So. Frustrated.

I was so. frustrated. this. morning. I had just sat down at our picnic table outside with my Bible (no coffee this morning...sigh) and journal. I love the summer when God and I can start out the day with the bird singing and the sounds of a small town waking up. Only this morning, as soon as I took my seat it began to sprinkle. In my moment of frustration, I looked to the sky and said, "Seriously, Lord? Really?". See, life just hasn't been going my way the last few weeks and this was just another reminder of that. And with our family, when life typically throws us curves, for some reason it involves hospitals and waiting rooms. This summer's curves have been no different. My dad had a heart attack a couple of week's ago. He's Fine! (thanks for asking), but that was a curve and a change to our summer schedule that was unexpected. Then while the kids and I went to visit my family and Joe's last week I develop some mysterious stomach issues. I went for a ct scan yesterday and a I go for an ultrasound today (which is why I'm without coffee this morning :( ). I am actually feeling a lot better than I was over the weekend, so it may just be one of those mysterious things that God uses to bring me back to the truth. The truth that He is in control and I am not. After my minor little fit this morning, the Holy Spirit reminded me...even over the rain "I AM" is the only one in control. As much as I may think that I've got my plans made and life planned, it is all theory. As James reminds us in James 4:15 "Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." (emphasis mine) Several years ago I would have grumbled (and did grumble) to God at that. Even in knowing that He was in control somehow I was convinced my way would have been better. But now, after many reminders, I say PRAISE GOD for that! Praise God that He numbers our days and we don't number our own. Praise God that He is in control over the rain and the sun. And Praise God for His grace and His gentle reminders that perfect peace is found in resting in His control.

Good 'ole USA celebration

We started our 4th of July celebration in USA style...KFC and a hike at a state park. We decided to go to one of our favorite IL parks. It is not an all time favorite park (that would reside in our Hoosier state), but Matthiessen is a great park. It is filled with waterfalls and creekside paths. Unfortunately, our phone cameras don't take the best "in the woods by the creek" pictures, but you can get the idea. I am pretty sure these types of parks were why Crocs were invented.

We will continue our celebration today with a picnic with friends this evening and fireworks. We happen to be really blessed with awesome weather for the partying!

A couple of milestones

We reached a couple of milestones as a family on Friday. The first one involved Nate, my baby (he would be correcting me right now if he could read..."I'm not a baby mom!"). All he's been able to talk about this summer is being tall enough to go down the big slide at our local pool. Friday was the first opportunity he had to try it out. When we first arrived, he ran up the stairs, got to the top, looked at the slide and promptly walked back down the stairs. He did this a couple of times. Then he jumped into the 4 feet and swam with me. Joe arrived about 15 minutes later and did a little coaxing. They took a couple of trips up and back down...Joe via the slide and Nate via the stairs. Finally, he convinced me to go up (I'm not much of a waterslide fan...the things you do for your kids). His plan was for Joe to go down first, then himself, and then me. His logic was Joe and I would both be available if there was problems. And it worked. I wasn't at the bottom when he arrived, but according to Joe his first words were "That was awesome!" Fortunately, he only required me to go down one more time. After that, except for taking a brief break to go off the diving board twice, he was on the slide...for an hour and a half.

The second milestone was for Joe and I. After we'd been at the pool for over an hour, we were kind of done being in the water. So we found a couple of lounge chairs, took a seat and watched our kids while they swam and took in the thrills of the slide and the diving board. We sat by ourselves and didn't have to worry about any child drowning. For the first time in 10 years, we didn't have to be in the water with our kids. It was kind of like a date by the pool. I love playing with my kids in the water, but the lounge chair is definitely something I can get used to.

Daycamp!

John and Joe set out on Monday morning to their first Cub Scout Daycamp. It rained all. morning. on Monday so I wasn't sure how the first of their three day experience was. But they came home excited, happy (and a little wet) and ready to go the next day. Activities included a daily craft...bird feeder, leather stamping, arrowhead necklace (do scouts call it a necklace??), human foosball, water games, and the favorites for my boys...bow and arrows and BB guns! John earned his sharp shooter patch by the end of the week and scored the highest in his Tiger (oh wait, I think he is a Bear now) group. His dad was pretty proud, but also somewhat perplexed at John's left eye dominance and his left handed shooting. On John's wish list...targets and a bow and arrow to practice in the backyard.

The other highlight of the week was the result of a pretty serious storm that the park experienced on Tuesday night. When the guys arrived Wednesday morning they saw many trees down including part of a honeybee tree. Joe retrieved much of the hive that was on the ground and we are looking forward to harvesting the honey sometime this weekend.

Project Mania

I am a project oriented type of person. I wake up in the morning, get my to-do list going and enjoy my day. In the summer, I tend to become manager of a staff made up of kids...sometimes. There are several reasons for this. First, I have come to learn that if my kids have some structure to their day, they enjoy the unstructured portion much better. Secondly, in our house, if you live here, you must contribute. I also find summers to be the perfect time for teaching some life skills. I tend to run out of time on the life skills front during the school year. So we tackle cooking, laundry, specific cleaning skills, yardwork, etc. Today we cleaned the siding on the house, weeded the gardens, and mowed the grass. John is going to learn how to do his laundry this summer. The windows all need cleaned, closets and cabinets need organized...I have a long list. Now, before you start feeling sorry for my children, we also play hard in the summer. In fact, part of the purpose of this post is to prove to my children in 20 years that their summers weren't completely miserable. I have proof in the form of pictures. Today we worked hard and then went and played hard at the bowling alley. I am embarassed to say that I came in 3rd out of 4...with the bumpers...and I was actually trying...sigh. After the bowling alley, we hit up the DQ on the way home. Tomorrow I think we may hit the movie theater ($1 summer movies) before we go shopping for Dad's Father's Day gift. But not until we have done some mopping :)

I LOVE SUMMER!!!

This is a vacation wrap blog post, but I couldn't help expressing my feelings about this time of year. I'm sure you'll hear details in posts to come about our day to day activities in this blissful time of the year. Our summer started out with vacation. We have kind of fallen into a tradition of starting our summer with vacation. Our VBS has been towards the end of summer and we have found some good deals at the beginning of summer because we can travel before some schools are out. This year we did a "split" vacation. Joe & I traveled for a week and then we are going to do a family thing in July. We had 15 years of marriage to celebrate. The kids headed to Grandpa & Grandma's on the Horn side and also got to hang out with some aunt's an uncle and some cousins. The enjoyed some banana splits, pond swimming, new puppies, outside movies, trips to the library, problem solving riddles (courtesy their math teacher aunt) and lots of being loved on. Ashley got to spend a few extra days there just herself. I'm not sure she even misses us although she is definitely being missed around here. Her sister called her about 3 hours after arriving home. I think absence has made the heart grow founder.

Joe & I headed to south Florida...Ft. Lauderdale area. It is the land of the Porche and million dollar yachts parked next to the multi-million dollar home. I truly had no idea the kind of wealth that was in parts of Ft. Lauderdale (um, not the part we stayed in, in case you were wondering). For some reason I always thought the wealth resided in Miami down there. I've been all over the U.S. so it is always a treat for me to visit somewhere that I've never been. The sunrise...We LOVE sitting on the beach...especially me early in the morning. However, we also find great relaxation in exploring. So this trip we hit the Everglades and the Keys. The everglades are in a drought right now so there was much more wildlife than there typically is. And I saw way more alligators than I had planned or enjoyed to see. Probably shouldn't have watched so much Swamp People before our trip. It was still so fun and so interesting. It looked totally different than what I expected. And I didn't think it looked anything like the Louisana/Mississippi swamps.

A couple of days after visiting the Everglades and getting some more beach time in, we headed down to the Keys. Our primary goal was a glass bottom boat ride out to the reef. I cannot even tell you how excited I was about this. I've never seen a reef before. So we arrived in the Keys first thing in the morning for our trip, dosed up on Dramamine, and after a short wait got on our boat. I feared I may have problems when the captain kept emphasizing the importance of those with motion sickness issues to take medicine, but I was completely fine on the 30 minute ride out to the reef. When we arrived, this is what we saw and were suppose to see...only with more fish, etc. for the 45 minute duration of the time on the reef.

I lasted maybe five minutes with this view. And I spent the remainder of the time with this view.

Staring at the horizon, sucking on mints and praying that I didn't throw up. The waves were 3-4 ft. so not that horrible. But we were definitely rocking and I just can't handle that. I should have known considering I can't even really get on a swing these days without some motion sickness. As gross as I felt, I would still do it again. It is probably something I'll never get to experience again....the blueness of the ocean was unbelievable.

We had planned on driving down further south in to the Keys, but the boat ride kind of did us in. So we will have to experience the furthest point south in the U.S. on another trip.

All in all it was such a great way to kick off our summer. We came back feeling refreshed, completely blessed to be married to each other and ready to face the world again.

Sights and Sounds

Summer has officially arrived at our house. Here are some of the sights and sounds that you might see and hear if you stopped by:

• water splashing


• barefoot boys with cheeks of tan


• sun streaked blond girls


• bicycles


• devouring of library books


• a not so clean house (because when it is summer who wants to be inside cleaning!)


• Sara mowing the lawn...she does a really good job. And while it is good for her, Joe and I aren't sure we like it. We both enjoy mowing...yes, I know we are weird. At least she isn't old enough to use the weed whacker yet.


• smell of sun lotion and bug spray.


• band aids and more band aids...ahhh boys. Actually in our case it is Nathan. We've nicknamed John "Mr. Safety". I'm not sure when the last time I needed a band aid for him was.


• music...you can't have sun streaming in the house without some music to go with it.


• if your lucky it will be a bonfire night and you can have a s'more

The 5K

On Saturday Joe & I completed our first 5K. We had a great time and are planning on running another one in July. I met my goal and made it across the finish line in under 35 minutes...34:53 (I think...not sure what the official time was). Hopefully by the race in July it will be a little bit more significantly under 35 minutes.

In all our sweaty glory!

My dad sitting with our cheerleaders.

May update

It has been a typical May in our house filled with activities. Here is a small summary:

• Field Trips! Sara got to ride the Spirit of Peoria this year (a paddle boat). John visited Wild Life Prairie Park and Dad got to go along and lead his group. (He would have joined in the others, but after first grade our school doesn't usually need parents to come along.) Ashley visited our downtown area and ended the day with a movie at the local theater.


• Bicycles...my kids love riding their bikes and we are blessed with having a good driveway and a quiet street (most of the time) that they can ride on. I scored HUGE at garage sales and Goodwill recently and came away with 3 bikes in really, really good condition. (Some of our old ones were looking shabby and getting too small). I look forward to some fun bike rides with the kids this summer.


• Band Aids....This kind of goes along with the bicycles and it just generally being nicer outside. I may be wrong, but I think I have gone through more band aids in the past week than I ever have before. At one point last week Nathan had scraps and bruises on his face, both elbows and both knees. When he took his shirt off yesterday, I realized he had one on his shoulder too! And he isn't the only banged up one. I just went ahead and bought 100 band aids yesterday. Who thinks they will last through the summer?


• AWANA...AWANA wrapped up the end of April. I was so very proud of my kids. The older three each received a leader's award for character and Nathan finished his second Cubbie book. They all said a boatload of verses this year.


• The girls slept over at the zoo this past weekend with their girl scout troupe. They had so. much. fun.


• We planted two peach trees in the backyard. In three years (hopefully!) we will have juicy peaches to munch on. I'll have to make sure that no child tries to climb them between now and then...


• We got our garden planted. This year we have beans, peas, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. Most of our tomatoes are roma's because I like to freeze and can tomatoes. I'm hoping to can some enchilada sauce and pizza sauce this year.


• My peonies are blooming and absolutely gorgeous. Joe and I both have sweet memories of peony plants at our grandmothers' homes so we enjoy memories as well as the beauty when they bloom.


• My daycare is approaching its closing day for this school year. I say goodbye to my little 9 month old guy today. And the sweet and spunky little two year finishes up on Friday. Over and over again I can't believe how blessed I have been to get to know these families and had the privilege of watching their kids. I also can't believe I get to work and not miss moments with my own kids. I think my current two are coming back in the fall and the 2 year old will have a baby brother or sister by the middle of the school year! A new baby...yes!


• On Thursday (well, I guess officially Friday) I will be the mother of a 5th grader, 4th grader, 2nd grader and a kindergartener! Yikes!

Pressing on...

It is kind of amazing how memories can haunt you...both good and bad memories. Good memories can tend to become better than they really were and consequently make the present seem worse than it really is. Bad memories and the pain associated with them can consume your soul and cause your forward momentum in life to completely stop. I've come to realize this in many ways recently. I don't have a horrible childhood of abuse that I am trying to overcome or tragic deaths of family members, but I think we all have pain in our lives at times and we have to figure out how to deal with those memories. Even little heartaches can cause stumbling blocks in our future if we let them. For example, I have been preparing to run in a 5K in a couple of weeks. As I have shared before running is not my favorite thing to do. I have come to appreciate it of late, but I wouldn't say I enjoy it yet. I enjoy how I feel when I am done and the accomplishment it gives me, but I am not quite one of those people who say "I just have to go for a run to clear my head." The 5K has been a good goal for me as it keeps me motivated to run, but, I have to admit, I. do. not. want. to. run. the. 5K. race. The closer it gets, the more I dread it and it is all because of bad memories. See I ran track in junior high. I ran the 400. I was bad. I think I finished last in every race. I'm sure I probably didn't, but the pain and humiliation associated with finishing last the few times that I did are haunting me. I don't want to feel that again. The last time I ran in a junior high race was at least 24 years ago and it is impacting my forward momentum in life. I could easily say..."I've run a 5K while I was practicing; I know I can do it; there is no reason that I should have to risk coming in last in two week; therefore, I am not going to run in the 5K race". I could let it steal the joy of future accomplishment. That is true for many of the bad memories and pain of my past. I can let it consume me and steal my future, or I can take the words of Paul to heart...."But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:13b-14.