Lake Days and Sweet Memories!

Garett was using the leaf blower to keep the black flies away!

Swimming with Ice cubes 

                                                       Very, Very thankful for these sweet ladies!

Another beautiful day here in Maine! Oh, we had plenty of work inside that we could’ve done, but instead we took trash to the dump, and then we ran away to the lake for the day.

Roger was working today. So after Garett and I took the trash to the dump, we gathered up lunch food, fishing poles, and headed to the lake. Roger’s boss and his wife have a cabin on a lake, and we headed there for a bit today. (You probably are wondering when do I actually work...rest assured, I’m fairly confident that I work plenty!)  The kids and I worked outside at the lake property moving leaves, picking up brush, and just general yard clean up. The black flies were atrocious, but we did manage to get some work done. Emma and Travis both decided to go swimming, but it was a short swim. Emma was in the lake with blue lips, and she told me that it felt like she was swimming with ice cubes! I bet...exactly why I was not going swimming! Somehow, Emma ended up with just slippers at the lake today. She packed a whole back pack full of treasures, but she only had slippers. Her brothers showed no mercy in asking her how on earth did she manage to do that?! Oh well. We survived with the slippers. The slippers are dirty and need to be washed, but it’s all okay. I was reminded back to the times when we had the four boys in four years and the times that one child would only have on socks or one child had on shoes...that didn’t match. Somehow ending up with slippers was not the end of the world!

It was a great day to enjoy hotdogs, fresh fruit, and visits on the screened in porch away from the black flies! I am thankful that we have friends that allow us to come and spend time with them. Sometimes the days can seem pretty monotonous for our children, and I am very thankful that they have each other. At times the squabbling and arguing can be a bit much, but the flip side is that you can just go find a different sibling to play with around here! We are blessed to have bikes, miscellaneous golf equipment, lots of wood and nails, and plenty of space. For our children, this home at the end of a dirt road represents a haven to them. Travis told me the other day that he was very thankful for our house and that home is normal. I took a second to process what he was saying, and I realized that for him, it’s been important that home is “normal”. Mom still cooks food and lots of it, laundry still happens, Dad goes to work, and their “freedoms” at home have not changed. Roger and I try to be very careful about how much and which information we give to our children. They are not old enough to to bear that responsibility and it’s not theirs to bear. Now we do give our children some information (obviously) and they have been diligent to pray, but they don’t need to know all the details of how crazy the world has become lately. Maybe it’s not the right approach, or it’s not what you would do, but thats okay! That is the beautiful thing about having opinions-we can both have them.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve done a lot (A LOT) of praying in the last ten weeks. I’ve learned that I can be impatient about God’s timing. I’ve learned (again) that I don’t always like hard things. I’ve been reminded that it’s my favorite thing when people agree with me. I’ve learned that God’s peace  truly is a wonderful gift, and it’s mine for the asking. I’ve learned that people who are manipulated by fear do some odd and wildly crazy things. I’ve been reminded again of how wonderfully patient and kind my husband is at rescuing me from feeling like I’m going crazy. I’ve treasured so many great memories with our children, and I hope that they will remember bike rides, beach walks, and long talks as highlights of this time at home. I have a lot more that I have learned or re-learned, but that’s a post for another day. Today’s song in my heart states, “Every promise in the Book is mine.  Every chapter,  every verse, every line...”


And this is the First Amendment....!