Day 4,309

The Green and Orange Promotion and the Cousin Farewell

These two athletes worked their tails off and we now have a couple of green and orange belts in the family! Congratulations, Bearett and Amelia! It's such a treat to get to watch them both enjoy and excel in such a useful, unique sport. 

Then it was off to Ms. Candace's bridal shower!





And finally, a bittersweet farewell to Monroe and Mila. 

Our week with them was filled with so much joy, so much teaching, so much fun and so much love. They left an imprint in our hearts that has caused us to yearn for their cuddles, for their voices, for their giggles and love. We will miss you dearly, sweet cousins and we can't wait to see you again!!

Day 4,131

The Anticipation is Increasing!

Special delivery!

Daddy was hard at work at the church, helping to build a new playground for the kids! And though we may not be able to be hands on like he is, we can bring thirsty, sweaty men smoothies! Thanks for all your hard work, gentlemen! 

Aaaand, back at it!

Sissy earned her fourth strip and is all set for promotion to yellow belt!



Bearett and Amelia are really loving their new sport. And this mama loves it too. 

Day 4,054

The MMA Family?

Bub is getting GOOD!

He’s picked up Taekwondo pretty fast and is excelling as he enjoys the pace and technicality of the sport. 

To the girls’ surprise, as they waited on their next activity, a playground was right behind the Taekwondo building!

Ta-da! 

TMMA’s newest athletes! 

Amelia and Ella Mae have both decided to step away from gymnastics. It’s been something that’s been on the table for the last few months, and between the time commitment, the cost commitment, and their inability to no longer wear shorts to practice in, we decided it was time to try either something else entirely or another gym. They girls both decided that this is what they wanted to try, so here we are!

They first had to participate in a tryout. 

It was adorable. 



And at the end, they were both awarded their white belts and now practice with Bearett! All three, same place, same time, same modest uniform, and same self-defense training in the making. I can’t really complain :)

Day 3,719

The New and Improved Fridays

New days at Mom’s all-ladies gym!



New days at the all-kids upstairs library space! We like Fridays!

Day 3,672

The CBC Sunday in St. Pete

It looked a whole lot different than worship within the body at home on Sunday, but for the first time in a while, we were able to worship alongside some of our church family here in St. Pete when our friends stayed the night on Saturday! It was a loud and busy morning—I’ll be re-listening to the sermon at some point this week—but what a delight it was to be with our people on our most favorite day of the week. 

The whole weekend was such an encouragement to my heart and I’m so thankful for all the time we were able to spend together. This year has been one unlike any we’ve had since becoming members at CBC, but continually, the Lord has been so kind to put people and conversations and experiences into our lives that tether us both more closely to Him and more closely to the church He’s graciously added us to. We are missing our people more than ever, but feeling fueled for the remainder of the season through faithful friends and honest conversations. We love you Twombly family!!

….aaaaaaand, now back to our normally scheduled nonsense! To be fair, the filtered water button is on the inside of this refrigerator, so she was only meaning to be self-sufficient  



And for more fun: Daddy did some sprinting and chasing and diving and tumbling all in a days work on Sunday! He’s seemed to find himself in numerous situations this season that require a certain degree of extra effort and quick thinking and he’s absolutely killed it each time!! 

Yer out!!

Day 3,617

The Reset

Daddy decided to put the kids through a workout Thursday morning. With extra energy consistently being Bearett’s quickest way into trouble, mitigating it is becoming quite necessary for everyone’s sanity. He’s eight and my goodness, the child is endlessly filled with all sorts of ideas and wiggles and screams and snorts and continues to provoke his sisters any chance he gets. I’ve been told again and again that this sort of energy is totally normal from boys BUT OH MY WORD MAKE IT STOP FOR FIVE MINUTES!!! So Dad did. Only he needed to correct some sloppy form before they got too far into their exercises.  

When you have an athlete for a daddy, it comes with the territory. 

Dad timed their 20 seconds on, 20 seconds off workout from the couch and by the end of it, we’d succeeded in tiring that wild child out alongside his sisters. However, it wore off rather quickly and soon enough, we were right back in to the thick of snarls and spastic movements and flying objects and screaming sisters. Boy moms: ya feel me? 

Tuesdays and Thursdays are now much more busy with gymnastics in the evenings, so our routine has since changed a bit. Once school starts, my guess is that we’ll attend less games and likely be even later to them than we already are. We usually show up somewhere in the fifth or sixth inning. Games start at 6:35 here, but that’s usually the time the kids are waking up from their naps! So we get there when we can and have only somehow missed Daddy pitching once this season while home. We nearly did it a second time, having to sprint up the hill and into the foyer to watch his first inning of work on the tv. 

Luckily, he went out for another inning and this time, our tardiness allowed us to watch him from right behind home plate. 

:)

I’m thankful for these sweet memories watching Bub watch his Dad. Adam’s had a rough past month of work. After two months of pitching better than he’s ever pitched in his life and expecting from the beginning to spend little time in Durham, he’s faltered and has since waded through some muddy waters of late. I could use many words to describe the unmet expectations the last three years of baseball has met us with, but instead, I was thankful to just stand back and enjoy the scene before me. 

After Adam was finished—a solid outing spanning parts of three innings—we assumed our regular bullpen seats and ate our homemade spaghetti supper. 

Afterwards, it was back to silliness and lots of Durham Bulls smiles. This week is shark week here at the DBAP, and so Wool E. Bull was appropriately dressed in his life guarding gear, though instead of saving small children from big scary sharks, he was saving his small tail from big scary children. 

<3

Day 3,387

The Winter Skills Showcase 2020

Bubba and Katesy time!

(Bearett: front row, hood on, all the way to the right. Ella Mae: the light pink snowball in the back row—the only one totally out of line, of course.)

Yesterday was the Winter Skills Showcase for all the Rec kids at our gym! They got to participate in a “meet,” to show off all the things they’ve been learning over the Fall season. 

It’s almost your turn, Molls! And fancy seeing you in the stands, Amelia! Good job encouraging, girls!

...at least for a little while.

It seemed that the “I’ve had enough of this” bug made its way through BOTH my littlest girls. Ella Mae decided 1/4 of the way into her “meet” that the crowd was too scary and she was done. 

Ok then. 

Moving on. 

Bubba on the other hand, loved the crowd and showed us all his new Ninja skills, including running across a wobbly beam, front flips, climbing across bars, and doing the American Ninja Warrior back and forth jumps!

He did the vault too! Jumped all the way up there *correctly* and with no hands!! Pretty impressive, Bub!

And hey, would ya look at that...with just a little help from her Big Sister, Ella Mae found her spunk and dove headfirst back into her wild self. She’s pictured in the very middle, attempting to beat Amelia in a forward-roll-across-the-floor-contest. Pretty good, Sis!

And once she let loose, she was running and jumping and cartwheeling and finishing EVERYTHING!

Ta da!

Nice work, Bearett and Ella Mae!! 

Ah, Mama’s heart is SO happy!



Four buff, balanced, and flexible “champions” for Jesus, comin right up!

(Now Ella Mae calls medals “champions,” just like Bearett did when he got his first baseball trophy. Ha!)

Day 3,282

The Fishermen, the Gymnasts, and the Outright

While the boys fished, 

the girls gymnastic-ed. 

Molly likes hanging on the high bar. 

Ella Mae almost has her bridge. 

Amelia can do a non-jumping, straight leg pullover. 

Molly lost to the combination of the chalk bucket and the fan. 

Ella Mae has zero fear. 

And Amelia—after not even being able to do a car wheel when she started team a little over six months ago, can now do one on the beam. 

But nothing beats the fact that Old Mama can still do a swinging backflip off the high bar. Gotta prove I belong in this quickly growing gymnastics family. 

Afterwards, the boys met us at Happy Depot for some home improvement items. This might be a familiar place all offseason. 



Yep, offseason. 

We’re at least pretty sure. 

There’s a small chance Adam could get picked up by a team to play out the remainder of September, but it’s unlikely. 

So, we finally received word that Adam cleared waivers, which means that when the Marlins essentially cut him from the MLB roster, any team could’ve selected him off waivers and placed him directly onto their 25 man MLB roster, transferring his contract to that new team. Under the normal circumstances of a regular season, this is likely what would’ve happened. However, since Adam has yet to throw a pitch in 2020–after having landed on the Injured List with the Coronavirus only 3 games into the season—the likelihood that a team would pick him up without seeing any performance this year was extremely low, especially after having COVID. And to that end, for the Marlins to reinstate him to the roster after not having thrown for an entire month while their “bullpen reinforcements” were throwing great, also proved to be greatly risky on their end. So, now, the Marlins have “outrighted” Adam, which means that—again, under normal circumstances—he’d finish out the rest of this year’s contract in the minor leagues, being able to play his way back to Miami. However, since there is no minor league season this year, Adam’s season is finished. Following the close of the 2020 season (the last game of the World Series), Adam will become a Free Agent, which means he will no longer be “owned” by the Marlins and will be available to sign a contract with the team of our choice, given that that team has made an offer to him. 

I think that’s basically it?

We’re new at this whole “DFA/waivers/outright” stuff, so sorry if it’s confusing. It’s a very typical event that happens in baseball, but because of the virus, it’s all a bit more confusing and a lot less forgiving. Either way, we’re still doing well, content, and trusting the Lord. And if Adam has to be home for an extended period of time this year, well, he does love being home and we love having him. So, it’s not “officially” bye bye Marlins, but basically maybe almost. Who knows, maybe they’d resign us next season and we’ll still be Fish for Life. Hey, a girl can hope.