2024 Reflections

 God is good.

January started with goodbyes as Jonas headed back to the Air Force Academy. Silas enjoyed church wintercamp. We celebrated Scott's sister's engagement. We did our favorite annual trip to serve at Nehemiah Work Week at Ironwood Christian Camp. Scott helped plan new IT infrastructure, I cleaned many bathrooms and folded many loads of laundry (which is fun there). The 3 kids helped with landscape maintenance. All of us had loads of fun and were refreshed by getting away, receiving good spiritual food in the evenings, and experiencing true fellowship and discipleship all day long. Kaia headed back to Liberty University and sent happy pictures of "living where it snows". Silas finished his final class for his Associates Degree! Many puzzles were completed by the fire and new soup recipes were sampled as we hunkered down in the frigid SoCal winter.

February brought photos of Kaia from prison handcuffed in an orange jumpsuit - as part of a class trip for criminal justice majors. Silas's class had their annual protocol. This year they ate fancy (of course) then saw the Lion King. Parents were invited so I got to dress up formal with him for the night out. I also attended a many-years-awaited baby shower for a good friend. Kaden bought a new car as he prepared to re-enter normal life post motorcycle life.

In March, Kaia came home for spring break AND a root canal. ): We got another Schrubb dinner in with her here. Kaden had another surgery to clean up his partially functioning knee, bringing it to full function! Yay. To celebrate the full function (and my birthday) we got bikes from the beach bike shop he worked at pre-accident and spent an afternoon biking the boardwalk and enjoying Thrifty ice cream. Yum!

April - just life. We celebrated 24 years of marriage. Scott worked. Jonas schooled & worked. Kaden worked. Kaia schooled. Silas worked. I found a meme that said, "I was going to clean the house, but then I realized, this book isn't going to read itself..." and decided that represented me well. So I read. Silas finished 11th grade. I culled my homeschooling books - a little premature maybe, but others need them and I've only got 1 year left!

May took us to beautiful, green Virginia for Kaia's graduation! Woohoo! Liberty does graduations by school where they call your name and you walk across the stage and then a separate all school graduation with Senator Tim Scott in the stadium. Liberty did a great job making the whole weekend feel special and it was a great culmination to Kaia's bachelor's degree. In the midst, we celebrated Silas's birthday by going to Mr Goodies a special ice cream shop. At the end of the month, Silas joined the college graduation club receiving his A.S. in Aviation from Cypress College. (BUT he will still complete our 12th grade program because we LOVE our homeschool curriculum!) Uncle Paul & Aunt Marlene were in town to celebrate with us. Jonas was the only non-senior to accept an award during year-end awards at USAFA for his continued and excessive community service.

In June, Silas was selected to attend a Civil Air Patrol National Cadet Special Activity - the Northcentral Region Powered Flight Academy in Nebraska. He visited museuems, got flight time almost everyday (weather), and took a ride in a Chinook! He also attained his goal of making his first solo flight in a Cessna 172! He now has friends from all over the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Kaia was still in the job search and took the opportunity to ride "her horse" on the city trails to pass the time. She also had a lead role in our VBS skit and enjoyed sharing Jesus with 500+ kids! I enjoyed leading just the 3rd graders - quite a group! Immediately following VBS, I headed to our annual Civil Air Patrol encampment (without Silas who was still in Nebraska) to serve on our Chaplain Support Team to 500+ attendees. It was a blessing to serve and I got to visit the shooting range as a bonus.

4th of July Schrubb celebration was super fun and a little odd as so many kids were missing. Schultzes in Poland and Grubbs in the midwest. Nevertheless, a great start to making memories this month. Kaia started working retail at Macys. It was less pay than babysitting, but something to put on a resume because it was a "real" job. I also got my first full-time job since before kids! I started working for USPS delivering mail. It was 2 weeks of training (30% of which was about how dogs would be biting me!) I learned how to sort mail, how to drive the cute little LLV (long-life vehicle) and how to deliver mail efficiently on both walking and "mounted" routes (no horses involved - just the LLV). My shadow day was delivering mail with a pushcart in the little village shops of PCH in Laguna - great weather and beautiful! Kaden went dirt biking (not sure what I think) and boating in Arizona with friends. Last hurrah before another surgery!

August brought us to the end of mom's life here on earth. The first week she was with us in the waiting room during Kaden's surgery, chatting and playing games to pass the time, supporting us. A week later, she was in the presence of our great and mighty God. She lived for 20 months after they told her 6mos to live - and we savored those extra months, the "extra" birthdays, thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter with her. What a treat. It just so happened that Jonas was flying home the day she passed for a wedding, so was able to mourn with the family in those initial moments. Mom's legacy lives on. She met with each child before passing and gave them a personal letter with words of encouragement for the special moments she would miss in the future. She was so intentional about pouring into each of them, recognizing their gifts and talents, encouraging them to explore and yet stick close to Jesus. I am so thankful for her. She mommed me longer than I had my original mom. We will all miss her so. We had a couple weeks to just enjoy memories, then back to school... last kid, last first day of school, wow!  At the end of the month, we went to the annual parents weekend at USAFA and took dad with us. As a USAF veteran, he enjoyed participating in his grandson's Air Force experience so far - and the football game. It was a good way to end the month and a blessing to have grandpa along for the "vacation".

September - bowling for books, a homeschool tradition! Mom's memorial service - so many family in town. And people flew in from all over the world to celebrate her. I appreciated having the service a month after because it truly felt less like mourning and more like reflecting and celebrating who she was. First Schrubb dinner complete with 12 plus "extra" bonus people. future schrubbs??? Kaia got promoted (after 2mos!) to dress specialist at Macys, managing the dress department. Scott's working. Jonas is schooling. Kaden is itching to work. Hottest time ever to be a mailman.

October - Silas and I worked with Civil Air Patrol at the Pacific Air Show - glad to work the first day because the other days had more clouds and less planes! I quit USPS. So sad. I truly LOVED delivering mail, but I was at an office where my commitment was to work 40 hours and they regularly asked for more (which was fine) BUT would not let me off after 9 1/2 hours to make it on time to my evening commitments 2 days/week! I was pretty shocked as I was willing to work 10-12 hour days all the other days. But was so entertained to find out later that my particular office was known for difficulties and felt like the Lord allowed me to get a bucket-list job (that I fully intended to work to retirement),but put me in a place where it would not work out. I tell everyone that I got to do all the things - walking delivery, hop in-hop out, out the window driving delivery, apartments, businesses, I got to be one of 3 Christians in my office and smile at everyone everyday while they scowled back for as long as they could. It was so much fun - and then it was over. Once I left the post office, I wanted to keep walking everyday, so I did. I hiked routes we started hiking during covid. Sometimes I would drag a kid along, but mostly I enjoyed the time to myself each day. Silas continued to need little help with his school work but could now sleep in instead of having adult input before I left for work each day. 

November normally brings a Generation Joshua trip, but this year we made phone calls from home instead to encourage people to vote. It was different, but still felt like we were making a difference. Kaia got promoted AGAIN for a seasonal management position - she is in charge of the entire womens building (because our mall has 2 Macys stores). Who has entrusted my 19yo to run the Macys for the Christmas season?! So proud of her. My dear aunt Susan passed which brought another opportunity to reflect on the rich Christian heritage of my mom's family and the sweet times we had celebrating together growing up. Aunt Susan was the glue as grandma aged and then after she passed. I was so thankful for all the times she arranged for our family to gather. Approaching thanksgiving, I was blessed to be hired to work full-time for Operation Christmas Child again this year. As the days (sometimes) get colder, the whole family enjoyed bonfires on the driveway that neighbors would stop by to join. Thankful for all the good gifts.

December was busy with several of us working full-time non-traditional hours, but we still made time for advent - a month of daily family time in the evening to prepare our hearts for the celebration of Jesus' birth. Jonas joined us after finals 12/12 so we got to have him with us for a significant amount of time (til January!). Christmas was special, and though mom wasn't with us, we spent time reflecting on the place she is and the Savior who is always with us and made it possible for her and us to all be with Him there one day by coming to earth as a baby. 

God is good.

Kaden update - post surgery

Kaden is doing well. Thank you for praying with us. The surgery went well. The doctors did not have to use the cadaver tendon because Kaden is a slender guy and they were able to stretch his own anatomy to reach. So that is one less point of failure.

According to Kaden, this surgery has been the most painful to date. In the past, he did not need any strong pain killers at home, but, instead, used only tylenol & advil. This experience was significantly more painful and he was using the stronger meds and at the strongest dose. Thankfully, today he woke up with little pain. Praise the Lord! He took some tylenol this morning (just in case), but didn’t need anything else all day. Again, thank you all for praying with us!

Now we wait. 12 weeks is a LONG time to be in an immobilizing brace. Kaden is already somewhat miserable in it as the straps and bracing metal pieces are very uncomfortable even when wearing it correctly. It will just take some getting used to. We continue to pray for a full recovery but know that we won’t know any results for several months. We praise the Lord that this surgery was even an option and that there were local doctors willing to give it a shot. Looking forward to sharing good news in a few months.

“I will exalt you, O Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. Sing to the Lord, you saints of his; praise his holy name.”

Psalm 30:1-4

Kaden Update - surgery today

It has been 11 months since the accident. At first, recovery and healing came more quickly than expected. We were super excited. It seemed as though Kaden might escape somewhat unscathed which would be miraculous.

Overdue updates: 

In March, Kaden had surgery on his knee again because he had not recovered enough range of motion through PT. They did a quick clean up and broke up/removed most of the scar tissue which successfully allowed complete range of motion. Yay!

In June, Kaden had surgery to remove all the metal in his arm/wrist. The bones have all healed and the plates and screws were no longer necessary and were painful and restricting movement. Again, this surgery successfully allowed further range of motion. Yay!

What led to today’s surgery:

When Kaden was able to drive again, he noticed something was off about his back. He could feel it when he sat in the driver seat and shifted the gears of his car. He asked me to look at his back and it was extremely noticeable that something was really wrong. Not only did his scapula come away from his body when lifting his arm, but he could not lift his arm up and could not bear any weight, like picking up a glass of water to drink. It is his non-dominant hand and he had been compensating in other ways. He didn’t notice at first because there was so much else going on that it didn’t seem critical and he thought it was an injury that would gradually heal.

We made a doctor appointment and the doctor confirmed he had a winged scapula but he didn’t really know what to do about it. The physical therapist added some exercises to try to help the condition, but it was not effective. In May we saw an orthopedic specialist who was immediately amazed at how bad the condition was and told us surgery was required. Typically, they try to do PT before deciding on surgery, but since the PT was already happening and the condition was so severe, they set up some tests. A few weeks later, after 90 minutes of tests (basically electrocuting all of Kaden’s back and arm muscles one at a time) confirmed that his nerves were not functioning properly, a surgery date was tentatively set. We really only found out in the last week that it would really happen today.

So this morning at 5am, we checked in to the hospital. This surgery is no guarantee that his arm will be fixed, but it was our only option. Basically, they are going to use part of his pectoral muscle and cadaver tendon to control his scapula.

Please pray that the surgery is effective.

We will not know for several weeks. Kaden will be in an arm brace, completely immobilized, for 12 weeks - longer than any other surgery to date. It will be hard, but we hope it will lead to better use of the arm. Once movement is allowed, there will be a significant amount of PT and time required for complete recovery and for the body to accept old muscles taking on new jobs.

2023 - Reflections

2023 Grubb Family Letter

As we start the new year, I am reflecting on the last with thankfulness.

2023… The year our kids turned 21! 20. 18! & 16! – some big birthdays and indications of big life decisions being made regularly in the Grubb house. We are so thankful that our kids are all walking in Truth and still seek wisdom from us and other trusted adults. The decisions they make as young adults (school, calling, jobs, vehicles, moving out) have the potential to have big consequences. We are feeling the gravity of each one and with 3 young adults it seems there is always a big life choice being prayed about in our home!

2023 in a nutshell… Air Force. IT. Cancer. Civil Air Patrol. Teaching. Motorcycle. Senior Thesis. 50-Mile Race. College Graduation. High School Graduation. Camp. Family Reunion. Senior Thesis. Encampment. College drop-off. Hollywood Show. Motorcycle Accident………. College Graduation. Job Offer. Virginia. Kaden walks again! Christmas. 50^th Birthday. The Lord’s hand was on it all.

For the more detailed version, see below.

January… the year always starts with people leaving – the holidays are over. Jonas heads back to the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) with 3½ years left. Scott is still running his IT business. Ellen (Scott’s mom) is told she has 6 months to live due to cancer in her leg that is now also in her lungs. (spoiler alert: she is still with us!!!)

February… Silas attends SNCOS (senior non-commisioned officer school) as he is promoting in leadership at Civil Air Patrol (CAP). Tara continues teaching in our home and at the homeschool group one day each week – dissections, debates, dual enrollment, GenJ club, alongside Algebra 2, Latin 2, Biology, Western Cultural History, Socratic Dialogue, and British Literature. Grandma (Ellen) turns 75! Major Miller, a man instrumental in Jonas & Silas enjoying CAP dies unexpectedly at the age of 82. Kaia & Tara visit Liberty University in Virginia as Kaia expects to attend in the fall. We sneak in a day in D.C., too.

March… It snows at our house (first time since the 90s). Jonas turns 21 & Scott heads to Colorado to take him out for his birthday and experience a day in the life of a cadet at the academy. Kaden buys a motorcycle in central California prompting a roadtrip with his mom & grandma to pick it up. His license did not permit freeway driving yet, so we drove home on the byways (not the highways). Kaia turns 18. Tara has a birthday and subjects the children to a traditional birthday hike when Jonas is home for spring break. 

April… cousin Alison, took Jonas & Tara to Disneyland (first time in almost 20 years)! We enjoyed Easter Sunday sunrise service on the hill at our church, Kindred Community Church. Jonas was “recognized” – a huge deal for cadets 4^th class at the academy. Kaia defended her senior thesis: the first amendment right to free speech on college campuses. Jonas completed the Falcon50 – a 50 MILE race on his base! (What?!?)

May… Kaia attended a super fun high school “grad nite” with other homeschooled students from our church. Silas turned 16 and got his driver license! Kaia graduated from Cypress College with an A.A. in Kinesiology (she was pursuing physical therapy) and an A.S. in Criminal Justice (she is pursuing a B.S. in this field).  She went to her high school prom with her small group of senior girls from church. Silas went to CAX – cadre assessment exercise – and was selected to be on cadre (leadership) for the CAP summer encampment. Kaia left for Ironwood Christian Camp for the summer. Kaden applied for a job with homeland security.

June… Jonas came home for 3 weeks – the academy gives them one of three 3-week periods off each summer. Jonas got the first period this summer. Kaia came home for a day to attend her high school graduation. This was the last time we’d have all the kids home until Christmas. Kaden, Jonas, & Tara worked VBS at our church.

July… Kaden & Tara fly to Kansas City for the 4^thof July Thibodo family reunion! Kaden turns 20. Kaden finishes his last college class, writing his senior thesis: the effects of social media on mental health. Silas & Tara go to CAP encampment for 12 days where Silas serves on the logistics team and Tara works in mess leading a team of 15 cadets and 4 adults to make & serve breakfast and lunch to 600 people each day! We both got to fly on a Blackhawk on the last day of camp – so amazing!

August… Kaia returned from camp and was home for 9 days before Scott & Tara flew along to drop her off at college in Virginia. We stayed a few days as Scott had not seen the campus and to make sure she got settled. In contrast to the 1 backpack Jonas was allowed to bring to college, Kaia brought 4 HUGE bags! Grandpa turned 77 while Kaia was home. Kaden found out that he made it through the extensive homeland security hiring process and was waiting for a date to report to FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center). As it usually takes 9-24 months to get through the process, it appeared the Lord was really opening doors to get Kaden through in less than 3 months! Kaden’s metal band played a final show in Hollywood before one of the members moved across the country. Scott & Tara visited Jonas at USAFA for parents’ weekend.

August 31… Kaden was in a bad motorcycle accident. He was on his way to work early one morning and we woke up to a call from the hospital. We are so thankful that the Lord spared his life, but also that there was a surgeon willing to attempt what other surgeons thought was not possible – to repair his left leg. Kaden, though still in much pain, looks and walks like normal now – praise the Lord!

September… Kaden was in the hospital for 9 days with a grandparent or parent by his side every moment. I am so thankful that Jim & Ellen (the grandparents) stood in when we couldn’t be there and just to give respite throughout the time. The day Kaden came home from the hospital, his degree came in the mail. (He had already chosen not to attend graduation in New Jersey.) Kaden graduated from Thomas Edison State University with a B.A. in Communications. Hooray! Our church family, homeschool family, people from all parts of our lives shared in our difficulties as we nursed Kaden back to health. We were gifted food everyday so that I could give my full attention to nursing. Kaden was home but in a wheelchair with 2 broken arms as well as the leg, he could not move himself at all. He needed crazy amounts of meds at all different hours. I had to learn to give him shots twice a day. And the whole time the Lord sent his people to love us, solve logistical problems, encourage us, and care for us. In the meantime, we tried to shield our out-of-state kids from the extent of the challenges as we didn’t want them to be too distracted other than to pray for their brother. Silas rose to the occasion, as much fell on his shoulders with mom tending to brother. It was a sad day when homeland security called and told Kaden to report 10/23. The timing of the accident was interesting as normally people are looking forward to getting back to school or back to work and Kaden was in the midst of change, so he is just diligently working to heal, not sure what comes next. 

October… Once Kaden’s shots & meds were done, Silas & Tara flew to Virginia for a weekend to attend an event with Kaia! Scott & grandma were able to handle Kaden’s care. He got the casts off both arms and his leg in a brace so it could bend just a bit – woohoo for progress! Crutches after both arms broken was challenging, but eventually, he was able to use them.

November… Kaden is allowed to walk! Only 9 weeks after the accident – incredible! There is still a lot of pain and therapy to happen, but the amazing progress makes us hopeful! Silas & Tara again went to a GenJ student action team in Virginia. Thanksgiving was different without Jonas & Kaia, but precious as mom (Ellen) was still with us and based on her diagnosis in January, we didn’t expect that. Tara started working at Samaritan’s Purse with Operation Christmas Child (OCC) – a job that would last only a few weeks, but was very enjoyable and fulfilling.

December… Everyone was home! Jonas & Kaia both flew in on the same day. Everyone loves volunteering at OCC, so it was fun to have the 4 kids work together and bring me dinner. (: Christmas with extended family was lovely with lots of food and fun. For Christmas, all the kids got suits and it was perfect timing because we all attended the All Academy Ball on 12/26. It was a fun event to get dressed up and to celebrate Jonas. We celebrated Scott’s 50^th birthday! He enjoyed time with family at a movie and his favorite restaurant.

What an incredible year! Looking forward to seeing what the Lord has for us in 2024!

On the horizon… Kaia will graduate with a B.S. in criminal justice from Liberty University in May. She has been accepted to graduate school but also applied for several jobs – may the Lord continue to guide her. Silas will graduate with a A.S. in aviation from Cypress College in May. He will still finish his senior year of high school (24-25) before moving on to ??? Kaden continues to heal and is working to get back to the physical condition he was in before the accident and would still like to pursue a law enforcement career. Jonas has spent 2½ years in Colorado at USAFA and has 2½ years to go!