseworker, as we have always been told that religious issues must always involve the bio parents. Her caseworker told us differently. According to her the girls are old enough to make their own decisions about religion and the state would allow them to do so without parental permission. Bee wanted to move ahead right away, but we insisted she talk to her father first out of respect. He gave begrudging "permission" and we set up the lessons for her. Bee quickly moved through the lessons and soon asked to be baptized a member of our church. I have to say here that we put NO pressure on her to make these decisions. We support her decisions, and we encourage her to follow her heart and conscience, but we have never done more than answer questions she brought to us and follow her lead. Again we asked her caseworker if she needed permission to be baptized, and again she told us the decision was completely Bee's. We still had her call her dad and tell him out of respect. He was not happy, but she stood her ground and he eventually wished her happiness in her decision, though he made it clear he did not agree with or like her decision. It was a tense conversation. She stayed calm throughout though and never wavered from her choice. She is a girl who knows her own mind and is never afraid to go her own way. Her baptism was a sweet spiritual experience.

We also experienced a family loss this summer. My husband's younger brother passed away in result of a terrible car accident. The weeks following his death have been a trial, and the older girls have been a blessing. Only a couple days after his passing the girls had plans to attend Girls' Camp with the other young women in our church. A good friend helped me get them ready and off to camp, then hubby and our bio kids and I headed out to my in-laws home to spend time with his family prior to the funeral. My mother then picked the girls up from camp on her way to the funeral and brought them to us. We gave the girls the option of staying at the house rather than attending the services, but they came and supported us and helped out with the little ones. Their presence was touching and much appreciated.

Now we are in the midst of back to school preparations! We already got our shopping out of the way for Blondie and Freckles (bio daughter #2), but are waiting on a state check before setting out for the older girls. They will get $80 each for school supplies and $75 for clothes, and anything they don't use for supplies out of the $80 will also go toward new clothes. It doesn't seem like much, but it is more than we are spending on our bio kids this year (The bio kids only get one or two new outfits this year as they don't really need any new clothes but I like to get them something new for the first day or two of school so they have that new school year excitement.) We have only a week and a half until school starts here, so hopefully the checks arrive sooner rather than later.

I say a week and a half, but that is only for MOST of the kids. Bee will actually be doing online school this year! We are starting her in Primavara in hopes of allowing her to make up credits so that she can catch up to her peer group. Everyone who knows her agrees, she should NOT be in 8th grade this year (by everyone I particularly mean her caseworker, her therapist, and her teachers, but also her church group leaders, as well as her friends and other adults that know her well would agree.) Socially and emotionally she is far beyond the kids she goes to school with. She was held back in early elementary school, but rather than progressing socially with her school grade peers she passed them up (likely due to her home circumstances). She is also a September baby so she will turn 15 right after school starts. How hard to be a 15 year old 8th grader, especially when you are already more mature than most 15 year olds! She still has to meet her academic goals though, so online school is her only option to not "be" in middle school while all her friends move on to high school (or continue in high school as most of her friends are 15-17 years old). She will also have the chance to use their accelerated program to "catch up" if she is willing to work really hard this year. She may be able to move on to her Sophmore year next year, or at least move into her Freshman year with extra credits towards graduation. That is her goal; graduating with her peers rather than a year behind them. It is all dependent on how much she is willing to apply herself. The conditions her caseworker gave us when she approved the online schooling was that if she starts to fall behind she HAS to go back to the traditional school. I think she has what it takes though and will excel this year.

So, tomorrow morning we are off on our last summer adventure: a family campout! Three days of wilderness bonding and together time. It will be the perfect end to our crazy Summer.

Home from Vacation, and back to Real Life!

Yesterday was our first full day home from vacation. It was almost back to normal. Hubby was sweet enough to get our two Summer schoolers where they needed to be on his way to take the four-wheelers we borrowed back to his parents home.

  

*I should add here that a few days after school got out we got a letter in the mail letting us know that Sunshine was being given the chance to do Summer school in order to complete one of her online courses. She started both her online courses when she got here and had only six weeks to do an entire year worth of assignments. She completed her math course quickly, but got hung up on the science course and we thought the credit was lost. How wonderful that she gets to keep going and complete it! Being able to focus exclusively on the one course had allowed her to zoom through the assignments and she is almost done!

 

The other kids got up and got started on their chores right away. "Why?" you ask, are they so eager to do chores? Well, before vacation we instituted a new policy. We change the wi-fi password every night, and we don't give it out until they have finished their chores the next day. Bee found the idea on facebook and suggested we try it (She was our only non complainer about chores previously). It works amazingly well, especially since this applies to the TVs as well.

I started to unpack (still some stuff waiting for today), start laundry (piles remain), and make order out of the chaos that always comes from the packing and unpacking of a vacation. We still have a ways to go.

Our vacation was a success though. We had a lot of fun together. We played lots of games, explored the area around the cabin, rode four-wheelers, went on an excursion to Mesa Verde national park to see the Indian ruins there, roasted marshmallows and had smores, put together a few puzzles, watched a few movies, and generally enjoyed each others' company. It was great. We tried to go swimming too, but of the three swimming holes on the property; one was mostly dried up, and the other two were brown and full of algae and weeds, and we couldn't get the kids to do more than wade along the edges. We did see lots of animal prints around the water which was cool. The kids were in love with the racoon tracks.

The older girls had a lot of new experiences while we were there, but their favorite was definitely the four-wheelers. After getting the go-ahead from their caseworker we taught them how to drive them safely, although Bella had one minor mishap that scared everyone a bit but taught the girls respect for the machines. She got banged up a bit, but fortunately nothing more serious than a few bruises. Afterward they were all three more cautious and concientious.

We all got worn out in a good way.

Now we just have to take a few days to recover, although the busy has already grabbed us again.

Yesterday was the Report and Review hearing for the girls' case. We listened in by phone so we didn't have to leave the house, but it was a draining experience. Sunshines bio dad has officially asked for TPR (termination of parental rights). This is a process that will leave her as a legal orphan.  She still has her sisters and their dad is her "dad", as he is the one who raised her. The legal problem is that there is very little chance that CPS will be able to place her with him because he is not a legal relative, which means he would have to be licensed to foster/adopt her. There is very little chance he will be eligible for that. If he were in AZ they might be able to fudge it a bit and allow it, but he is in Nevada and that requires interstate paperwork. Nevada is very unlikely to allow it to happen. So, now we are preparing her for what comes next. Most likely that will be either aging out of the system in just over a year, or emancipation so she can go to Nevada when/if her sisters do. Heavy stuff for a 16 year old to deal with. The other two had to deal with the reality that they will be here at LEAST another three months, possibly longer if their dad does not work his butt off to complete the list of requirements he has been given to show he is capable of caring for the girls. This will not be easy. He is almost 60 years old and has just had multiple back surgeries. We are praying for him, but it is not going to be an easy road.

Today we have a CFT. Another phone conference. We will discuss what happened at court yesterday as well as the usual stuff. It should be interesting. Then, later this afternoon Sunshine has another dental appointment. They are finishing up the work she needed done, so hopefully this will be her last one for awhile.

The kids and I get the weekend to ourselves (Hubby left for work for a few days), then Monday we have a home visit from the girls' caseworker, and then they have a visit with their dad immediately afterward. This visit will be here in town, at the library and/or park, by the girls' request. (Next visit will likely be in another town half way between here and dad's home, which means the girls will have to travel a few hours). Hubby will also be home Monday, so we have a few errands that will need taken care of then. Tuesday and Wednesday Bella will be attending soccer camp (got to get her registered today!).

We continue to speed through our Summer break. September will be here before we know it!

School is officially out!

Okay, so it has been out for almost a week now but I am barely getting around to blogging about it (but then, I haven't blogged about anything for awhile).

Funny how I thought that once end-of-school activities were over I would have all this down time and things would slow down. We are not slow at all! It has been non-stop go all month and shows no signs of letting up. We have lots of fun Summer plans (lots of memories to be made!), and mingled with CPS plans (family visits, home visits, counseling appointments, etc) we are going to be busy, busy, busy!

This week we took a visit to spend some time with Hubby while he was working. He works out of town, so is only home off and on (roughly half the month), so a couple months ago we finally got him an apartment near his work. We (the kids and I) hadn't had the chance to visit and see the new place so we took a few days and went and stayed with him. It was nice because this would have been time we normally wouldn't have seen him for about a week. We swam, climbed a rock wall (so much scarier than I thought it would be!), and just hung out. It was good fun family bonding time. In the evenings Hubby came home and was equally delighted and overwhelmed by having the whole brood in his personal space (did I mention the new apartment is only a two-bedroom? NO ESCAPE!). Craziness and good times. A few drama moments. Some teen moments. But a pretty good time.

Then home again and we began/continued the process of getting Bee ready for the pioneer trek. Our church does a handcart pioneer trek for the youth that lasts four days and as soon as Bee heard about it she was enthusiastic about participating (Bella isn't old enough and Sunshine was not interested). We had to get the Dr. to sign off on her going due to medical issues and for a while we were doubtful about if it was going to happen. She was upset and angry. It is hard to be 14 with medical restrictions on your physical activities. I was happy we got the go ahead in the end, as this could give her the opportunity to show that she can do more than she has been allowed to do. Other than the Dr approval we had to gather all the necessary clothing and gear, as well as complete a four mile walk in under an hour (All participants were required to complete the walk to show they were fit enough for the physical demands of pushing a handcart up to 16 miles a day). Thursday we drive 45 minutes to counseling appointments for Bella and Bee, then Bee leaves for the Trek Friday and she is excited as can be.

I have also spent the last couple days cleaning a few neglected areas of the house (my bedroom and bathroom, the little girls bedroom oh, my!, mounds of laundry, etc.) so that we will be ready to go on our family vacation to a cabin in Colorado for five days. Everyone is excited about going! Hanging out, hiking, swimming, biking, maybe even fishing. We'll see what happens.

We will leave two days after Bee gets back from the trek.

This will also be two days after bio#2 starts summer school. She will miss a couple of days, and hopefully this will not cause too much of a fuss. She needs the Summer school, but she is already a mess about how "not fair" it is that she has to go to school when everyone else doesn't. If we were to postpone or cancel the trip due to school it will go very hard on all of us. The whole family is looking forward to this trip and so this is where we have a balancing act of what needs to happen with what may cause more problems. We already had a full on multiple melt down when we had to cancel one family get away with extended family due to extended family insensitivities to CPS regulations and refusal to acknowledge our foster girls as actual family members (still too miffed myself to write a post on that one, although it is very pertinent to foster care...its on my to do list...FYI, No, we can't won't "just get respite for them" because finding room for them is inconvenient).

When we get back we have a couple days before our scheduled CFT, then a home visit from the girl's caseworker as well as a visit with bio dad for the girls.

Then some sports clinics for Bee and Bella, and a couple pic-nics with our licensing agency to wrap up June.

We have a few things scheduled from there, but I just can't think that far ahead yet. We also have to fit a camping trip in somewhere this Summer (who was the crazy person who promised the kids camping!? Oh...me...sigh).