Affirmation

Affirmation. 

It's what we all want. To be accepted, to be wanted, to be loved. However, I realized something this last few days. The only people I need affirmation from are God, my family and those I hold close. Sometimes they do not agree with me either. That's OK. 

I attended a home school conference last week and I made some new friends, saw some old friends and mainly took care of myself. It was actually wonderful. 

I realize that I actually do not care what others think over all. Not in a snobby conceited way, I just do not need every one's approval to go forward homeschooling or living the way we do. As a home school mom I can tell you that I am not popular. We unschool. Yup unschool. What does that mean? It means what Alice wants to learn we teach. It's never conventional it's never what others think she needs. It's what she and her father and I agree upon. It's FREEDOM and it's legal. We are registered under an umbrella school and we report attendance. The rest is up to our discretion.

Why? You might ask. Well because Alice isn't conventional. Our journey has been challenging. Beginning with her eye site, and then her dyslexia. We have done what we have needed to project her forward and to help her succeed. We worked with a neurodevelopmentalist. She has completed 5 classes at our local Tech School , normally catering to college level, and she busted through the classes and ended up at college level. She did Robotics, Coding, Gaming, Photography and Minecraft. She was 10. Her teachers adored her. She is also very helpful to other students that have needed her. She became the teachers helper in the Minecraft class because she knew more than they did. :) We were very proud.
We also believe in living history and hands on science. 

What about Math, Writing History? That all goes hand in hand with these classes. She has an Instagram devoted to her animals and she is an excellent photographer. Her favorite channel on YouTube is all about ants. 

I am not worried about her. 

Others are worried though. I get advice even when I do not ask for it. It's quite nervy of people to assume they can say what ever they want to you. At least they do to me. 

So, here's my come back. Only because I just had to defend us yet again! 

I DO NOT NEED YOUR PERMISSION TO RAISE OUR CHILD THE WAY WE SEE FIT!

There it's off my chest. I'm only going to say this once. If I want anyone else's opinion I will ask.

We are raising an amazing human. She is kind, considerate, funny, intelligent, and loving. She will be just fine. I spend most days grateful she is still here. I personally think we've been through enough. 

I hope that when she lays her head down at night she knows she is deeply loved and accepted. 

That is all that matters. 

It's the only affirmation I need!

Dealing with Loss

Hey. It's been a little while. 

I wanted to chat a little bit about loss today. I'm not talking about actual death. I'm talking about loss. Loss of a dream, a friendship, an idea, a hope, an expectation. The kind of loss that catches you off guard as you realize, often times later, that this loss has occurred. 

This last few years has seen all types of loss. The ones that hurt most are the dreams that we have for our loved ones. We think life is going to turn out one way and then, WACK, it flips over on its back and turns out nothing like you thought it would.

The year since our sweet girl was missing and came home has been the GREATEST year of loss yet! Loss of friendships, communities, church family, and more. People have walked away, checked out, disregarded and just left us behind. 

I'm not sure why???

When a tragedy strikes someone people come out in herds to help for the first couple of weeks. Then, over the next few weeks most people disappear again. It's heartbreaking. The tragedy doesn't just go away for the family that it happened to. It takes months, often times years to move on. We have yet to be able to move on because we are still facing a trial. 

The steadfast stay. They are the string that knit us together. They are faithful and unwavering. 

We are grateful!

I just want you to know that people need people. We need each other after the fireworks have passed. We need love and encouragement, hugs, phone calls, and relationship. It's critical to our well being. All of us!

Please do not walk away so fast. Stay a while longer and build relationships. Meet for dinner. Grab a coffee. Go to the beach. 

Just don't leave. 

The greatest gift we can give one another is to stay. Stay as long as it takes. Sometimes that's a lifetime. 

It's been a year!

This isn't going to be an easy read. In fact, you may want to wait to read it until you have a moment of quiet. A moment to pause. It's going to be raw and maybe a little rough.

It's been a year tomorrow that our sweet girl was kidnapped by an online sexual predator. 1 year! It's been a year of ups and downs, highs and lows, and lots and lots of emotion. It changed our families trajectory. It changed us. All of us!

On February 18th, 2018 our 11-year-old daughter walked out of our home and into a strangers car. She left willingly, although we know now not totally by her own choice. We know now that she was threatened, stalked, and manipulated. In doing so he convinced her to leave us. Something we NEVER thought could happen to us. 

She met this so-called friend on a children's gaming chat room. It's one that I had approved for her to be on. I regularly checked the people she would talk to and I was very aware of who was on there and when. So, when a 13-year-old girl named Violet came on the scene I was a little suspicious. I talked to our daughter about who this person was. I even spoke to this person myself. It sounded like a 13-year-old and, the picture that was sent was of a 13-year-old girl. I had no reason to believe otherwise. Our daughter is somewhat of a computer genius. She has taken classes at a local tech school and she always outlearned the class. So, I trusted my instincts and onward we went.

Over the course of the year, I noticed that some of her other friends were falling into the background. She just wasn't talking to them as much. I asked her what was going on and she said that she a violet just had a lot in common. I then spoke to Violet again and expressed that our daughter needed to be on the computer less and that she would be limited in her time spent in the chat room. I found out later that this didn't go very well with Violet. I told our daughter that I didn't care, she was our child and what others did with their children was none of my concern.

Our daughter, unbeknownst to me, gave her cell phone number to this person and then began to text. We did NOT give her permission to do this. She had her phone so young because she was away from me at times and I needed her to be safe. Little did I know I had dug a really big hole.

Looking back I can tell you that our daughter became depressed, withdrawn, aggravated. She didn't want to leave the house, she didn't want to hang out with her friends, and she didn't want to be without her phone. It became quite ridiculous. However, I still had no clue as to what was going on. 

One night, about a month before she left us, she came into our room scared to death. She said she couldn't sleep in her room alone anymore. She was scared and trembling. So for the next week, she slept on our floor. In fact, she wouldn't leave my side. I know now that he had revealed himself to her and he told her he was watching her all the time. Especially at night through her window. He told her he was outside our house and that he could take her at any time! Ahhhhhhhhhhh

The night she chose to leave he had manipulated her to the point of terror. She left convinced that he was going to hurt all of us. She also left thinking that in some deranged way she loved this so-called Violet. It was horrible. I am just sick as I write this.

The morning that we realized she was gone is the most awful, horrifying, nightmare moment of our lives. We went to wake her for church and she just wasn't there. She had snuck out at 12:30am the night before. We looked everywhere! We called the police and they were here in 5 minutes. It was a whirlwind as I tried and tried to imagine what had happened. I just cried and cried and cried. I was a hysterical mess. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breath........ 

I would have rather have died than to go through this. In fact, I told my husband that if something had happened to her I wouldn't make it. I just knew I wouldn't. 

The FBI showed up next, they brought a bloodhound. They tracked to where she had gotten on into the car. The helicopters were swirling, there were 50+ police at our house. They questioned everyone, went through her room and searched our house upside down and backward. It was so scary. 

I went into her room and shut the door before I let them in. I knew there had to be something. My husband had taken me aside a few minutes earlier and taken my face in his hands and said to me, "you know where she is, I just know you can figure it out." So, I took a deep breath, gathered myself the best I could and tried to remember what I knew.  

I knew she had been obsessing over Violet, I knew she was withdrawn, I knew that ..... there was a journal! That was the key. The key to everything. It showed her struggle about how she felt, it showed that she was at her wits end about what to do, it showed the torment, it showed that she was cutting to drown out the terror, it showed EVERYTHING! It was heartbreaking and awful. 

I realized I had a lot of information at that point. I had this person's address, I had this person's phone number. I HAD cracked it. So I went to the police and shared it all!!!

They began to try to ping her phone, every 5 min. They began to ping his phone every 5 min. One of us was watching Instagram, one was watching the phone, one was watching for any other sign. Then, we waited. We just waited. That was HELL!

We have amazing family and friends. We really do. The internet was buzzing trying to find her. Facebook, Instagram, the local news, it went international! However, all I could do was cry. Cry from a depth inside me that I never knew existed. Cry and cry and cry. My husband cried too. Almost as much. 

At 2:00 pm that afternoon our middle son called me and told me he had seen her online. I ran to the detective and told him and they pinged her phone again. At around the same time, the FBI had pinged his phone. However, at the time they couldn't tell us. Around 5pm that afternoon the SVU detective, who had disapeared from the house about 3 hours before reappeared. He looked me straight in the eye and said they had found her. Her brother and the FBI had found her! 

She was safe, she was unharmed and she was with the FBI in Macon Ga. 

I think I passed out. I just couldn't breathe. The thoughts about where she could be, whether or not she was alive had all been washed away in one single moment. It was a miracle. God had truly answered our prayers. We had prayed all day and He came through. 

So we gathered ourselves and my husband and I left to go get her. In Macon, Ga. On the way we cried a lot, we prayed, we got really angry. It was the longest 6 hours of our lives, next to the hours before. We were grateful, tired, and a little delusional. We were going to get our daughter back. We are amongst one of the luckiest families in the world. She was coming home. Alive!

We arrived in Macon around 2 pm. We went to the counseling center where they were holding her. We sat and talked to the FBI detective that we had talked to during the entire 6-hour drive. She had to be examined at a hospital. The counselor that they assigned to her and the FBI agent went with her. They held her hand, they prayed with her and they walked her through one of the scariest moments of her life. The best news of all is that she was UNHARMED physically. Praise the LORD! She was, however, harmed mentally. 

They talked to us for about an hour and then, finally THEN, we had her in our arms. 

WHEW!!!!

I was crying and so was her dad but she was stoic, I really do not believe that she was fully aware of all that had happened. It was a blur, a fog, a dream. We went to a hotel and my precious girl and her Dad slept for 18 hours. The hotel protected us from the press. Her brother and uncle protected us from them at home. We waited for 2 days and then drove back.

At home, the greetings were teary and solum. what now? The next few days were full of police, the FBI, and visiting a trauma counseling center. Plus, we slept.

A LOT!

I would like to tell you that everything has been ok since then. It's just been different. Life changed to a new normal. We got her a new phone. Yup, we did! It had caused problems but it had also saved her life. We got her a new computer, we went back to school, to church, to regular life. We weren't going to let this person take one more moment of our lives away from us. So, we haven't!!!

She's doing GREAT!!!! She's better than before. She's riding horses, voice acting, writing, she rescued an adorable pocket parrot named Yoshi. She's going to be ok. God is good and He is healing her heart one day at a time. Best of all her joy is back. Her laughter and her smile have returned. 

As for him. He's in jail here by us. He will be for most of the rest of his life. We go to trial soon. We have forgiven him for our sakes. However, we never want him to get out. He had tried this before. He would try it again. So we will move on in spite of him. 

It hasn't all been happy. DCF was called, our lives were invaded almost daily for a while. We were harassed by total strangers. It settled out eventually. It's getting better. 

We lost a lot of people along the way. The judgment of others almost did me in. I was diagnosed with PTSD. Gratefully there is help. 

Family, and true friends have walked closely by our sides. Their still here and by Grae of God Almighty so is SHE!!!!!

So is SHE!!!!

Healing

The last few months have been better than the one's before. The moments of panic and fear are dwindling. I see hope in the distance. We live most days in a peaceful calm. The routine and steady rhythm give me peace. It keeps me sane. 

Then, days like yesterday happen.... 

Heartbreaking!

I went to lunch with an old friend. It started out fine. Reconnecting and catching up. Then she asked how I was. I told her the truth, life was often hard and little by little day by day our family is healing and making it though the hardest years of our lives. 

Then, crash, the mean comments, the judgement, the truth. She told me that she didn't believe what I had told her about what we were walking through. She told me there had to be more to the story. I couldn't be telling her the truth. Nothing could have REALLY happened the way I said it did. 

My heart began to race, my blood pressure rose, I went cold, all the blood  rushed to my head and I had an immediate migraine. I was fuming. I thought she was a friend. I thought.......

I wanted to run, I wanted to scream, I wanted to hit something. 

Then..........then I suddenly felt an immense amount of well pity. Pity for her. Pity for the fact that our world is scared, broken, completely and totally lost. She needs hope, she needs Jesus. 

I stayed , we talked, I explained the best I could. We hugged. We parted ways. Probably forever. 

I am going to continue to heal. I am going to keep moving forward. I am going to forgive her comments. (Yes I am still mad.) It will take time.  

It will take......

Jesus

A Note to Young Father's and Mother's

I just attended the 2017 FPEA conference. It was wonderful.  I was astonished at the young Dad's and Mom's there. It is a wonderful thing. I just want to take a moment to write to them......

Hello young Dad and Mom. 

You are soon to be a parent. Maybe you have other young one's. I saw you there, at the home school convention. Searching, wide eyed and curious. Overwhelmed and confused. I wold like to take a moment to say it's going to be OK. You are way ahead of the game. However, I beg you to take this time, this time when they are little to thoroughly enjoy them. Their education will come soon enough. They will show you who they are in the next few years. Please don't miss it. Take time to play, laugh, read to them, tickle them, run with them, swim with them, snuggle with them. It goes really fast.

 Too fast.

I hardly remember our now 24, and 20 year old sons youth. I have to go look at pictures. They were fun, energetic and fascinating little boys. I LOVE being a mom of these 2 young men. I too was worried about their future, I thought too much so, I missed out, I was obsessed with their education. Now they are remarkable young men. Honest and true. 

They "Return Home with Honor" every day. 

Now we are also a parent of an 11 year old young lady, a budding computer engineer. She is quiet, calm, peaceful and very smart. Too smart for me for sure. I am having to get to know her. She is nothing like the rest of us. She is tall and beautiful. She is growing way too fast. I'm trying to hang on, I'm trying to make sure I remember her childhood as it too has swept by too fast. She still likes to snuggle, she really loves her Dad and big brothers. 

They are her whole world. They are her "Hero's". 

I couldn't be prouder. 

Life sweeps by in the blink of an eye. It washes past you when you're not even looking. Dad's and Mom's of little's, enjoy them now. Please. There will be a moment, you will turn around, and they will be grown. 

Adult life will come soon enough. Have fun with them. Lots and lots and lots of fun! I know they for sure will remember that most of all!

This Safari is awesome. Just take time to relish in it.  

On Safari in April

April was a busy month. We took a couple of small trip and we celebrated our sweet Alice's Birthday at Disney. We had never stayed at any of the Disney Hotels and it was wonderful. Having the ability to park your car and not touch it again until you leave was such a treat. We used Disney transportation for everything. It's free! Yes you check in and off you go. Here are some pictures from our great trip. 

 New Magic Bands (we have quite a collection :)

 Adorable Birthday treat from Starbucks in the Magic Kingdom

Big Buddha Beer in China at Nine Dragons

 Epcot

 Snaa Restaurant in The Animal Kingdoms Villas

 Giraffe behind the Villas in the Serengeti

 A collection of bands and cards. Fun awaits!

 Snaa

 In the lobby of the All Stars Movie Resort

 Magic Kingdom in Main Street. The start of a day of magical moments.

 Lunch at La Cellier Steakhouse in Canada. There were 47 muscles. Yes I ate them all by myself!

 Easting again :),Don't judge us lol... Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen (This is our FAVORITE restaurant in all of Disney World!)

 The All Stars Movie Resorts

 Our room

The Birthday girl got a bed all to herself. 

 The Pool

 Daddy and Alice at The Animal Kingdom Villas

 Epcot Flower and Garden Festival 2017

 Daddy checking out the arrangements.

 Alice is "11"! Free Birthday Slushee.

 This bird flew over our heads and actually caught my hair.

It was a wonderful trip!

The First Day of Spring

Today is the fist day of Spring 2017. 

Life is moving fast! Over the last few weeks we had been very busy and then NOTHING! Literally nothing lol. Our life went from fast to slow motion in a week. 

We went to a Landscaping Expo in Jacksonville.

We met some great new friends.

A fantastic trip with Landmark Events to St. Augustine. 

http://www.landmarkevents.org

Then for weekend round 3 we ventured on a trip to Indian Rocks Beach to see the fabulous
Kari Jobe
in concert. 

The next day we spent a much needed day on the beach. We walked a lot. 4 mile total to be exact. Up and down the beach. We had a amazing meal at Clear Sky Beachside Cafe, got ice cream and walked back to the hotel. 

The weeks since have been full of homeschooling , laundry, lots and lots of cooking. Our daughter Alice said she's happy to be home.
I have loved every minute of it!