What I Learned This Summer

If you read my previous post, you'll remember this was the summerthatflewby. Yes, it has been jam packed with fun activities, one right after the other.

When you have a lot going, sleep tends to be hard to come by. I love mornings unless I'm behind on sleep. Then getting up with the alarm can be a real chore. Fumbling through breakfast, waking tired kids, or letting them sleep, trying to catch up on housework, all makes for a crazy schedule and many days I felt pretty far from the organized person I usually am.

Somehow, in the midst of all this, I would find myself thinking, "Now the virtuous woman would have read her Bible and prayed for an hour, all before 7 AM, even if she was sleep deprived, and you're just getting breakfast cleared away and it's mid morning." (or later!)

"But I can't! I'm too tired!" And then I'd argue with myself.

That's when I heard the soft whisper of "Grace, my child."

Ah, grace. It's the 'in' word these days, I know. Some of you hate it. Some of you get it. Some of you don't. Someday my husband will guest blog for me and put it in his own words, which is the way I understand it best. (He always says, "If you think grace is a license to sin, you don't truly understand it.")

And since I can't do anything to earn love from Jesus, not even reading my Bible or praying for an hour, I'll just soak the love up while I do the laundry, I'll see Him smile on me when I read to Brooke, I'll feel Him chuckle when I sit and listen to my big kids tell jokes, I'll sense His arms around me when I'm having a particularly stressful day, and I'll stop placing conditions on myself to get Jesus to perform.

Before I change the subject, I must tell you my Cato story.

It was one of the last days of our family vacation. We were motel-ing in Harrison, OH and taking in the Creation Museum. The first night at that motel, I sat at the pool with the children so Leon could enjoy some quiet time. The next night was my turn. The plan was that I would drive down the street to Pizza Hut and order a pizza for our supper. But I had about 45 minutes of free time before that. So Leon heads to the pool, and I'm alone in our beautiful, apartment-sized motel room for 45 blissful, quiet minutes. I have my Bible and a great devotional book along, but first I turn on the TV to see if anything good was on. I found a silly chick flick and turned off my brain and relaxed. Suddenly, I noticed the time, so I grabbed the keys and my wallet and headed out the door. At Pizza Hut I was told I had to wait about 15 minutes for my order, so I decided to go see what this town has in it. The entire trip I kept telling Leon that I'd LOVE to find a Cato, since we don't have one real close. So I'm driving down the road talking to God out loud, and I said, "I know I wasn't a very good girl today, God. I should have been  reading my Bible or praying back at the motel during my alone time. I'd love to find a Cato but I don't deserve it-" I was literally mid sentence when I saw it. A Cato sign. I started to cry. I felt God as real that moment as I ever have in my life. I felt Him saying, "You think you get good things in exchange for performing well. That's not how I work. I love you regardless of your choices." Let's just say, I have a new favorite shirt and skirt from Cato that day; I like to think of them as my extra special gifts from God. That's grace, folks.

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Today the children and I went to pick out a puppy for our family. Meet Prince. He's all cute and roly-poly, but completely terrified of the cats. I suppose that will change soon enough. Let's just hope he trains easily, because training children is hard enough, much less a puppy.

 And here are my cute pig-tailed girls!

Bask in the father's Love. It'll change your life!

Thesummerthatflewby

This summer just may go down in history as being our most jam-packed one yet, but wait, I say that every summer don't I?

Memorial Day weekend found us back on our campsite, working on fixing up the cabin and clearing some brush. We invited Leon's family over for a 'trash can supper' the last evening.

 This is how Brooke eats breakfast in the rain.

 It poured rain one afternoon, so the children got to hang out in the cabin and read.

  Corn hole!

And then we had VBS at church, which Leon and I helped plan.

Our family vacation came right on the tail of VBS, then I was home for 4 days before I left for a Stutzman Ladies weekend at a cabin in TN celebrating the big sister's 40th. What a grand time we had!

This was the good group picture.

 This was the funny group picture. See, dear Heidi handles the camera and all, but on her mad dash to join us before the camera flashed, she wiped out on the just-rained-on deck and this is what happened.

 Heidi was the crafty brain behind these lovely wooden signs and Jen and Elaine helped her. What fun to choose our own and personalize them with our own color scheme.

The birthday girl herself, painting her sign.

 Megan baking muffins in the kitchen. This is what she thinks of cooking for her sisters in law. (The lighting is terrible in this picture, but I'm not up to editing pictures right now.)

 My sweet mother-in-law, getting a much deserved foot soak.

The famous game of Blok-us.

 We ate good food, spent a day on the lake on a pontoon, ate at Olive Garden, played games, watched a movie, read, hunted for bears, ;) enjoyed the lovely remote area, laughed at the chicken crossing the road, soaked our feet, and shared encouraging words with each other. It was a treasure of a weekend!

I sent my oldest son to camp the very day after I returned from TN. How can we possibly have a child old enough to go off to camp for 5 days?! We missed Logan so much but he had a fantastic time. While he was gone, I totally re-painted the boy's room as a surprise for him. Jamison helped me with the floor.

Immediately after he returned, Leon's sister and her family arrived and stayed with us for the next 9 days. What fun we had! The children enjoyed their cousins so much! We adults enjoyed some wonderful conversations as well! And I didn't take one picture!

Other summer fun.....

snapping beans, which the children do not enjoy but their Mom is very grateful for their help, and since they eat a lot of food, the Mom thinks it is only right and fair that they help out!

playing Narnia......

Trying out new work shoes and having your Mom laugh at your style...or lack of style...

 taking pictures of the kittens and having Mom delete most of them...

mowing yard, weeding the garden, swimming, riding 4 wheeler, building extravagant creations in the sandbox, playing in the old barn......

Last Saturday, Leon and Annika went to pick up a pony for the children. It is Annika's dream come true. She has been taking very good care of Cherokee ever since she joined our family, even going so far as to scoop up every little pile of manure she drops in the yard.  I hope Cherokee knows how loved she is.

In the middle of all the fun, Jamison celebrated his 11th birthday. Being the big boy that he is, he didn't even fuss that it went mostly un-noticed. :)We are still planning a celebration.

Two and a half weeks until school starts! The children groan and complain but I think we are all ready for a school schedule again.

 The children pulled out the tent again and are enjoying sleeping in the yard. Somehow sleeping outside never gets old.

And that's a quick run down of our summer, thus far.

Family Vacation 2014

I found a few minutes to myself and so I decided to throw a post up here while our family vacation is still fresh on my mind. (I typed 'vaca' but that made me feel like a teenage, so I changed it. Not sure how I feel about that. Pretty sure I'm only about 25 or 30 in my mind.:) )

We took off for 9 whole days, including travel days, and left the farm behind. We had a very capable young man doing our chores and that helped us relax. Leon didn't stress even once about the animals back home. We had just come through an intense week of being in charge of VBS at church, and Saturday morning bright and early we headed out. After about 15 hours, we arrived at my friend, Gloria's house. We had a wonderful, but short visit there. They live in this cute little duplex in the city and I couldn't help but admire them. There's a lot of sacrifices to make in living where they do. They use every corner of their house and yard to make a beautiful cozy place to live.

The next afternoon, we headed off to Leon's aunt and uncle, Steve and Mary Etta. We enjoyed seeing their offspring and spending a relaxing evening with them around a campfire. The children had a great time as well, with their second cousins.

Cape Henlopen, here we come. The next day we spent at a beach in Delaware. It bordered on the chilly side, but I'm the only one that minded. The children could NOT get enough of the water and waves. Poor Iowa kids.

We crashed back at Uncle Steve's again that night, where Aunt Mary Etta had another delicious meal waiting for us. I washed up all the sandy beach clothes and we all slept soundly.

The next day we were off to Washington D.C. It was raining and as we headed to the subway, we all got soaked. The subway was a new experience for all of us, except Leon. The sun soon came out and we dried off quickly only to get drenched in sweat later. It was a warm, noisy, dirty day in the city.We saw the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Reflecting Pool, the Air & Space Museum, Holocaust Museum, and the Native American Museum. We ate a picnic lunch at noon that we had carried around in our back pack all morning. Before the day was over, I had decided that hog manure really doesn't smell so bad. The children were a bit overwhelmed too. We nearly wore them out. We walked and walked and walked and walked. We crashed at our motel after a meal at Applebee's and relaxed all our sore muscles.

 These $3 ice cream cones saved the day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exhausted, sitting on the floor, at the Air & Space Museum.

The next day we went to Mount Vernon, George Washington's estate. It was a distance from D.C. but totally worth the drive. We enjoyed touring the grounds and seeing the restored houses and barns. We headed back to D.C. around noon and ate our lunch in the van on the way. We took the subway to Arlington Cemetery and walked to see the changing of the guards. It was very interesting and worth the walk. Annika begged a ride on her Daddy's shoulders on the way back.

Thursday we had a 9 hour drive to the Cincinnati, OH area. We checked into a beautiful motel room that was really more of an apartment than a motel room. Cracker barrel and a swimming pool...what more could anyone want?!

Friday we spent most of the day at the Creation Museum. It was just an amazing experience! The children enjoyed it so much! The gardens were a feast for the eyes! There was so much beauty and information to take in, and the coolest thing was that our Creator got all the Glory! We enjoyed the Planetarium, Buddy Davis, the petting zoo and eating at Noah's Cafe for lunch.

That night it was more swimming pool (parents roll eyes right here!) and yummy pizza that I delivered so I didn't have to swim.:) And while waiting on our pizza, I got to shop at Cato! Win, win!

Later that night, a big bus pulled up to our motel and a whole load of Amish got off. Imagine Leon's surprise when he recognized my cousin from Indiana! So later on, Jesse, Barbara, and 3 of their 4 children came over to our room and we had a nice little visit with them. They were headed to the museum the next day as well.

Saturday was pretty slow paced. We spent about half the day at the Museum and the children each got camel rides. As soon as they got off, Logan muttered, "That sure wasn't worth $5!" We all chilled in the pool again (!) then cleaned up and headed to a wonderful Mexican restaurant for supper. The rest of the evening was spent eating Leon's Father's Day gift of cocktail shrimp and watching a movie.

And Sunday after eating breakfast at the motel, and my children eating more bacon than what should even be allowed, we packed up and headed home. The children wanted to get home so badly! They kept saying they were sick of the city.

This was taken to settle the argument of which boy is taller.

So now we're back to feeding pigs and chickens, mowing yard, cleaning house, doing laundry, and countless other jobs, but so far, no one has asked to go back to the city.