Day 2,132 - Catching Up with Ellie

As Staind would say all the way back in 2003, it’s been a while. Side note: I actually believe that number of days is still correct.

You know how it is though; life gets crazy sometimes. When the kids started back to school last fall, it got really crazy, really fast. Part of that was my own doing though. After all, when you spend nearly 60 days working as an elementary school substitute teacher, days fill up pretty fast. That’s not all bad though. After all, how cool is it that I could frequently cross paths with Ellie and Ethan in the hallways on their own turf?

Of course, subbing wasn’t the only thing keeping us busy over the past few months. We also decided that the thing to do was to buy a new house. Yes, that’s right. After 13 years of making our home on 103^rd Street, we finally pulled the trigger and decided to make a move. Even though we didn’t actually move until the end of May, there’s been plenty of projects to keep us busy in the meantime. For example, we ripped out the carpet in the basement of our new house and laid down luxury vinyl planks. There’s also been plenty of work to do to get our old house ready to be a rental. Yes, that’s right; we’re going to be landlords. Cool, huh?

One of the biggest changes though for our family has to be that Ellie turned 10 on Saturday! If I’m being absolutely honest that has to be one of the weirdest changes that we’ve gone through recently. While there definitely weren’t any massive mental or physical changes between her last day of nine and her first day of 10, something just felt different. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she officially has less years remaining under our roof than what she has spent thus far. Maybe it’s just the reality of her growing up and continuing to gain new experiences. Or maybe it’s a simple as 10 being a landmark birthday since it has a zero following the first number.

Seeing as how Ellie is 10 now, it’s probably a good time to do a quick check-in. In case you’re wondering, she’s 155.7 cm and 79 lbs. Actually now that I look at that 155.7 cm, I’m not convinced that the doctor didn’t measure her incorrectly. After all, that would be something like 5 feet, 11 inches and I can definitely say that she’s not that tall.

What I can confirm is what exactly Ellie at 10 years old is like. For one thing, she absolutely loves to read. She’s easily already read ten books this summer and she’s not just picking the easy ones. She’s always trying to challenge herself. That’s fairly evident in her love of math. She’s constantly wanting us to give her complicated problems to work through and can’t stand failure. She will just keep trying until she gets something right.

One of her biggest loves currently is space. Ellie will tell anyone who listens that she wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. Here’s hoping that it happens because that would be a pretty sweet job. She even has embraced space with her new room. The ceiling is adorned with glow-in-the-dark stars and planets. She has a color-changing lamp shaped like a planet that she bought with her very own money. She even received a new comforter with a depiction of a galaxy on it for her birthday!

Something that definitely hasn’t changed is Ellie’s penchant for activity. She hates being stationary and always has to be doing something. If we’re at home, she’s either playing outside or doing some kind of art project. As far as athletic pursuits, she just finished up tennis camp last week and will likely be playing volleyball again this fall. She also loves swimming so it goes without saying that our pool passes are getting plenty of use this summer. She also is active in 4H and is submitting 3 different projects to the county fair this year.

I’m sure that it’s obvious that I’m pretty proud of Ellie. However, I haven’t even gotten to what makes me the proudest. You see, I love the person that she has become over the past couple of years. She has turned into a genuinely kind person who loves everyone around her. At school, it’s not uncommon for her to take an interest in the kids who might be an outcast and invite them to be part of her group of friends. If I had to guess, I’d say that the attitude she has developed for others comes from her faith in Jesus. She’s totally unafraid of representing Him and has shared about her faith with all of her friends on multiple occasions throughout the years.

Ok, I’ve probably gone on about Ellie for long enough tonight. It was actually really fun to sit down and write after a lengthy break. I’ll try to be better about doing so in the future. No promises though!

#DaddyWrite