Post 4th Photo Rewind

Yesterday was the USA's 250th birthday.  It should have been festive and fun like the bicentennial, but instead it felt a bit like a big dud.  The country feels so divided, with at least half (if not more) feeling abandoned and betrayed by an administration that's doing whatever it feels like doing, and definitely not doing so much of what the entire platform was about before.  It's exhausting for those of us who saw some version of this coming, although I'm not sure anyone really expected things to get this weird.  But here we are.  For an event that was originally being planned out for years and then got taken over by the current administration with a sparsely attended "state fair" on the National Mall, it just feels as botched as everything else.  So many of us want to be patriotic, dammit, but it's hard to feel pride in your country when so many people are struggling.  There was a picture that rose to prominence today, of a black woman sitting on public transportation in DC while a group of masked white nationalists headed to where they were marching.  If that doesn't capture how messed up things feel right now, I'm not sure anything does.  Our day was pretty low-key--it rained really hard in the afternoon and slowly improved over the course of the day, but it was so incredibly humid, which just made all the firework smoke hang there forever.

We had a very hot week, much of it with the heat index around 100 (and as high as like, 107).  It made the pool completely lovely, although Jacob got absolutely eaten up by mosquitos when we tried a night swim the other night.  Friday was great until this weird front came through with dark clouds and crazy wind for about five minutes.  Somehow the rain behind it completely missed us, but it was enough to chase me out of the pool...boo.  I've mostly been in to clean it, but at least it's nice.

Anyway, it's been a couple busy and exhausting weeks, in part because of my year-end at work, in part because Jacob has had another change of heart regarding school, and adjusting to summer break is always a little challenging.  Before I get into any of that, I figured I should go back and catch up on some pictures I never got to post.  

This was from Carter's game a few weeks ago.  The day had been nice and warm, but very windy, and by the end of the game it was so cold!  But then, at the end of the night, we got this:   

That weekend was Jacob's birthday.  It was pretty low-key as he didn't ever get us a list (and we sort of joked that prep school might be enough of a gift--though we did order him some things later), and he also had things going on each morning that prevented me from making birthday cinnamon rolls or anything like that.  But on his birthday we did go to Buffalo for a pre-Father's Day visit with Craig's parents.  We got him a gluten-free ice cream cake so we could sing to him.

The next day--on Father's Day--my parents came in to watch Carter play baseball, and then they stayed for lunch and cake.  Carter's team didn't do very well, but he did get a great hit.  And while the cake wasn't fancy and decorated like usual (as this whole thing was planned pretty last minute), it was delicious!

One day early that week, I had a work thing where we got out a bit early.  I had some time to kill before going to grab Jacob for something, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day, so it occurred to me that it could still be peak rose season at the Maplewood Rose Garden.  I knew it might be a little late for true peak, and we'd just had torrential rains a day or so before, but I figured it was worth a shot.  And while they were definitely past peak, there was still a lot of beauty. 

Caught this bee right off the bat

This color was so lovely!

I loved how this one was pink on the front and edges, and white on the back of the petals.

Another bee butt!

A ladybug!

In most cases I had to hunt for these, so you can imagine how amazing it is during peak!  I'm always a little hesitant to go there because it's in the city, but it was midday on a weekday.  I did actually get catcalled a bit by a worker, so that wasn't great, but I felt safe enough and was glad I went.

That Wednesday was Carter's last day of school.  He was supposed to go to Seabreeze that Monday, but the torrential rain canceled that.  He had one normal day and then his final half day.  The difference between his starting picture and ending picture are pretty crazy.  But about 4 inches and 40 pounds will do that.  He even wore the same outfit (not on purpose) and you can see how much differently the shirt fits him.

Remember that last color gazania I said I needed to take a picture of?  This is it!
  

I came to the official realization tonight that Carter and I won't be able to pull off going to Jacob's tournament near Atlanta.  That means Craig is going to have to drive the whole thing himself, which I hate.  Because Jacob hasn't been sure he was going--partly because of his foot with the glass and partly because all of his other anxiety-related excuses--they didn't buy the cheap flights a few weeks ago, and now they're expensive.  Jacob also turned 18 without a photo ID (don't even get me started), so it's not a sure thing that he could have flown anyway.  We also weren't sure when we were going to have to leave, and we inadvertently ended up with a lot of stuff scheduled during that time--Carter's next infusion (which really can't be pushed), his dentist appointment (which is super hard to reschedule due to staffing issues), a few baseball games, and the start of his colonoscopy prep on the day we'd be coming back.  We might have been able to push it back a couple hours and make it work, but knowing how we travel, things always go longer and any delays would have been impossible.  It's a bummer to not be able to go, for a few reasons, but we'll just have to make the best of it here.

As for Jacob's school situation, he is not going to prep school after all.  He got the training plan last weekend and came to the realization there's no way his body will survive that.  We talked to the coach and there wasn't really any wiggle room, so it's simply not going to work.  It's a bummer, but maybe mostly because we now need to figure out something else, and there are zero good options.  He absolutely does not want to go back to BK, and is refusing to play basketball there.  Buffalo came back up, but that would take so much to make that work.  We're also back to the Pittsford idea, but there's (at least) one huge thing causing an issue with that, so I don't know if that can work either.  We're at a loss and it absolutely sucks.  So that will be something that needs to be figured out ASAP once they're back.  

Anyway, we did have a little diversion last weekend.  Craig felt it might be an important reset for Jacob, and it was a good weekend, but unfortunately, the only clarity we got on his school issue was negative.  Sigh.  More on that soon...