Lucas and Cherissa and Crew

We had a wonderful visit from Lucas and Cherissa and their four kiddos.  We're so happy we got to see them and take a stab at catching up!

(Recovering from swimmer's ear.  If you know us, you know it's extremely rare for one of our kids to fall asleep on the couch!)

Independence Day

You can tell who got the "dud" sparkler…and also had a hurting ear.  We have no experience with hurting ears around here, so we didn't realize that it was swimmer's ear, and that swimmer's ear is super painful.  But, now we know!

Just Summer

Lego Comic Book

Jonathan was inspired recently to make a comic book out of Lego scenes.  (Just one more reason we love summer break.)  He was imitating a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin is trying to trick his mom into letting him drive the car.)  Jonathan took the pictures but never made the captions or book.  I guess one beautiful thing about summer is that you don't have to finish everything you start!

Sometimes They Humor Me and Pose for Pictures

Jonathan's Time at Camp

The day after we returned from family camp, we took Jonathan to camp - a week of camp for kids his age, and without us.  It's hard to believe we have a kiddo old enough to go to camp on his own, but…here we are!  We had been anticipating this week for several months.  As it happened, Jonathan had the opportunity to go to camp where I had volunteered a lot and worked a little, once upon a time.  My boss was the evening speaker for the week, Jonathan knew two boys in his cabin because their parents are old, dear friends of mine, I was on staff with all the boys' parents but one, and, best of all, his cabin counselor was Ryan…I won't explain the many connections to Ryan, but his wife, Kathy, and I have been dear friends for many years.  That's too many things in a sentence to connect with too many commas, but I'm not going back to fix it now!

The camp has a Sherwood Forest theme, hence the green tunics.  Here's Jonathan the afternoon we dropped him off...

and with the guys in his cabin.

The rest of our crew goofed around in the forest briefly before leaving Jonathan.

Benjamin said, "Look at this acorn I found!"

Jonathan and his good buddy, Paul, both just happened to bring the same book to camp.  I'm sure they had plenty to talk about during the week…and may have driven the other boys a bit crazy in the process.

One last picture with Daddy.

See Benajmin?

A huge perk of going up to camp (for the first time in 15 years for me) was seeing these wonderful ladies.  We had been on staff together once upon a time.  Although I had already known some of them before this, our time on staff certainly cemented our friendship.  All of us had boys in the same cabin:  Kathuccino, Sarahmony, me, Heather Forecast, and Without a Trace.

 

I had wondered what it would be like to leave Jonathan for a whole week.  The only other time Jeff and I had been away from him for that long was for our 10th anniversary trip, and my mom took care of him when he was almost four.  That was a wonderful week, but this was different.  It was a big opportunity for me to trust God and the very capable camp staff to take care of him.  It did put my mind at ease to know that Ryan was his cabin counselor.  And, this part surprised me, but I had the most exhilarating feeling bringing him to camp that day - to share a place with him that was so special and influential in my life - and to see that it was going to become special to him, too.  To remember how my relationship with God grew and changed at camp, and to give Jonathan the opportunity to experience that, too - well, I just can't put into words how happy that made me.  It was amazing.  I'm so grateful.

After dropping Jonathan off at camp, a few of the families of campers went to the lake to catch up and let our littler kids play before going home.  Here are Grace and Olivia entertaining themselves.  I should mention that Kathy and Olivia stayed up at camp for part of the week and updated me on how Jonathan was doing, and those updates we priceless!  They also visited our house during the week, and I loved that chance to catch up with Kathy.

Finally, a week later, I went (on my own this time) to pick up Jonathan.  He was happy to see me but was in no huge hurry to leave.  He was sad that his week was over.  He said that it was the awesomest week that he ever had, that it was so fun that he had short-term memory loss, and that he would never worry about getting dirty again.  Also, that he liked it as much as family camp.  Lots of high praise from a boy who is often reserved with his opinions.

Here are the boys enjoying their last breakfast.  Jonathan must have enjoyed a whole week without me bugging him to put his knee down while eating.

This is the lower of the two stumps to climb near his cabin.

And here we are on it.

The "youngers" and I made this sign to welcome Jonathan home.  When Jeff, B, and G came out to welcome us home from our drive, the sign was gone.  We can't decide whether we think the wind or a neighborhood kid did away with it, but Jonathan didn't get to see it.  I'm glad I took a picture of it before we left!  Most of all, I'm thankful that Jonathan had a week away from the distractions of home to have an amazing week at camp.

Swimming Pictures

Capturing the Moment

These two don't always enjoy each other's company.  They have totally different personalities and interests.  They annoy each other a lot.  But, there is one activity they both enjoy occasionally, and when they do, the enjoy it in perfect peace.  It's amazing.

They like to trade Legos!  Her Legos and his Legos come with totally different, tiny, detailed pieces, and each one admires the pieces in the other's collection.  Every once in awhile, they spend a big chunk of time trading, piece by piece.  It's truly amazing.  I would expect trading time to produce a lot of arguments, but so far, it hasn't.

I really need some help from both of them with picking up the house this afternoon, but I also really hate to interrupt them when they're getting along so well!

If you read the blog, you may notice that I'm behind, so I'll write a little note about what our summer has been like.  I do love summer break, and I love having the kids home, all to myself, without worrying about the school day schedule.

The beginning of summer included a couple of weeks of camp - one of family camp, which I have posted about, and one week of sleep-away camp for Jonathan, which I haven't posted about, but it was absolutely wonderful in every way.  In the middle of the week while Jonathan was gone, the "youngers" and I were rear-ended in a super-minor accident, but it was just enough to mess up my neck and cause some minor damage to my bumper.  So, I was going to our wonderful chiropractor three times a week for a month, although I'm down to once a week now.  I'm thankful for his help.  Getting the van looked at and fixed has taken more time than it should have, and it's in the shop right now.  I've been trying to keep going to they gym three times a week, too (did I mention that I joined a gym in February?) so all that driving has kept us busy.

We have enjoyed trying to make sure to have friends over to swim as much as we can while swimming season lasts.  We recently enjoyed a visit from Dave, Jen, Ella, and Delia, and we're thankful to be in touch with them.  Jonathan has a very good buddy in the neighborhood and it's been fun to see them cement their friendship after a year of knowing each other.  And, we've enjoyed knowing our next-door neighbors well enough to have them over for spontaneous swims when we and they are both free.

We're getting ready to celebrate Jeff's birthday and my mom's birthday this month, and I'm in the midst of trying to get the kids in gear for school.  Jonathan and Grace are both amazing readers but don't love handwriting, so I'm working on cursive with Jonathan and printing with Grace.  Also, Jonathan was bumped up to fourth grade ***edited to add the word MATH - sorry I omitted that earlier*** in February of his third grade year.  (Hopefully my mom was the only one to read that mistake.  Whoops!)  His teacher didn't think that there were any gaps in his learning despite the bump, but I was pretty sure that there were.  I discovered that there's a big gap in the area of fractions, so I've been working with him on fractions, which he tolerates.  Thankfully, he still loves math, despite my intervention.  Both older kids are excited for school, and I'm excited because I didn't have to buy many new things in order for them to have what they needed!  I hate to see the summer end and send them off to school.  The three kids really become a sibling unit in the summer once they're used to being together all day long, and then do enjoy playing together quite a bit.

Benjamin and I are going to have a fun fall together.  It will be really different to have one-on-one time with him for the half-day while Grace is at kindergarten.  Last year when we moved here, I joined a Bible study with my neighbor one day a week at her church, and I also joined the moms' group at my church one day a week.  Both of them had great classes for the "youngers" with their peers.  Trying to get settled and take care of the kiddos and meet people kept me very busy, and then when I joined the gym, which also had a good program for the younger kids, that kept me busier, although I have really enjoyed it.  At the end of the school year last year, I did a lot of thinking and praying about what this fall should look like and what my commitments should be.  I didn't want to be too busy and miss out on this last bit of time that I have Benjamin at home.  Two years might seem like plenty, but I know how fast it will go and then, ka-bam, all the kids will be in school.  So, I'm still figuring out what this fall will look like.  I know that tromping up to school three times a day is going to keep me busier than I was last year.

Well, that was a rambling account of what's been going on here…but since I've been such an inconsistent blogger, I wanted to make sure to remember this, just for myself.