Home Again

The weather back in Michigan was (and still is) yuck. We ecountered snow on our drive home and there was more of it on Sunday. It was not a very nice welcome back. 

This week Ben started soccer. We weren't allowed to choose the days we wanted for practice or even have a preference so of course he got the days I was hoping he wouldn't- Mondays and Wednesdays. We had signed Lucy up for volleyball (it starts next week) and that will also be on Mondays and Wednesdays. And to add to the fun, church activities are Wednesday nights. Those days are now going to be crammed full of crazy. Lucy's volleyball will typically be done by 6:30 so it won't interfere with church activities but Ben's practice ends at 7pm so he will always be super late. Not ideal.

Ben's Monday soccer practice was rescheduled to Tuesday because they decided 30 degrees was too cold and Tuesday was in the 40's. Still too cold for me. There were a few parents outside who seemed to already know eachother. I hid out in my car to not only stay warm but to avoid that awkward small talk, meeting new people stuff that I just hate. 

Wednesday afternoon I had Caroline's family over for a bit and then I had to rush and start dinner before taking Ben to practice. I had planned to drop him off and go finish dinner but thanks to the rain, the coach said to stick around in case they ended early. They did not end early. I should've just left because since I stayed neither Ben nor I got any dinner since we had to go straight to the church. He was 20 minutes late to the activity and I guess that's just how it's going to be for the next couple months.

Friday Lucy and I baked a lot of cupcakes (from scratch) for some people. We first delivered to our neighbors because I felt like we needed to show them we still care since I tend to hide out most of winter and then we had been out of town. Then Lucy and I brought some to the Bloomfield's, they lost their cat in a pretty tragic garage door accident.

After dinner, Tyler and I delivered cupcakes to 2 seminary families. The first family we dropped off with is in the middle of a crazy court case. They have given us some awkward details on all of it and honestly Tyler and I thought it sounded so bizarre that we were struggling to believe it, it doesn't help their credibility that they are all a little strange and like to air out drama on facebook. After bringing the cupcakes to them and talking with them, I am finally beginning to believe it's all true. The gist is that their kid tattled on a drug ring and the drug ring, in order to discredit their kid, had fellow students charge him with sexual misdemeanors. This is seriously the stuff of books. Near the end they mentioned that this ring also ties into a sex trafficking ring where they convince teens to get emancipated from their parents and then sell them. My stomach dropped when they said this because our next visit was to a family where their daughter (our seminary student) had ran away from home and was working on getting emancipated because she thinks her parents are too strict (they took away her phone and had grounded her from friends). It just felt like too much of a coincidence. So when we visited the next family Tyler took aside the dad and told him what we had heard. The dad said he could believe it because some adult was helping their daughter and that would surely make sense. I don't know how any of this will plan but it all feels so heavy and scary and hard. How can I send my kid to the high school that both these teens went knowing all these things? Gosh, the world is a terrifying place.

After those visits where we tried to uplift these families while dread filled my soul, I needed a nice night in. The boys went over to Jacob's house and the girls and I watched the movie Clifford the Big Red Dog. It definitely was not quite the same story as the books but it was a cute movie for kids and a good way to end a heavy day.

Saturday morning I took the 3 younger kids and Jacob and his cousin to our Primary Easter Egg Hunt. Ugh I hate big gatherings but Grace's family came so that was nice. They served breakfast and then had this massively long Easter Presentation. They had people act out the different witnesses of Christ- it took an hour, no joke, and you could tell a lot of the kids were struggling to focus near the end (me included). It was nice and the people presenting did well, it was just far too long. Then they told the older kids to let the younger kids go first and released them all. That was a poor choice. The older kids (including mine) did not wait and the mass chaos was over in minutes. I ended up telling my kids to give some of their eggs to the younger ones because they were such stinkers.

Saturday afternoon the girls had a birthday party to go to. It Penny's bf from school and Lucy is bf's with Penny's bf's sister so they had been excited for this party forever. I dropped them off at the park for the party and then went to a nearby Walmart and Dollar Tree to get some things for Easter. When I came back, they had appeared to all disappear. No one was on the playground and the table that had all the party decorations was clear of things. Plus the van I had seen them pull up in was gone. After all of yesterday's crazy I started to feel quite a bit anxious. I mean this family went to their school and I had had their girls over twice, and they seemed nice and normal, could they have really stolen my girls? I sent a text to the mom, I called her...no response. After starting to really panic, the girls all suddenly appeared from behind a building, Turns out they had all moved to a ramada that was behind a building because it had a fire place and the girls were cold. I felt stupid for panicking before even looking there but also I felt immense relief to have found my girls.

After finding them I conversed with another family there that also goes to the girl's school and their daugher may or may not have a bit of a crush on Steven. She was disappointed that Steven didn't come. Could just be because she was the only teenager there but also, maybe?