Hello Life: July 2013

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Hello Bennett.

Hi there, 5 monther.

Woooooweeee. What a month for you Bennett Scott.

First haircut! It was time. There was some mullet, dread lock, and rooster action.
Mom buzzed. Dad distracted. And now you're blond! And so very handsome.

You started grabbing your feet along with anything put out in front of you!

You can flip back and forth from tummy to back!
We leave the room and come back to find you three feet
from your blanket and jabbering away.

Sometimes you just squeeeeal with delight. It's hilarious. Even when you hit record high octaves while you dangle and kick in Winco. Embarrassingly hilarious.

Guess what else? You can sit up! You're pretty wobbly. And you come crashing down in less then a minute. But you are getting so much stronger!

I feel like all of these things are happening before I even have it anywhere near my radar. All of a sudden you're an interactive, excited, delightful five month old. What happened?

Life kept happening, that's what.
Your brother is concerned with your whereabouts at all times. He makes sure we don't forget you when we leave the house. He tells us where you sit, sleep, and play.
We've overheard him on the monitor saying "Want to play ba-ase ball with Bent".
We thought that was the sweetest thing of all times... until he started asking to pray for you.
Every night. "Bent. Bent. Bent"
Sweetest. thing. ever.
And my sweet prayer is that the Lord will continue to
grow and shape a deep, loving, protective, brother-bond.

Behind the scenes bonus. It's not all brother bonds all the time over here.

Especially when G decides B needs a helpful shove off the chair. (Notice the ready hand?)

Graham thought it was the funniest thing ever. Bennett, not so much.

Happy 5 months, BSU.
You are a true charmer.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

He's a Firefighter!

8 years ago Kyle told me he wanted to be a firefighter.

5 years ago he became an EMT, moved to Bakersfield, and started working for Hall Ambulance.

2 and 1/2 years ago Kyle finished paramedic school and started testing for fire departments.

The last 2 years have been a journey of tests, waiting, interviews, checking the mail, praying, waiting, more tests, more waiting, more praying, a HUGE application and background check, a lie detector test, a HUGE interview, and he was IN!!! Praise the Lord! Kern County Fire finished their recruitment list one last time before starting testing again and they opened their training doors for Kyle Underwood... and 27 other anxious recruits.

The Lord continued to show His faithfulness over the next 19 weeks as we learned to seek His peace and trust His orchestration.
There were moments of unclarity and I can remember the tears of frustration, disappointment, and bewilderment. But I also can feel the presence of God as Kyle and I grasped hands so tightly and just had to choose to rely on the Lord's strength and the ultimate truth that He would be glorified no matter the outcome.

When we discovered Kyle's vision wasn't good enough...

Deciding LASIC was the only way to honestly meet the standard...

Quickly finding openings and funding for surgery...

Only to find out that the county didn't allow you to work for a year after having LASIC...

Letters were written. Phone calls were made. Battles were fought.

Multiple times we locked fingers or closed our eyes while on the phone to pray for understanding, guidance, and a joyous spirit through it all.

By the grace of God, we have an extremely hard working, passionate, courageous firefighter in our family. (Did I mention extremely good looking?)

And after 4 months of studying, training, sweating, bleeding, drilling, quizzing, socializing, testing, and growing... Kyle was pinned as a Kern County Firefighter.