Let's get a few things out of the way.
1. I birthed a baby
2. He is now 5 months old
There you go. That's my explanation of where I've been at since May 28, 2019!
Seriously though, last time I posted on this blog, we were right on the verge of starting our busy summer team-hosting schedule; I was also only slightly more than a month out from getting ready to head to the U.S. for my maternity leave and then our family furlough.
Over the 5 (total) months of my maternity leave and our furlough, I purposely didn't do much updating through newsletters and obviously no blogging. Miguel was very active on social media, so most people still knew where we were at. We were at a point in our ministry life of really needing a break, as anyone who works in full-time ministry can relate with. Being able to take that time to focus on becoming a family of 3 and re-sort priorities for this new, current stage of life was exactly what we needed.
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July 2019
Baby Shower the weekend I landed Stateside, a month before my due date |
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July 2019
Baby Shower |
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July 2010
37 wks pregnant - we stayed with my sister's family in Ohio and she put her many talents to use to grab some preggo pics to help fill in the time while waiting for Miguel to join me |
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August 2019
Miguel came a week before my due date. Our niece, Nikki, loved having us there! |
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July/August 2019
Miguel did a lot of cooking for the month+ we were in Ohio |
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August 2
Some of our first visitors included Grandparents, aunts, and uncles (and of course Nikki - who LOVES baby Kai to this day) |
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| Malakai Sem - born August 9, 2019 - week 1 |
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September 2019
Miguel took a trip to Kansas City for FCA training while we were in MI for a month |
We also spent 2 weeks in MD visiting Bay Area Community Church and working on paperwork for my Dominican residency and Kai's dual citizenship. For some reason, we don't have many photos of that trip!
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October 2019
We headed back to Ohio for a few weeks while waiting on some paperwork stuff for Miguel's U.S. citizenship and my Dominican residency |
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October 2019
We got to do a lot of fall stuff, including a corn maze! |
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November 2019
We made a flying 2 day trip to Atlanta to visit friends and ministry partners. Kai was given his first baseball! |
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November 2019
This is one of few family pics we have :P |
We also spent a few weeks in FL right before heading home. Our trip home got delayed due to some super crazy, random complications with my passport. The Dominican embassy in D.C. mailed in to FL and my passport fell out along the way (the package arrived opened). I had to get another passport "same day", mail it back to D.C. for the reissued visa, and wait for it to be mailed back to where we were in FL. It got delayed 4 days instead of coming next day! The good thing that came from that was being able to spend extra quality time with our friends (who are really family!) who we hadn't seen in over a year and a half, as well as go out on the only baby-free date Miguel and I have had so far.
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November 2019
We came back just in time for the FCA DR annual marriage retreat/conference |
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| In December, Miguel got called up for an immigration related appointment, so we ended up taking Christmas vaca and going to ND from MI via train. My sister's family and home church there were completely surprised! This trip took Kai's number of states visited up to 13 before 5 months old. |
We got back just in time (again!) for the first team of 2020.
29 students and teachers from Atlanta spent the week with FCA in San Pedro
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January 9, 2020
Kai is becoming a super smiley, friendly baby. He's hit 20 lbs. and 29 in. this month.
He's super active - working on crawling (he scoots on his belly all over the house), working on sitting (still uses his hands for balance), and working on teething. He zooms around in his walker and babbles and growls and LOVES being outdoors. |
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| He loves going with Miguel to work one day a week, allowing me to work on stuff like blogging for a few baby-free hours. |
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January 21, 2020
Friends from church surprised Miguel for his 29th birthday. |
We are finally settled back into a semi-normal routine.
Miguel is studying for his naturalization interview, which should come up in February or the end of March. He will be going to Dubai for FCA's annual International Capacity Conference mid-March. He's working in coordinating a trip to Atlanta for some of our coaches' teams. They received an invitation to a tournament coming up in May and navigating all the visa and trip details was a little overwhelming for them to do on their own. There's a potential he'll be traveling with them, meaning he's got potentially 3 trips coming up before the summer.
I'm focusing primarily on being mama to Kai. It sometimes seems like I see him growing right before my eyes! Some days, I feel less productive than ever before - I'm not as actively involved in hands-on ministry as before and the daily tasks of taking care of a baby seem so menial at times. Other days, it seems like I'm grasping at oil as each minute flies by before I can fully grasp and treasure all the changes and learning my son is going through.
This year, I have some goals for this blog that are a bit different than what I've done so far. This blog has mostly held stories of my missionary life and the twists and turns it's taken me, and now us, on. I've been trying to figure out what it means to be intentional in motherhood while not using it as an excuse to ignore people within my reach. One way of exploring new opportunities is creating more content for this blog. I don't know exactly how it will look, yet, but it will definitely include mom stuff, foreign living stories in a more detailed way, inspirational/devotional content, and some practical post such as what it's been like navigating dual residency and citizenship processes.
My next blog post is going to be our full birth story. This type of content doesn't interest everyone, but I want to have it documented somewhere, and for those interested in birth stories, you'll be able to relive it with me.
Until next time!
