Tag: family

July 2022 Adventure Date 4: Customized Tours Mount Rainier Day Tour

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I have to be honest, I had picked out a day tour to Olympic National Park when I was planning the trip – it sounded amazing with waterfalls and mountains and so much more. However, by the time I could book our tours in May, that particular excursion was sold out. So, a Mount Rainier Day Trip was booked instead. I have very few regrets about this tour – it was breathtakingly beautiful to be in Mount Rainier National Park, and it was really nice to have someone that knew all the history and the best vistas to show us around.

The tour started bright and early when Customized Tours picked us up at our hotel – they also dropped us off at the end of the day which was perfect since we decided not to rent a car. About 45 minutes into the trip, we stopped at a grocery store to get lunch and drinks for the day – it was nice to be able to save a little money on lunch, and it was also the ONLY time we had Starbucks the whole time we were in Washington. (Not for lack of trying, but they were either closed or prohibitively busy the whole time in Seattle.) The bus driver even provided a cooler with ice and some waters for us to grab throughout the day, and he allowed us to keep some of our lunch and drink items in it as well.

Shortly after we stopped for food, we stopped for our first views of Mount Rainier at a very small community park. It was a quick on and off stop, but got us pretty excited to get closer looks.

As you can see, we dressed in layers in anticipation of some cooler temperatures up on the mountain. We were to be sorely mistaken, though, as it was 85 degrees at the highest elevations we reached. Even with the snow still on the ground. Alas, our trip did not end up being the cooler temps we had heard about and longed for…

We kept traveling through a few more small towns and finally made it into the National Park. Our first stop in the park was in Longmire to hike a short trail, see our first in park views of the mountain, and shop at the gift shop. Oh, and use the restrooms, a necessity if you are busy hydrating all day. The short trail was through some forest – the trees were tall and beautiful. It was a lovely walk, although we felt rushed when we realized we were only halfway through the hike and had 5 minutes before our bus was supposed to leave…

Our next stop was at a scenic overlook. We had to practically drag Charlotte back to the bus at this stop – she kept wandering further down the road to take photos.

A little further up the road we made the next stop – Narada Falls. It is a 188 foot drop, so it actually towers over Niagara Falls, and it has a beautiful rainbow from most angles. It also gave us a lovely misting when we went to the view area – very welcome in the unexpected heat.

How gorgeous is that?!? We were also supposed to see Christine Falls, but that parking lot was under construction, so we were unable to stop. No worries, our next stop was Paradise (no really, that is what it is called) and we got to hike up to another waterfall called Myrtle Falls. The views were gorgeous, we were able to make snowballs, and there was once again a gift shop and bathrooms. Practically perfect in every way.

After leaving Paradise, a sharp-eyed passenger on our bus spotted a momma bear and 2 cubs in the distance. If you look closely at this photo, they are the black spot that looks like a dog and the slightly smaller black spots in the distance. It was really cool to watch them from afar.

Our last stop in the park was at the reflection lakes area. It is a series of 4-5 different lakes that could be really reflective on a calm day. Our day the water was a bit rough, so this is what we saw – still gorgeous!

After the reflection lakes, we made 2 quick stops at a suspension bridge over the Nisqually River and then a stop at a Ukranian bakery on the way home for some amazing pastries. It was so good that I didn’t even pause to take a photo.

I mentioned above that I have very few regrets, but I did have 3. The first regret is that we did not wear shorts – it was so hot, but the forecast had not really predicted that when we left. The second is that I wish we had a little more time at a few of the stops – nothing that could be helped, it was a group tour that had promised some set things and needed to deliver. Those regrets I can 100% live with and take responsibility for. The third regret is that I did not have noise canceling headphones like the rest of my family for the trip home. On the way home, a German grad student (studying history with a focus on war) asked our tour guide for war stories because he had served in the special forces in the Middle East. The guide used the bus’s PA system to start with a story that then quickly went off the rails into conspiracy theories. I have no problem with people believing differently than I do, but I do not think that this was the proper use of the PA system on a bus with a wide variety of people on it. So, in summary, dress for the actual weather, be ready to cut things a little short sometimes, and take noise canceling headphones and you will have a marvelous time on this tour.

Have you ever been to Mount Rainier? Did you go with a tour or on your own? What was your favorite part? Let me know in the comments.

July 2022 Adventure Date 3: Seattle Terrors Extended Tour

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I have always loved ghost stories and watching ghost shows on television – Haunted Travels Week was my Shark Week before all the streaming services. I do not like horror movies, but tell me about a ghost that might be in a hotel and I am all ears. So, when I was booking our tours for Seattle, I knew I wanted to find a ghost tour of some sort. Seattle Terrors Extended Tour was exactly what I was looking for!

Our tour guide met us by the Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle (spoiler alert – the Four Seasons is not part of the tour), and they were fantastic. They knew a lot of history and made it just spooky enough to be interesting, but not spooky enough to give my nightmares. There were serial killer stories, information about the first elevator west of the Mississippi – which was not used for the living, lots of spooky ghost stories, and ties to a couple of cults. We thoroughly enjoyed it! The tour was largely centered around Pike Place Market, but there were several other stops as well. I do not want to give too much away, but here are some photos from that evening – the market signs are amazing when it is dark!

Overall, I would definitely recommend this tour. We enjoyed the whole thing, including the extended tour stops. I would warn anyone wanting to do the tour that you will go up and down a lot of steps and hills – it is not for the faint of heart. Even the girls really enjoyed it, though, which is saying something.

Have you ever done a ghost or haunted tour? Where were you? Would you recommend it to others? Let me know in the comments! 🙂

July 2022 Adventure Date 2: FRS Clipper Whale Watching Cruise

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When we decided to travel to the Pacific Northwest for our vacation, I knew there were 2 things that I wanted to do above everything else. The first was to go on a whale watching tour. I have always loved dolphins and whales. I wanted to be a Marine Biologist (until I found out how few get to work with dolphins and whales) and I even adopted a humpback whale named Pepper when I was in college. I found the FRS Clipper Whale Watching Tour and immediately knew that it was the one. They have a guarantee on their site that you will see whales on their tour (with an asterisk, because really, whales are wild creatures and can’t be controlled or completely predicted). Anyway, it was the first of our activities that I booked after we had our flights and hotel.

We arrived at the pier for our tour and had not problems getting aboard and seated. I sprung for the first class deck to give us each a little more room, and I made sure we all had forward facing seats. It was a beautiful day – you could even see the mountains, which I’m told is often not the case. Mount Rainier was on one side and the Olympic Mountains were on the other, and it was just gorgeous to be out on the water and see so much green on the shore. Here are some scenic shots of Mount Rainier, the Olympic Mountains, and some cool suspension bridges we went under (you have probably seen video of one of the bridges twisting and turning in the wind – that is why there are 2 right next to each other).

We hadn’t been traveling very long when Charlotte and I decided to get spots on the top deck. I am so glad we did, because pretty soon we were told that a humpback whale had been spotted. It was so exciting to see it come to the surface a few times in a row to breathe and then do a full dive with its tail coming up. We got to watch this cycle twice before we left in search of the Orcas. I was also really excited when I went through the photos at home and saw I captured the tail twice. 🙂

We traveled about another hour to get to the area the Orcas had been spotted. I do want to point out that I know that Orcas are actually related to dolphins and not whales, but they repeatedly called them Killer Whales, and I am fine with it. It was amazing to watch the pod of Orcas interact. We got to see them traveling and hunting something. There was one mature male and several females and juveniles. You can tell the mature male because his dorsal fin sticks straight up and much higher than the others. We were also a little amazed at how close people on jet skis were to the Orcas – I would not have been comfortable with that. Here are my favorite Orca shots.

I could have watched them for hours – it was so cool! I am completely thrilled with our tour and have no regrets. Having said that, I do have 2 things I would suggest to others looking to book this cruise.

First of all, I think that the people on the lower deck had better views of seal life. Our seats were well above the water, so we did not see the porpoises and other sea life that those in the lower deck were able to see. It also got extremely hot and stuffy on the second deck on the way back to the pier. If I did it again, I would get seats on the first deck. They also had better access to the front of the boat view area, the galley, and the bathrooms.

My second advice directly relates to this obstructed view. As you can probably see in my photos of the humpback whale, there were towers and bars and equipment on the front of the boat which obstructed the view from the top of the boat at times. We chose spots with a clear view almost everywhere except 11 o’clock (if straight ahead was 12 o’clock and straight behind was 6 o’clock). I figured that we would be able to see almost everything with a clear view. I was wrong, of course. The boat pretty consistently turned to keep the whales at 11 o’clock. I don’t know if it was because of some track equipment or what, but it was definitely a theme. So, choose your spots on the top deck with care so you can see at 11 o’clock.

I would 1000x do this again. It was exciting and the good far outweighed the bad for me. Have you ever been on a whale watching tour? Where were you? Would you recommend it? Let me know in the comments below! 🙂

July 2022 Adventure Date 1: Seattle Center

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In July our family was able to go on our first big family vacation in about 5 years, although it has been 10 years since we have flown anywhere. Our oldest daughter graduated in 2020 and we were supposed to take a trip to Disney and Universal at that time, but we all know how that story went. When we started to plan a trip for this summer, we asked her if she still wanted to go to Florida and she said she would rather go to Seattle and potentially meet up with a friend of hers. So, Seattle it was. And it was a marvelous trip full of many, many new experiences. I am happy to report she also got to meet her friend, although I will not really be covering that in the blog. 😉

Our first day there we did a walking tour and got our bearings, but our second day started our first real adventure: Seattle Center. Seattle has this really cool area which was originally created for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. In fact, we got to ride there on a monorail that was created for that fair. It was pretty cool – not quite as smooth of a ride as you get at the Disney Parks, but still fun.

We had bought timed tickets to the Space Needle (also from the Seattle World’s Fair) and Chihuly Gardens and Glass, so we had time to walk around and explore before that. We did not realize that we would be sharing Seattle Center with the Pokemon Go Fest 2022 crowd, which was mostly fascinating and only a little bit annoying. Mainly because the number of people caused places to run out of things quickly and close hours early. The people were very nice and we actually downloaded the app again to get a few things from the Pokestops – you know, as souvenirs. We also had awesome strawberry shortcake from a little stand by the Space Needle – so yummy! Here are some photos of other things in Seattle Center – Museum of Pop Culture, Olympic Iliad Sculpture, and Pokemon Go Oasis area,

We were very excited when it was our turn to go up in the Space Needle in the glass elevators. On the way up, we got a nice view of Seattle Center and on the way down we got to look out over Puget Sound. We enjoyed seeing Seattle and it’s surrounding area from up so high – we even got our first views of Mount Rainier. We were very brave and even stood on a bench in front of the glass for photos. And looked straight town through the glass floor in the rotating lower floor (there are only three pairs of feet because our oldest is not a fan of heights). It was a pretty cool experience.

After a brief stop in the gift shop, we headed to the Chihuly Gardens and Glass. It is the 4th place we have seen Chihuly’s work on display, so we knew that we are going to love it. And we did! I think my favorite is the ceiling sculpture in the glass house. We also loved the large blue sculpture that looks like water and the boats. Here are some favorite shots.

After another gift shop visit, we were on our way to dinner. Our tour guide on our first day had recommended a sushi place, so we headed to Umi Sake House for the best happy hour in Seattle. We really did enjoy it immensely – we also had some dumplings and tempura shrimp and veggies, but we were really hungry…

After that, we just did some walking back to our hotel. I am going to leave you with a few photos from around Seattle – it really has some beautiful views. Here is the view of the city from the ferry pier, the ferry arriving with our daughter’s friend, Pike Place Market, Daily Dozen Donuts (so yummy!!), Chief Seattle (not really his name, but as close as the early settlers could get), and the sunset from the ferry pier.

I have 5 more Seattle adventures to write about here, so stay tuned! Have you ever been to Seattle Center? Which museums/sites did you visit? Let me know in the comments. 🙂

May 2022 Adventure Date – Wicked at Ohio Theatre

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We have had a rough month in our house in a lot of ways. Our youngest daughter is involved in theatre at her high school, and we are heavily involved in volunteering for the theatre program. The musical this year had some hiccups that resulted in 2 weekends of shows 2 weeks apart. In between, we had COVID in our household (I am still fighting a cough and fatigue). Add in all the regular end of school year celebrations and events and you can see how we didn’t get a lot of time for dates. On top of that, both dates that I had scheduled for this month got postponed by the event coordinators. So, we are making lemonade and counting our Wicked experience as our adventure. We have been to the Ohio Theatre for many shows the past few years – we’ve had season tickets since the 2018-2019 season that included Hamilton. We also saw a couple of shows and a few symphony concerts in this beautiful space. These tickets were different, however, as we were able to get seats in the second row! We were one row away from the pit and it was a totally different experience.

We are used to being in the balcony and not being able to see any details. From the second row, we could see the stage details so much better – it was amazing. I loved being close to the special effects, makeup, and costumes. However, we were in front of the speakers and next to the pit, so there were times when we couldn’t clearly hear the actors on stage. And we did see a lot of spit sitting that close.

Overall, I am really glad we had this experience, but we will be trying to move our season tickets to the Loge, not the Orchestra section. We prefer to be a little above the action and have a clear view of the whole stage. I would definitely recommend trying it at least once to anyone, though. Especially for anyone interested in theatre tech of any kind.

Have you ever been to a show in the Ohio Theatre? Have you ever seen Wicked? Let me know in the comments what you thought of either one.

March 2022 Family Game Night – Deadbolt Mystery Society Box

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One of my favorite things, something that actually helped me stay slightly sane during quarantine, is subscription boxes. Getting surprises in the mail is the best! So, I had a wish list on Crate Joy (a subscription box website) for Christmas 2020, and we were very lucky to be gifted a subscription to The Deadbolt Mystery Society. Keith and I have been doing the boxes for a little over a year at this point, and we really enjoy them. We even have a system of solving them so that we can pass the box on to someone else – minus the collectible sticker that comes in each one. (I LOVE stickers – that is my other subscription box obsession….)

This month, we did not get a family game night. It felt like we were just really busy, but I really don’t recall what we were doing… Anyway, Keith and I did do the Blackout box from Deadbolt Mystery Society. I am not going to give away any of the clues or anything, but I will show you a little about the boxes. We always use a separate notebook or my reusable Rocketbook Notecards to keep all of our notes and ideas in one place. This is what we see when we first open the box:

The Start Here page has all sorts of helpful information, including a link to make sure that you have everything you are supposed to have in your box. We have never been missing anything, but you never know. When we spread everything out, it usually looks like this:

There is always a Beginning Brief, at least 1 large envelope to be opened at a specified time in the mystery, and then there are usually suspect cards of some sort. The rest varies wildly. We look through everything to try to figure out what we should be doing. There are always QR codes, so we like to use an iPad because we are older and so are our eyes. You could also use a phone or anything else that you can use to read QR codes. Sometimes there are audio clues, there was a virtual room once, and there are often pictures and cyphers when you scan QR codes. We have been pretty happy with the different types of clues – there is truly something new in each box. There are also hints available, but I think we have only used that one time.

Overall, we would definitely recommend The Deadbolt Mystery Society. We would not recommend all boxes for all ages – some can be pretty dark, so be aware of that if you are wanting to do these with kids. Have you ever done any mystery boxes? Do you have any that you recommend? Let us know in the comments!

February 2022 Family Game Time – Jackbox Games

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It is the last day of February today, and I am coming in just under the wire with this post friends. We had a bit of a crazy February with weather and car shopping and dinner theatre at our high school and auditions and classes and two birthdays and a wedding. I wasn’t sure this was going to be a month where we hit this goal. It wasn’t looking good. And then, yesterday we found a pocket of time in the afternoon to play a few Jackbox Games together. It wasn’t a long pocket of time, but it was enough. I think we all walked away feeling a little more connected to each other. And that’s really the point, isn’t it?

We started our time playing Drawful 2. We have usually been big fans of this one, and it did not disappoint this time. Keith and I actually tied for this round – something that has not happened before, but I think we all had some pretty funny/interesting drawings. To get into the game, you have to go to Jackbox.tv on your phone or tablet and enter the code shown on your computer. Once everyone has done that, you can start playing. When the game starts, every player is given a prompt to draw. Then everyone is shown the drawings and writes what they think the prompt could have been. In the end, everyone tries to guess which is the true prompt for each drawing. It really is a lot of fun! Here are a few highlights:

Eating a pine cone
Unkillable nightmare clown
Hummus
Pretending to throw up
Final score board

The next game we tried is Quiplash. For this one, you are given prompts and you write funny quip – like a witty description or summary. The game pairs up two players for each prompt, and you blind vote for the quip you like best. This one is harder for Charlotte because of the writing and her dyslexia, but I think she ended up in second and I lost big time. Maddie was the big winner of this one. Here are a few highlights:

The final round – everyone has to write a quip for the same prompt.

The final game we played this time was Guesspionage. For this game, each player gets a turn each round. You are given a question that involves a percentage of people – like “What percentage of people like Jackbox Games?” You set the percentage to your best guess, and then everyone else gets to guess if the real answer is higher or lower. Some of the questions are pretty obviously high or low, but some are really difficult to guess. The answers come from polling people online, so that is always at least in the back of my mind because I think it does narrow down which people would be answering. The big winner for this game was Charlotte, mostly because she was just really good at guessing the percentages on her turn. Here are some of the questions we had:

I know that we will definitely play some Jackbox games again – either as a family or with our friends. It is enjoyable for larger groups and can be done completely online, so it was our go-to for a while during quarantine.

Have you ever played any Jackbox games? Which is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below!

Love Letters and Seven Dragons – January 2022 Family Game Night

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It finally happened. We were meant to have family game night the weekend of New Years, but everyone had horrible headaches because of the weather. So we postponed it. And then got our COVID booster shots the following week, causing another weekend of not feeling so great. It was not looking good for our family game night this month, but we pivoted and had family game day instead because we were all off of school and work for MLK Day. I made fondue, we snacked and played, and a good time was had by all.

We started out by eating fondue and playing Love Letters. Keith and I had played this at a game cafe several years ago now. We remember liking the game, so we chose it as this year’s “pickle gift” (the gift received by the person that finds the pickle on the Christmas tree first). Charlotte was the quickest pickle-finder this year, so it is technically her game. We will see how that plays out in a few years.

Chocolate fondue remains and Love Letters game

Although both Keith and I remember Love Letters as a quick game, it definitely took a while to get a winner. We all enjoyed it a lot, though, and some new inside jokes were definitely created. I was the biggest loser and Charlotte came out as our glorious winner in the end, although it was a tight race amongst everyone but me…

To finish off the afternoon, we played one quick round of Seven Dragons. This is a perennial favorite of ours and is definitely a go-to if we want something quick with not much set up. I was very, very close to prevailing with my black dragon goal, but Keith managed to swoop in and win at the last second. It was a tough loss, but a very fun afternoon.

Seven Dragons with background folded laundry to add to your viewing enjoyment…

We know that family game night is going to be changing as we continue this year. It might be only 2 or 3 of us at times, but we will definitely shoot for all 4 as much as possible. We are definitely on the look out for more 2 player games – do you have any favorites we should try? Please let me know in the comments!

February Create Date 2020

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This month, our family is directly involved in 4 shows and our youngest is also auditioning for another tomorrow. To say that we are busy is a bit of an understatement… There were 4 fundamental truths I knew about this month’s create date:

1. It would most likely need to be at home due to our extremely limited free time together.

2. We needed to throw our oldest an 18th birthday party.

3. Her birthday this year is the day before Mardi Gras.

4. Making a King Cake is on my list of 44 things to do while I am 44.

So, we made a simple king cake. Yes, it uses crescent rolls. Yes, I can make homemade crescent rolls, but please refer to the reference to extremely limited free time mentioned in number 1 above. That was our only short cut, and I don’t even feel a little bit guilty.

Here are a few photos of the process:

And here is the cake in action:

The general consensus is that the cake was amazing – probably not as good as you can get in Louisiana, but definitely better than I have found in Ohio. The recipe that we used can be found here: https://pin.it/JtTqD5G (We did not use pecans, but if you like nuts in baked goods, please have at it.)

What are you doing to celebrate Mardi Gras? We’d love to hear your traditions! 💛💚💜

Turning the Page

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Our oldest child came out to the world as a transgender young woman a couple of weeks ago. We have known about 6 months, although if we are honest, we have known something was going on a lot longer than that. Writing the facebook post to announce her new name was in a lot of ways a relief, but there was also a really large amount of anxiety and fear. This is the post I shared with our friends:

We would like to reintroduce everyone to our oldest child. This is Madeline. For 17 years we thought we had a son, but it turns out that we have 2 daughters. Parenting is full of unexpected news, and we certainly didn’t see gender dysphoria in our future when we embarked on our journey. At the same time, it wasn’t actually a shock when Micah told us in February. We are so sorry that we do not have the energy to have this conversation separately with all of you. Please know that this has come with lots of counseling, soul-searching, and not a small amount of awkward/humorous situations. We are confident this is who our child is, and we will do all that we have to in order to keep her happy, healthy, and safe. We know it will be confusing for all of us for the foreseeable future. Respectful discussion is welcome. Judgement and hatred will not be tolerated. We strongly feel God has trusted us with this incredible person to care for and protect and we intend to do just that. While our little family unit has known and been processing this for 6 months, we ask that you are respectful of extended family members as they are still processing this news and are all at different stages of acceptance. Thank you.

In the end, the post received over 200 likes/loves and so many responses. All of the responses are loving and kind and supportive and uplifting and I sobbed with relief and happiness at reading them. We have obviously found the right people to be a part of our lives. They love and support our family, even when we barely know what we are doing. They lift us up in prayer when we don’t have the words. Our people are amazing!!

Since Maddie came out to us in February, all of my energy has been focused on the logistics of telling everyone. I was not naive enough to think everything would be smooth sailing after that, but I really thought it would be the biggest hurdle we would face for right now. And in a lot of ways, that was correct. We have big things on the very near horizon – blockers and hormones and name changes, oh my – but there is a definite lull in what NEEDS to be done right now. Maddie is getting more and more comfortable being herself, we are slowly replacing her wardrobe, and everyone at school is adjusting nicely.

Other parents in my circle are going on college visits, helping with college applications, prepping for auditions, and worried about the right combination of classes to get into the first choice of schools. I am so relieved that we are not trying to do that right now – Maddie has decided to attend Community College for at least a year to get her associates degree and then transfer to a four year institution. That buys us time before we need to help her navigate being a trans student in a dorm living situation, and I truly believe she will be stronger and have a better sense of herself because of this choice.

I was naive enough to think that this lull in what needs to be done, this small respite time without major decisions, would be an easy time. I thought I was emotionally spent and would just be able to coast for a bit. I do not pretend to know what living as a trans woman who wasn’t out to the world was like for my daughter. I am sure it was tremendously hard. For us as her family, it was like we were living a lie when we talked about her to people. We were having conversations about a person that we knew didn’t exist, at least not as everyone perceived her. There were all kinds of excuses about why we aren’t going on college visits and which schools she is considering. There were lots of funny looks because our answers didn’t seem to make sense with the obvious intelligence and talent our child possesses. It is a huge relief to not have to make excuses or leave questions hanging anymore.

It is in this place of relief that tiny things have started sneaking up on me. Little things that are small in the grand scheme of things, but little things that break my mom heart. I started getting the September calendar ready this week. We use a large desk calendar on our wall – the kind with the tear off pages – because we have a very active family and we need the space. I also use an electronic calendar that we share on our phones, but I like being able to see the month at a glance. As I prepare to turn the page to September, it has hit me that I am also completely turning the page to Madeline. The name Micah will not appear on our calendar again. The name we have spent over 17 years with. The name we chose with love for our first baby. The name I have signed to hundreds of cards and letters. The name that carried with it so many hopes and dreams. And I am suddenly grieving in a way I never expected to and in a way that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

My child is still here. My child is alive and well and has unlimited potential and opportunity ahead of her. She is intelligent and funny and kind and strong. And I am so proud of who she is and who she will become. But I have to let myself grieve the loss of the hopes and dreams I had for her before we knew. I need to grieve for her, having to live as someone she wasn’t for so long. I have to let myself feel and then let go of the guilt of not knowing for so long. The guilt of trying to force her to fit into a life that wasn’t meant for her. I have to sit here in this place of sadness before I can let the person my child was before, the child in my memories, merge with the daughter I have going forward. I know that eventually it won’t be awkward trying to talk about the past. It won’t feel like our memories are of a different person. It will be perfectly natural to call that child Maddie instead of Micah. And look forward to that merging because I know it is what is best for my child. But today? Today I am just a mom grieving the passage of time, which I guess isn’t so different from my circle of friends after all. Stay strong Mommas – we’ve all got this!