July 2024

 Summing up the rest of July in one post - we got back from our road trip and got into a new norm.  Due to the circumstances of the marital separation, Evie and I had to stay with a friend of mine for two months.  Evie had her own room there, and my friend couldn't have been lovelier or more supportive.  We were able to bring our dogs too, which was a huge comfort to Evie.

Evie continued her karate classes and graduated to a yellow belt.

Will, who met up with us during our road trip, stayed for two more weeks, which gave Evie a nice distraction.  They wore each other's nerves a bit, but that's expected when you're basically living like siblings who are 14 months apart.  Matt invited us over one night for pizza and Star Wars, and I think Will fell in love with Matt's apartment.  He has replicas of several movie props including about 15 light sabers, and he graciously let the kids have a light saber fight outside.  He also bought them water guns - continuing to earn that "Cool Uncle" status.  It was Evie's first time to watch a Star Wars movie all the way through.

Testing out the water guns

Star Wars, Episode II

Light saber fight 

Evie and Will attended a karate camp, which they were not impressed with so they ended up just hanging out a lot that week - they spent one day with my cousin Daniel's family which was nice.  Another week, Evie went to Zoo Camp, which gave her and Will a break from each other so they had a bit more novelty when they were together.  Will flew from Memphis to Destin to meet up with my brother, and Evie had a bit of a hard time adjusting to being an only kid again, especially being displaced from home.

We tried to make the best of it, though.  My friend was really great with including Evie in meal planning, complimenting her for taking care of household chores, and finding ways to make her feel at home.

Evie and Beau sharing a chair

Matt was a big help too.  He supervised a visit with Seth when Evie said she wanted to see Daddy.  He could tell Evie and I were both struggling with a lot of emotions and the general disruption to our lives, and he planned a nice getaway day for us.  We went to a town about an hour away to check out a car museum.  Evie saw a graveyard across the street from the museum that we wandered in a bit.  Then we went to the safari park to feed the animals and check out their zoo, and closed out the day with an escape room.

The Mystery Machine at the car mueseum

The zebras were unimpressed

It's nice to have a tall uncle

We escaped!

Another day, Matt came over and revived some of his "young clown" skills as he says, and showed Evie how to make balloon animals.  There were soooooo many balloon animals in Evie's room by the time we moved out...