So, it's been a year since I last recorded any thoughts here, which honestly makes me sad. So much has happened in this year that is beautiful and wonderful and hard and good and is God's great work in our lives. I hate not to remember all of it. I hope our pictures will tell the story of those days at least in part. We were the incredibles for halloween last year, we stayed in Nashville for Thanksgiving at the Shapiros, and we had a fantastic polar express party for ada's 4th birthday. We got elves at Christmas time who did fun creative things all over our house, and we spent advent making "conversation jars" for our friends. We loved having family over for soup on Christmas Eve, and Christmas was fun too. Afterwards we escaped to the beach for a few days before coming back to start school, celebrate Jeremy's 38th birthday, and to celebrate Isaac turning 6! We invited his class to a big wild west "wanted" party. It was so much fun! In February, we went to DISNEYWORLD!!! Such a delightful dream come true! Nana and Papa T took us and we did so much fun stuff. We can't wait to go back. Wow. It was amazing. We went to the beach for Spring Break with the grandmothers, and then Isaac started baseball and Ada geared up for her "Baby Face" recital. Gabe tags along, happy to be where his siblings are and still not really talking very much. Kindergarten ended, which made me so sad and so grateful--Isaac wanted to stay in Mrs Brown's class another year and every night since has read his yearbook, studying the kids in his school faithfully. We started our summer with a quick trip to Montreat with the Leims and the Nolens, which was really fun, and we then came back for swimming lessons. The big kids learned so much this year in lessons! They are like little fish now! Jeremy went to Arizona to visit GiGi for her 90th birthday and we went to Memphis to throw Whitney a baby shower. We came back to VBS, which was a great experience for all of us. The kids got into helping raise money for Habitat, so we had a lemonade stand to do it, and made $57. Crazy! We went to Monteagle for Father's Day and had an awesome time playing and riding bikes. Jeremy came back to Nashville but we stayed an extra day. Ada fell off the monkey bars, and as it turns out, broke her arm in two different places. She wore a spunky pink cast for 3 weeks and rocked it! We had a great time celebrating Gabe's 2nd birthday with a "Gabe is turning 2. Take 2 Parade" for the 4th of July. It was really fun to decorate bikes and hang with friends in honor of our littlest dude. We enjoyed a few days at the beach after that as a family and it was super special because we are normally only at the beach in the spring and winter, so being there when we could actually play in the water was awesome. After that we stepped into our biggest undertaking of the summer--Camp Watermelon! It was amazing! We had 40 campers, 8 counselors and a whole lot of fun. God showed up. Thankfully I recorded some of it in emails to parents, so those memories aren't all lost--I am already excited about doing it again next year! We did one final trip to Memphis at the end of the summer to swim and go to the zoo. We loved our time there. As school started up, I unexpectedly began a new job working 10 hours a week for the youth ministry at FPC. It's been a busy fall so far, but both Isaac and Ada are loving school and we are all making it just fine. Isaac started first grade in Mrs. Ford's class and Ada began 2 days each week at St. B's. She also does 3 hours most Thursday mornings at Encore. We started flag football and dance and gymnastics and Wednesday night church since Jeremy is teaching a parenting class during choir time for the kids. He's doing a great job with it and with his counseling, on top of trying to publish his first children's book. As I think about how I am writing the story of our last year, it sounds so amazing and wonderful. Aside from a broken bone, I haven't reflected on a single thing that felt hard or sad. We have had plenty of that this year--it IS hard. this is hard. our days are good, but they are hard. they aren't so hard that we are crushed under them--they are the kind of hard that puts just enough tension on our strings that hopefully our lives are making music. or at least noise of some sort that honors god. I am grateful. I am grateful for the long, hard, good, rich days. We don't have much time to rest, though we are sleeping all night most nights and that makes a HUGE difference in my presence everyday. We have so much to be thankful for. We are so blessed. Oh my.
We had a nutty weekend last weekend. We went from thing to thing to thing. Jeremy forgot to pick Isaac up at school on Friday, which made me feel like we were crushed before we even started. Thankfully he loves school so much, he just rolled with it. "Mommy, guess who was the LAST kid picked up today?" Two blessings from our busy weekend: 1. Jeremy finished last in the bike thing with an 8th grade boy and a 7th grade boy (not to mention our own two boys that he pulled the whole way). it took them 4.5 hours to finish the course, but they finished, and Jeremy offered them one of the best gifts ever in hanging in there with them. He is a champ. I love him. and 2. We had a fall festival at St. Paul on Sunday night. We saw Mrs. Ford, who told us that the kids wanted to pray for a kid who had been missing from class. They said he was sick. Mrs. Ford told them he wasn't sick, just taking a break from class. Isaac said, "well, we can still pray for him even if he isn't sick." I love him too!
I have to go get into car pool line. I want to be more disciplined here in this space. MY space for remembering, which helps me see God's faithfulness. Surely I will be back before next year!
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