Summer Things- Mid summer catch up

 Our summer has gotten off to a fun start. 

Bridget took a trip to NYC with her Girl Scout Troop, received her Girl Scout Silver Award and celebrated with a party.  Her silver project happened during the pandemic and she sewed tons of face masks for the Cotactin Furnace Historical Society. She and I attended their festival back in Sept 2021 and brought a large supply of historical fabric inspired masks right as their supply was depleted. It was a well-deserved award.

Johanna wrapped up her 3rd grade year with Field Day and was soon in the pool doing summer swim. She has swim meets most Saturdays and is getting faster as the summer goes. Johanna also attended Howard County Girl Scout Day Camp for a week and came home singing all of the camp songs. She also did St Mark Drama Camps for 2 separate weeks. With Harry Potter and Encanto themes.

Rachael is working at Weiss Grocery in the bakery and making visits to Boston to visit Josh. She was so glad to be able to volunteer at HCGSDC on 2 days that she wasn't working.

Megan is working at the farm, bottling olive oil and is returning the favor to the Kureks as the driver to the farm. Joseph and Michael drove her to work previous years and now it is her opportunity to drive Katherine. The slightly rusty, no AC, crank window car is doing the trick.

Emma is working in the McKeldin section of Patapsco State Park this year, and is running art programs. This year after getting small craft certified she has added Canoe and Paint events. Megan joined her on one and had a blast.

We had a good 4th of July in Catonsville at the Shumakers. A good number of people/cousins were out of town and there was more coming and going but still a lot of fun. I missed the handing out of rocket pops while I was picking up Josh and Rachael after work, but I did get to eat one. Josh brought his fire spinning tools and did a demonstration for the party. It was pretty cool. Uncle Erik queued up some fire themed songs as Josh performed. For the first time I walked Johanna down to the high school with the bigger cousins to see the fireworks. It is an amazing show!

Then the next weekend amid near constant rain, we helped the Brinks set up for Crab Soup in their back yard. Jim headed over early on Saturday to help get the soup going, while I did a very rainy swim meet with Johanna. The rain turned more to a drizzle later in the afternoon and we got to enjoy the party. Megan held a good number of new babies, Bridget hung out with the young teens and Johanna got to swim in the pool after I went back home to get her swimsuit. Emma and Rachael were able to come by too.

Jim turns 50 and we go camping

 June 2021

We wanted to celebrate Jim's 50th Birthday and back in Spring we discussed some options that might work with the pandemic in consideration. We decided to go camping and go back to the KOA in Harper's Ferry, WV. It is only an hour away and we knew it was nice. We invited other families to join us and although not everyone could go a lot of them said yes and booked cabins in a cluster with us.

The Arnolds, Arciagas, Shumakers, and Mary Sue & Mak were all joining us to celebrate.

The cicada's were a concern, as the sound was deafening outside, but they has mostly subsided by the time Jim's birthday arrived. It was also the last week of school for Megan and Bridget so we would be heading up after school got out on Friday. Rachael met us at the house and we loaded in, after packing all of the camp gear in the van.

We arrived at KOA and settled into our cabins. A few families beat us there and had set out camp chairs. It was hot and humid. We added our camp chairs to the circle near the center of the cabin cluster. That night we made smores and just relaxed.

The next morning, people filtered out of cabins. I made our family some eggs and sausage and then plans for the day began to take shape. The kids were headed to the river, Eric brought fishing rods, and we had the KOA facilities to check out. Becky and I saw a Park ranger guided tour of the area on the schedule and decided to go. It was a great tour and I learned a lot from the Ranger about the civil war significance of the area and John Brown's raid. I am glad we went. We came back to find a happy group at the campsite, with kids all off at the river. 

Saturday dinner I was making a big group meal. Jim picked gumbo, so I got a big pot and we made use of the single propane burner. All of the Moms pitched in and helped me make the rice, grill the andouille sausage, slice the French and corn bread and set up the serving line. It was fantastic to work together. Dinner went great. Jim opened some gifts, drank some beers, laughed and smiled. We had his favorite dessert: cookies and had a cookie cake. Johanna carried the cookie cake as we sang "Happy Birthday".

It was a fun night. the kid's played ga-ga ball and went to the playground. They had glow bracelets and Johanna directed a glow-stick dance, that the teens happily played along with. Then we eagerly awaited Emma's arrival. She was working the later shift at the Park and was coming after work. She didn't want to miss Jim's 50th Birthday Celebration. She arrived after 11:00PM, still in uniform. It was great to have her join us. The four oldest shared a cabin and enjoyed talking late into the evening.

Sunday morning was a simple breakfast and packing up, with extra time to hang out and visit.

Happy 50th Birthday Jim!

  

New Job- Bond

It has been coming for a while and conditions were right for a shift in employment. But that decision to shift was still difficult. Jim loved working at Guinness but it was time to move on. Jim was amazing at being a tour guide but he wanted more and had hopes to move up in the company.  The pandemic brought changes moving his position under retail and it became apparent that there wasn't a path to advancement at Guinness for him. We were also getting really tired of him working weekends, holidays and evenings. It was wearing on our family. Jim's employment path has been covered in blessing and we trusted that the next step was no different.

He started looking at jobs in the sales/ distribution side of the industry and immediately got interviews. He got a job offer with Bond Distributing as a merchandiser and decided to say yes. The sales profession side of the industry will give him exposure to a whole new aspect of the industry and he will gain a whole new set of business skills. Being back at a salaried job with benefits and a regular weekday work schedule is also really appealing.

Leaving Guinness though was hard. He loved being a part of the Guinness brand. He loved getting to talk about his favorite beer and he enjoyed his co-workers. Jim told innumerable stories of his co-workers, their varied lives, struggles and journeys. Most of them were much younger than him and he became a solid source to them. When talking with them it came across that they really valued his solid decent presence and he became an example for them. It was hard to leave. On his last day his co-workers got together at the local after work hangout, State Fare. Lots of people turned out to send him off, buy him a drink, give a gift, and get a hug. I got a chance to join him that night and I was glad he got a good send off.

Jim's off-roading continues as he learns the ropes of a distributing company. The Rav-4 that we bought this past summer is coming in very handy as his office on the road. I see God's hand in all of this. God has us and I am so grateful.

Celebrating Jim

June 2019

It is harder these days to grab time with Jim and all of the girls at the same time but we made sure to celebrate Jim's birthday. On one of his days off, Jim and the three youngest girls and I went to Guinness for dinner. We had a good time seeing Jim's co-workers and having dinner.
 

On Father's Day we got together for the annual celebration at my Uncle Henry's. They were calling for rain so they shifted things around to eating crabs under the deck. Luckily the rain held off until later in the day and the kids were able to play outside on his property. We gathered all of the dads together for a picture. Jim is in very good company.

On Jim's actual birthday, Emma had spent the night and then hung out in the morning. She organized the sisters to make Jim a big cookie cake, his favorite.

Happy Birthday Papa!

Grand Opening!

August 3, 2018

The Guinness Open Gate Brewery and Barrel House is a crazy dream come true for Jim. He has always been passionate about the beer and was thrilled beyond measure when he found out that they were planning on opening their first US brewery in 60 years. Guinness was actually in real life opening up in our city. When we first heard the news Jim was still working at Sprint and joked around about working part-time there when it opened. Now over a year and a half later, he is working there full-time in the first cohort of employees.

Dreams do come true!

Guinness here he comes

June 2018

All of his hard work paid off. Jim pursued his dream of working for Guinness and after a year of unemployment, patience, and dedication, he got the job offer. The offer wasn't for the level of position that he had originally hoped but he was in. He accepted a position as a tour guide. He would get to talk to people everyday about beer and he would be great at it. We all knew it.

I am so proud of him.

With an accepted job offer Jim's birthday celebration felt brighter. That could have also been all of those candles.

All of the girls have been routing for Jim to get a job at Guinness and weren't surprised when it happened. The matra became "Gizness is his Bizness". To celebrate we all pitched in to customize a corn hole set for Father's day.

Unemployment was hard but I knew we were in God's hands. He had this. He had us.  He had our finances. I felt like we were following God's plan and that made everything easier.

How did I know this? Here is the back story: In May 2017 Bridget was falling behind at school and I started looking at transferring her to Catholic school. We looked at a few options and St. Mark's was the most promising. I prayed through it all and asked God for an obvious answer as to what to do. It was time to make a decision. That week Bridget had a very promising IEP meeting at her current school and we found out that the staff was receiving training specific to dyslexia and would be ready for Bridget in the Fall. Then my Dad found out that he wouldn't be returning to St. Mark's as a teacher. Then Jim lost his job. God gave me an obvious answer. I thanked him and told him I got the message. I got a clear message from God that He had a plan and part of that plan was Jim changing jobs. Knowing that Jim's job was part of God's plan, let me breathe and receive the grace that God was pouring out on us.

We are so blessed and I am so thankful.