Catching Up

Things around our house have been pretty crazy lately. But more on that later.

Due to said craziness, I haven't had much time to devote to blogging, despite many blog-worthy moments.  So what follows is a photo depiction of our super awesome last days summer.

At Rolling Ridge Ranch in Amish country with Mom and Dad, Lori and two of her boys and our two.  (Rich had to work.)  Such a bygone, low key place. No flashing lights or computers or movies or cell phones.  My kids need more of that kind of fun...everybody does, I think.  And boy did they love it!

  

 

 

While in the Amish country, we stopped at a huge store where I bought this awesome new table runner.  Love all the colors so much! 

 
Next it was an evening at the fair, complete with the Lego village supreme, popcorn and cotton candy, giant slides and rollercoasters, animal barns, flea market barns, people watching and pony rides.  Good times.

 
More harvest from our garden.  It has been extraordinary this year!

Finally, last night at my company's box at the Clippers game.  We won!  Sam warmed up to it eventually and had lots of fun.  But when we first arrived he was less than enthused, as evidenced by this photo stream. 

 

Lena, on the other hand, was very enthusiastic about it from the start!  That girl is very in touch with her emotions.  :)

 A lot of fun days and good memories, which are my favorite kind.    

Ordinary and Extraordinary

I updated the blog today - changed the header to a photo of our family's Chucks (taken by Karen Harris during a recent family photo shoot), revised my blog description and tweaked my profile a bit.

Ordinary life.  Extraordinary love.

That sums it up for me. 

Days drift into the next.  Branches hold leaves, then snow, then buds.  Holidays bring hearts, then eggs, then flags, then pumpkins, then reindeer. Songs are frequent.  Laughs are easy.  Prayers are prayed.  Tears are dried.  Inches are grown.  Shoes are too small too fast.  Meals are devoured.  Miles are driven.  Jobs are worked.  Books are read.  Kisses are generous.  Lives are lived.

It's a life familiar to millions of people.  An ordinary life.

Often I feel the weight of its sameness.  It can hang heavy on my shoulders.

Then I'm reminded of the love. 

The extraordinary love that I feel for and get from the people God has placed into this ordinary life of mine, those people who fill up and sometimes break my heart, who stoke the fire in my soul.  The love that brushes the weight from my shoulders as if it were feathery instead of leaden and allows me to close my eyes and breathe deeply and recognize the unique beauty these ordinary days are full of. 

I recently had a conversation with one of my oldest and best friends about getting bogged down by the everydays and forgetting to take the time to be still and watch the moon or dance in the rain and stretch the internal freedom we sometimes feel we have to suppress to live these ordinary days.  Thanks, Jen, for that conversation. 

In the end we decided it's all about balance.  Give and receive, do and rest, work and play, sacrifice and reserve.  Balance and awareness - I think those are the keys...

Keys to making the ordinary the extraordinary. 

My People

These are my people. 

My God loving, music loving, beer loving, gifted, powerful, funny, awesome friends. 

I love these people. 

Yesterday was our last Sunday to play all together before Jamie and Will leave for their exciting new adventure in Nashville. 

It was a good Sunday. 

My mind was all over the place as we played our first song.  I was thinking of the band, of other friends, of our house, of about a thousand other things.  I said a quick prayer when I realized I wasn't feeling it.  I didn't want to miss my last Sunday hugging Jamie's melodies because my brain was floating around in an abyss of worries and fractured thoughts.  God heard me, because suddenly my mind was back in my body.  I felt every word and heard every note everyone sang and played. I was present in those last moments with this group of people.  And it was so good.

Then I cried, which isn't unusual for me. :) 

There were a few tears of sadness, but more so there were tears of gratitude.  Gratitude for having these last couple of years to sing with Jamie and, because of her, living out a passion of mine, meeting and loving all of these people, strengthening my relationship with God, and finally truly belonging to a church. 

Gratitude is a beautiful thing. 

Our band has a new lead singer and is looking for a new drummer.  And we will play on.  It will be awesome and fulfilling and beautiful to continue to lead people to feel fun and depth and freedom and emotions at church.  It won't be the same, which isn't to say it won't be great.  Just different.  And new.  Which I meet with equal parts anxiety and excitement. 

Jamie and Will head to Nashville soon to study and work and play music and make a life together. I will miss them too much to properly express and hope for them every happiness and success mixed with great times and good people and, always, heaps of love.

Forcing Fun

Why are my children crying about jumping on our trampoline?

"Why are you making us do this?", Sammy just cried as he sulked in to our backyard. 

Seriously?

I tell you why I'm forcing them to play on our super awesome trampoline.  They (Sam particularly) have been suffering from pent up energy with the rain keeping them confined to the indoors. They're like a couple of caged wild animals.  I'm not exaggerating.  Last night, for instance, Sam was spinning around in circles, laughing maniacally, and then proceeded to run himself into every wall in our living room.  It was like some kind of fenced in beast trying to find a weak spot in the perimeter. 

So obviously, any spare rain-free moment we have I make them go outside to burn off some energy.  It's either that or I'm dropping them off at Goodwill. 

I think forcing fun is the better option.

 

On Salt Fork Lake...



(Picture stolen from my sister's blog)
 

My parents (isn't that the best photo of them...love...) rented a pontoon boat and, on Saturday, took our family and Lori and two of her boys out on Salt Fork Lake for a day of boating and tubing and fishing.  And, oh, what fun we had.  The weather was perfection with big fluffy clouds and the bluest sky, no humidity and lots of sun.  It was a scene straight from On Golden Pond (one of the best movies ever...EVER). 

 

The kids couldn't have had a better time.  Sam went tubing, pretty fast sometimes, all by himself.  Which made me so proud.  And a nervous wreck.  But mostly proud.  The nervous wreck part of my brain recalled an On Golden Pond image of Kathrine Hepburn's character, Ethel, gracefully diving off Charlie's boat into Purgatory Cove to rescue her Norman and Billy.  Only I wouldn't be as beautiful and graceful in real life.  And Sam was wearing a life vest.  And he wasn't as old.  But you get my drift.  I was ready to rescue.

 

Thankfully no rescuing was needed.  Sam was very brave and strong and you couldn't wipe the smile off that boys face. 

 

Lena went tubing twice with Rich.  But the last time she announced that she was going in "dat ting by myself".  What?  My three year old all alone in the giant orange tube in the middle of the lake??  Kathrine Hepburn rescue images came flooding back into my brain.  Oy.  But since Lena had worked up her courage to do it and was flexing her independent big girl muscles, we gave it a go.  A very, very slow and gentle go.  With Rich and I both poised to dive in to retrieve her.  But, again, no rescuing was needed and she was so happy and proud. 

 

Everyone was just so relaxed and happy, a little mood music in the background, beautiful nature all around, food, laughing, fishing, playing.  I've never seen so many purely genuine smiles in one boat.

 

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for one of the best days ever!  EVER.  :)