Just a Short Jaunt Down the Highway

We spent a little time in the great state of Illinois this past weekend.  The days absolutely flew by.

My kids spent a ton of time in our aunt and uncle's pool, and I just realized that I did not get even one picture of them swimming.  I will blame it on not wanting to get the camera wet.

I did, however, get several pictures of this crazy football game.  One of my favorite things about this family is that they are amazing about doing things with the kids. Just about everything can be made inter-generational.  Typically this is a great thing. It was not so great when my husband landed on the arm of our 8 year old cousin during a later volleyball game and thought he smashed it into pieces.

Thankfully, all was well. No ER visit needed.

 

Back to football....I am not sure these teams were really fair. What I am fairly sure of is that my little guy may not of understood what he was doing, but he still had a blast.

 

Part of the reason he had a blast may have been because he got to try to tackle his brother over and over and over...

We scheduled in a bit of "no kid" time as well.  The guys went golfing one morning, but my husband refused to take the camera.  He has been golfing all of maybe 3 times in his life.  When I was bemoaning the fact that I didn't have any proof that he actually went, my uncle quickly replied, "Sure we have proof that he went.  We came back with three fewer golf balls than we took with us!"

Ha.  My husband loves all kinds of sports.  I am not sure that he really considers golf a sport.

After the guys went golfing, the girls went for pedicures.  Funny little golf parallel here...I have had all of maybe three pedicures in my life as well.  The last one was when this middle gal got married...three years ago.

 My husband asked what it is that they actually do when one gets a pedicure.  I tried to explain the science and the reason of it all.  He still did not think it was worth $30.00 when I could just polish my toenails for basically nothing at home.

He might be right.

But I still enjoyed every minute of it.


Every time I look at this picture I think of Field of Dreams. "If you raise the net, they will come."

  

This is what you call volleyball in the middle of nowhere.

This state is serious about their soybeans and corn. We thought Kansas corn was tall this year.  Not so much.  In Kansas you could easily lose a 10 year old in the corn.  In Illinois, you could easily lose full grown adults.  In stiletto heals.

I was waiting for the collision in this shot.  No such luck. Apparently there is a ball somewhere up there.

  

The kiddos lost their wiffle ball in the beans.  There is no way that all of those beans survived that plastic bat.

I sure hope their combine knows how to harvest sports equipment.

 

No weekend in Illinois is complete with a Rook game.....or 20. I have never seen 4 members of the family quite this serious.  We really did smile...and laugh...a lot.  Someone must have just lost really badly here.

Or it is really late at night.

Or both.

Now we are back home for at least another 6 months.

I miss my family already.

But the 10 hour drive? Not so much.

It Takes a Village

Today I am feeling thankful.

This is actually surprising me a bit, because it was a crazy day.  I met myself coming and going, sometimes at a rate of speed that made everything one giant blur.

But on the way home tonight, as I was reflecting on the day, I was overcome with thankfulness for the many people in my world.  People whom I work with. People whom I call family. People whom I call friends.

Let's rewind to first thing this morning.  This year I have the privilege of serving on a team at school with some amazing folks.  They are rock stars. We gather at 8:00 on Wednesday mornings.  No teacher should have to come to a meeting at 8:00 a.m....during their time off....in the months of June and July.  These are the months when teachers are trying to recoup their sanity and gear up for the 70 hour weeks which are right around the corner.

But this team does it, even though their contracts don't start until August 1st. Like I said - rock stars.

I am thankful for the colleague today who gave of her time to sit with me through an interview, who walked with me at a hurried pace from place to place so we could collaborate on the run, and who took a load off of my shoulders by making a supply run that I had scheduled in my day.

I am thankful for the colleague who texted me today and commanded that I remember the vacation rule this weekend when I am gone - no texting about work unless someone else texts you or unless you absolutely have to.

I am thankful for the colleague who is helping me graph and analyze test scores this summer who was completely understanding when I had to regroup and reschedule our meeting due to the crazy day.

I am thankful for the colleagues who came in on their own free time today to help unpack supplies and curriculum and get it all organized.

I am thankful for the colleagues who met me for lunch to discuss curriculum and plans for this coming year (with some great wedding conversation thrown in, too!).  It was a nice reprieve to relax, talk, and laugh. 

I am thankful for the colleague who made phone calls for me, emailed documents, answered phones, and always keeps me on track.


I am thankful for the colleague who texted me a picture of herself working on curriculum guides at home!  Not so much because she was doing school work (which, of course, I am in favor of!), but the fact that she noted that fun rings, painted nails, and good coffee make her work experience so much better. Seriously made my day.

I am thankful for the colleagues who have worked like mad to prepare for the upcoming work day at school and who are stepping in when I am out of town.   

I am thankful for the colleague who let me drive to her house and steal her keys when I locked myself out of my office this afternoon. Yep, it was that kind of day.

Folks, it takes a village to make it all happen.

In the midst of all of that, I was receiving texts from my Illinois family, whom I have the pleasure of spending the weekend with. Those texts were full of plans of family dinners, swimming, pedicures, Rook tournaments, and birthday parties. Ahhhh....pure bliss.

Last night at our board meeting, the board member who led devotions talked about soaring like eagles.  He challenged us to look at life from the vantage point of the eagle -- to take in the big picture instead of always looking at life from the ground level viewpoint. 

I am guilty of that.  I am always scurrying around, seeing the piles of things to do that are stacked near me, and sometimes I forget that there is so much more to life than crossing things off a list.

I want to soar.  Not for success, but for vision. Vision to see clearly the big picture.

And if I know anything, it is that this cannot be done alone.  So, to those of you who I have the privilege of seeing often, to those of you I rarely get a chance to catch up with, thank you for being my village.

May we all soar like eagles.

I Think He May Have Actually Showered

I'm just gonna say it...8 years old seems awfully young to go away to camp.

I started talking to my boys about church camp months ago.  This was the one year that they could both go to the same camp during the same week.  The little guy would have come home one day earlier, but still...it was the SAME WEEK.  Does any other mother out there see the benefit of that?!

My husband and I loved camp when we were kids.  In fact, that is where we met for the first time ever.  Granted, he "dated" my best friend...or they were "going together"...or whatever it is that we called it at that age, but still, that is where our first memories are of each other.

We looked forward to camp every summer, and we wanted our kids to have that experience as well.

But the older child wasn't having it.  He did not think that going away to camp sounded all that fun.  We encouraged him like crazy, even up to the point that he asked if we were trying to get rid of him.

We backed off just a smidge after that.

The youngest child, however, thought camp sounded great.  At least he did as soon as he read "riflery" and "archery" on the camp brochure.  I am fairly certain that he wanted to go to church camp simply to shoot a gun and a bow.

So we took the leap.  We signed up the little guy and let the older kid stay at home.  Weird, I know.

We packed him up and sent him on his way.  I forgot to take a camera with me for the send off from church.  I wanted to take him to camp myself, but I knew that the possibility of him changing his mind and getting scared was greater if I would have been there.  So I blew him a kiss and sent him on his merry way.

I was nervous.

Nervous that he would think that camp was one big lizard-hunting experience and he would always be wandering away from his group.

Nervous that he would get frustrated by something and his behavior would be a bit less than desirable.

Nervous that he would come home in the same clothes he wore to camp, with a bagful of clean, untouched stuff.

This morning I picked him up.  He had a great time. When I asked him what his favorite thing was, it kept changing....horseback riding, shooting the gun, swimming...and eating.  The food, and I quote, "was A-MA-ZING."

He loved his counselor.  

 

The picture is dark, but there was a whole lot of muscle flexing and laughing going on.  

Here is a better one.

 I talked to his counselor all of 2 minutes today when I loaded up the camp gear.  I am pretty sure he was a perfect fit for my little guy.  It's amazing how God works out those details.

When I walked into the cabin, the counselor told my son to "show mom how organized and ready to go you are".  I had to pause for a moment to realize that he actually used my son's name and the word 'organized' in the same sentence.

I thought about sending him home with his counselor for a few more weeks of training.

I really wish I had pictures of the day I sent him off to camp to prove to him that those shorts are the exact same ones he wore on Monday when he left.  When I stuck him in the bathtub tonight, I realized that the underwear were the same, too. Oh my.

He promised me that he did actually change his clothes during camp, and that he must have just put these back on today. At least the shirt and socks were different.

In the grand scheme of life, it doesn't really matter.  But I couldn't resist asking him if he ever showered at camp.

"Yep," he said, "my counselor made me."

To which I just had to laugh.

It's actually possible since I sent two towels to camp and he only came home with one.  Or...the towel could still be at the swimming pool with the goggles that didn't come home either.

On the bright side, he is the proud new owner of a Nike sock...that has no match.  So sorry to the kid who this actually belongs to.

Right away he told me that he wanted to go back to camp next year.  An hour later, he said he had possibly changed his mind because there was no free time to catch lizards, and he couldn't take the wildlife home anyway.

I, for one, am ALL for that rule.  If that is the worst that camp has to offer, I'd say his rookie year was a success!

I don't even want to know if he ever brushed his teeth.