*Coming in to change parts of this blog is both painful and healing.
2015 was a rough one. We have worked together, parented together, traveled the world together, loved together... Because we're friends.
J.T. the boy Booth Bug, made us parents in December of 2004. He amazes us EVERY single day. He's bright, athletic, funny, fast, kind and generous. He's working on being humble, always listening to his parents, not tattling on his sister, his newfound photography skills, being a great baseball and soccer player as well as his new interest in distance running..
The girl Booth Bug, Hea Baby, completed our family in February 2009. She's curious, chatty, sweet and sassy. She's a gymnast and plays soccer, opinionated, and thinks she's older than she really is. She colors in the lines and can access netflix from any iPhone or iPad. She's decided that her favorite color is yellow and carries around novels that I've read pretending to "read her Spanish books". I don't know what that's about.
We started a small production and fabrication company,Rock Steady Productions, Inc. in 2006. It grew to become our full time jobs and we were grateful that it allowed us such flexibility in our schedule that we could maximize our time with our family. As part of our separation, it became pretty difficult to continue to mix our professional careers with the evident pain of ending a marriage. Mr B chose to offer to buy Mama B out of her interest in the company. She accepted the offer over 10 years, maintaining her role as Vice President and Director of Operations in the corporation during the transition. It seemed the fair and easiest thing to do considering that they started the company as a life plan for the kids and both have blood, sweat, tears and pride laid into it's foundation.
Mama B is currently choosing to grow herself through utilizing creative skills like writing and photography. She has recently started Purple Pineapple Creative, LLC and is building her website as a project as well as doing family photo shoots. Her goal is to go into small business marketing, creative directing, event and photography styling, writing opinion articles, special occasion and spatial design. Mr. B is fully supportive of her efforts and they continue to try to remember their desire to see each other succeed and achieve happiness.
We love God. We teach our kids to do the same and to show that love by our actions toward others. We know that we have worked very hard to be live a life that we want. We have accepted our call to help others. We believe ultimately in being kind.
At the end of each year, I have a book printed that has each blog and all the pictures associated with the events that made it to the page. It's as close as I have been able to come to consistent journaling. My mom reads it and calls me to tell me it's great. Hi Mom.
We hope to raise our children to be smart, contributing, compassionate, empathetic, authority questioning (at times I regret it LOL), self thinking, earth loving, children of God and citizens of the world.
We are choosing to parent mindfully, be good to each other, be kind, we understand that we will always be in each other's lives. More importantly, we both want to stay very active in the lives of our children. We have purchased a 2nd home that is 1.3 miles away. It takes 5 minutes to drive there, 9 minutes to bike and 20 minutes to walk. We aren't exactly sure how the roads will twist and turn, what emotions will rise and fall but what we do know is that we will have a never ending love for each other. We will respect, support and champion the partner that made us a parent, the team mate that played by our side, the child that we grew to adulthood with, who we learned to love and be kind with. Divorce is such a hard word to even say, so many have experienced the pain that feels like a death but with the one for whom you mourn still living.
It's our hope that we can be an example of regular folks, who loved each other, that choose to stay Ohana even after we are no longer married.
