11/09/2024
Everything lately has reminded us of KS… 😢…. Now don’t get your hopes up we aren’t coming back. 🤣 Just saying it’s nice when friends and family come visit, a reminder of the good people that can relate to us 😍 There’s a ton of differences between KS and AZ we deal with everyday, 6 lane highway everyone heading southbound of the same side, hot hot sun & no humidity, noisy and crowded everywhere, and so on. However the sadest difference we saw last night reminded us we are not in KS anymore. we were at a festival at a multi language school we wanted to send bradrick to so we thought we’d meet people and see if we like it. There’s a petting zoo with baby farm animals, bouncy houses, the park, picture booths, dancing, food trucks and so much more. We are so excited to have him & Bry have this fun with our neighbor kids. Then we see parents paying to get in then dropping their kids off, or standing around socializing with other parents and ignoring the children running loose through this festival. And you can only imagine what happens when you let hundreds of kids loose with no parents. As we start to let our kids play with us right with them, we notice there are no volunteers manning these bouncy houses or games, or playgrounds. No adults, no PTO, no teenagers, no volunteers whatsoever 😡 so like our usual old KS selves… what do we do? We start to volunteer, man the bounce houses getting kids of the top of them climbing off, knowing that without us it could’ve deflated in and hurt or suffocated another child. Once that area is calm, we head over to the petting zoo area. These are all baby farm animals like pigs, ducks, rabbits, cows, goats. They were as cute as could be, and well groomed so soft and clean. But…. If you leave children with no adult supervision with all those animals in the open in a fence you can guess what would happen. They pocked at and screamed at and tried to pick up these poor baby animals. Brent worked at a farm this fall guys. 🧑🌾 He was the morning animal feeder then drove a tractor for the fall festivals they had. He was known as “Farmer Brent” and entertained all those families and children with fun and competition with other tractor drivers for which hay ride could be louder 🤩 So back to the story, we see these baby farm animals well groomed being abused by these little children with no supervision so what do we do??? Volunteer! We start helping the kids touch them right and help them not be scared of them, to be quiet and gentle. Oh even one of the parents said “oh that’s a miniature javelina” about the baby farm pig. First of all for anyone that doesn’t know what a javelina is it’s a wild pig here in AZ (we’ve seen a few while on the river rafting or in the neighborhood since they are scared of nothing). When I corrected her and said “oh it’s just a baby pig” she said “I don’t think so cuz baby pigs are pink” 🤣 I’m serious I laughed so hard (in my mind of course). I then informed her calmly the many colors pigs can be and told her we used to have a farm and had baby pigs of our own 🐷 🥰 So as we are in the middle of volunteering we realize that we did not come to volunteer. We are missing these moments with Bradrick to be taught by us because we are teaching other kids & parents to not harm these baby animals. It clicks, Bradrick is 4. He is too small to remember the farm house, and as for the animals they were butchered or died during us opening up the daycare, so before I was even pregnant with him. Brent and I decide at that moment we need to take that 20 minutes to teach our kid, to be there for him, to remember him in that moment. Something we did not do with our girls, and now they have grown & are in college. In KS, We volunteered yes, and so did our kids. And here’s the big difference between KS & AZ…. So did so many other people in KS!!! 😍 There would never have been a festival like that in KS that was not manned at every bounce house or game by at least 1 responsible adult or child maybe even 2-3 volunteers. I don’t know if it’s because in AZ they don’t ask for volunteers or if it’s because in AZ you get told no when you ask? 🧐 Either way I will say it is different. Well anyways, long story, and if you read that whole thing just know the Randel family here loves ya. Life is ever changing here but we came to grow and learn, observe and process. Not for how to make a difference in the world and in the lives of the children of the community, although we know we could, but to take those moments to reflect on what we have done in the past and what we want to do moving forward. To change our own lives and our own future and those of the 4 kids we have of our own 👭👬 . We love you all from KS, we miss so so many of you 🥰
Let this be a reminder to keep volunteering KS. To put your community ahead of your family sometimes… not too much tho. 🤗
