With whom? Actually, not in love with anyone- he just is in love with life! He finds joy everyday in so many things – in the musical Aladdin he was in a few months ago, in playing the piano (and the trumpet and the guitar…), in playing volleyball (and basketball and soccer…) in reading (learning, debating, discovering), in having friends over, in working out, in… Just about everything in life brings him joy and he is a super awesome person to be around and hang out with!
Every year we begin to prepare for the new season. Not spring, or winter or even summer or fall… but birthday season! From April 15-May 25 we celebrate all of the kid’s birthdays. We sit down with each child and ask, “What do you want for your birthday breakfast and dinner? Is there a special dessert? Do you want a party with lots of people, or just a small one with a few friends?” Each of the kids always choose different things, but we hope that each knows that they are loved and celebrated. Of course, throw into the crazy birthday month an exciting volleyball season, a high school musical ‘The music man’, awards ceremonies, and let’s not forget mothers day…oh and… well let’s just say that it has been a full month!
If you saw Jay a few years ago, he had straight hair. Now, with that crazy introduction of being a teenager with new hormones, his hair has gone curly, and his biceps are growing, and he even has a little mustache!
He has been playing basketball for the past few months and it is always fun to watch him take the ball down the court, go in for a lay-up, or shoot from the top of the key. He is really growing up in so many ways, but especially in his maturity. He is learning to love those who are more challenging to get along with, and he is finding ways to be himself (silly and fun!) while still showing respect to teachers and classmates.
We are so proud!
The best way to give love to this 12-year-old son is to sit with him and listen. He loves to talk about all of his ideas. Just the other day he said, “I wish we had a debate club at school, then I could debate with people who enjoyed it.” He will definitely find a career that enables him to share his thoughts and ideas with others. But before he gets into that stage of life, there is school…
This weekend Jay is at his first school retreat. Ben is with him as a middle school teacher and they are staying at a place a few hours away from Budapest. Interestingly, the school adopts a system similar to the British, and divides the school into ‘houses.’ I thought that was just a Harry Potter thing, but my kids informed me that it is a British thing. Who knew?! It will be lots of games, snacks, activities, and they will also have a speaker who will share with them about God’s love. I’m looking forward to seeing the photos and hearing all about the activities.
For this year in Budapest, we tried to find a place close enough to the kids school that they could bike there sometimes. Thankfully, we found a place not too far away. However, the next step was to find a bike for each child for a reasonable cost, not as easy as one might think 🙂 After some good research (because Ben is so good at that!) we found a guy here in Budapest who finds bikes that need some work, does all the work in his home garage, and sells them for a good price. Yesterday he brought the bikes and Jay was definitely the most excited to have some freedom of movement! I foresee many bike trips this year.
On a different note, a few days ago we went into Budapest downtown just to explore. Jay didn’t really want to go because he is not into just, “Walking around in a hot downtown with no destination.” However, he didn’t really have a choice, we were going downtown and that was the plan. What I want to highlight is that Jay took a few minutes to digest that this was going to happen whether he wanted to or not, and then he chose to have a good attitude. We ended up having a great day, and Jay had fun taking funny photos with metal sculptures. I was so proud of the way he adapted his attitude by choice! Well done son!
I try to write a small blog post about our kids individually from time to time, so that one day, I can make them a little book with all of these posts compiled together. Well, today I want to mention something that Jay has been doing lately, making music. He likes to sing, he likes to create music on the piano, and he really likes to listen to music. If he could have music playing on a super loud speaker all day long, he would!
Here in Rogaland Norway, the YWAM team has done so much to try to make us feel welcome. When they heard that our kids wouldn’t be able to continue piano lessons for the next few months because we didn’t have anywhere to practice and do lessons online, they found us an older keyboard they had and put it in our room. Now the kids can keep learning piano, and the exciting part is that it can record different tracks that Jay can save on a USB stick and then compile together on my computer. He is thrilled! I’ll share one of his creations here soon.
