November 2024
All vibes no brake 😩.
This month was a solid mix of fun, struggle, and triumph. The weather finally turned cold, we took some adventures, and took in an adventure. A packed month for our family and I’m excited to chat about it.
New Inhabitant
We welcomed a new foster child into our home as well! Let’s call him Steve. He’ll likely be with us for a bit assuming his parents follow their case plan, and it’s been interesting. Being a foster parent for the short time we’ve been foster parents, has been illuminating as to how much stability means to me. Ironically stability is one of the things a foster child needs.
But the lack of stability is rattling for me. Is a child coming today? Is a child leaving this week? Will DFACs show up tomorrow? It’s not always a day of uncertainty, but having a homie come into the picture with trauma, their own schedule that they can’t always communicate to you, and a set of experiences you don’t understand creates instability. Obviously, it’s much harder for the child than us I don’t want to communicate that, but I can’t get quotes from these kids so I’m just communicating my experience.
All of that is expected when you become a foster parent, but it doesn’t mean you have the ability to know how you’ll react to it. Frankly, I’m bad at that part of it and am tryna brute force that side of things till my heart comes along for the ride. Steve fits in well with my kids, they love him and treat him as though he’s been a part of the family since the beginning. How I adapt well to a challenging hike is how they adapt to a person just coming to live with us out of nowhere, it’s very impressive and illuminating.
Camping and Disney
We took our first family camping trip! Camping YouTube videos finally became so prevalent in our lives we had to sack up and go camping or turn off the Outdoor Boys. So, we took too many trips to REI, packed up, booked a Hipcamp site, and went. Somehow, it went exactly as planned. The only adapting we had to do was the weather was rainy so we bought some firewood instead of forging it ourselves.
Smores were aplenty, the kids at hot dogs, and we ate some chicken pot pie on a cast iron pan. We even slept pretty well. The sound machine on our phones was vital because who can sleep with all the natural outdoor noise?
It was a blast of an experience. We’ll definitely be doing it again soon. In fact, I’m taking a backpacking trip with a buddy in a few weeks as a result of this, and look forward to sharing how that goes next month.
A few weeks after our camping trip we journeyed down to the mouse’s house for my daughter’s birthday. Staying at the Floridian during the Christmas season was certainly nice. The gingerbread house was cool and all that, but honestly unless you’re using the spa and all the other crap they have at the resort there are better Disney resorts for the money and just coming to the Floridian for a meal to see the Christmas vibes.
We got the full Mickey Christmas experience. Did the Christmas party, park hopped around all four parks, saw three firework shows and left exhausted. A solid trip all around and so fun to celebrate her birthday there.
Best and Worst of the month:
Best thing I watched, read, or listened to: Conclave and Manchester Orchestra’s performance of COPE at the Eastern.
Worst thing I watched, read, or listened to: The Chicago Bear’s final drive on Thanksgiving to give my Lions another win.
Best experience of the month: Camping with the family and crossing the finish line of my marathon (which I posted about here)
Best thing I ate: Chicken Pot Pie over the campfire
