Weekend Favorites

Oh, my word, I think winter is coming.

The geese have stopped flying back and forth above our house, and are now heading south. And yesterday was COLD!

I hadn’t been outside to take pictures in such a long time, I persuaded my family to go on a photo adventure. We thought we dressed warmly, but when we got to the park, the wind almost blew us away. We were able to have a bit of fun before we ran for the car…

I wish this one wasn’t blurry! I wasn’t ready for her when she zoomed by, but her smile made me happy…

I’m officially ready for snow! There was great excitement at our house with each snowflake spotting over the weekend, but it never amounted to anything. We will keep eagerly anticipating it…

What did you do this weekend?

Life With Ben

Yesterday marked 12 years of being married to Ben.

This summer has made me think about what I truly love the most about this life with Ben.

For a few weeks before my birthday in July, I daydreamed about what kind of fantastic birthday date Ben and I would go on. I thought about what kind of restaurant I most wanted to eat at, and what we might do after.

But then life happened, and on my birthday, Ben and I went to his grandma’s funeral.

It was a hard week. Ben was very close to his grandparents when he was younger, and even though I didn’t know his grandma very well, I didn’t need to, in order to know she was amazing.

So we made it through the week, and even though it’s hard to deal with death, I was glad to be there with Ben. I wanted to be there, working through all the emotions and layers of stuff that reveals itself during times like that.

A week later, we finally had the chance to go on my belated birthday date.

We did a little bit of shopping first, and then we went out for sushi. Ben wouldn’t tell me what else we were doing, which I found very strange. We drove downtown, and got there earlier than Ben had expected, so we meandered into different stores, with Ben trying to be all casual about why we weren’t just getting on with whatever the surprise was.

Turns out the surprise was Cirque du Soleil. His parents bought us tickets, and it was an unforgettable experience. I kept catching myself with my jaw hanging open in amazement. It was insane. (In the best way possible.)

We had such a great evening together.

It was slightly strange and very interesting to go through those two experiences so close together – grieving the end of a life, and then going to the circus to marvel at the capabilities of the human body at its height of strength and achievement.

Those two experiences reminded me of what my favorite thing is about being with Ben. We have gone through many highs and lows together in the last 12 years. We’ve been face with many challenges, and we figure things out. We are together in whatever is happening.

Life is happy, and Ben is there. Life is hard, and Ben’s there.

This sharing of life is so much better than I ever thought it would be, no matter what it is we are going through.

So how do you do to celebrate 12 years of life together?

It seems to require something big and extravagant, but right now our budget is not allowing loads of extravagance. No trip to Europe for this anniversary!

In the end, we went out for supper at a favorite restaurant, and then went to the park, like we always used to do when we were dating.

It was a golden evening. The sun was just right, and the geese were out in great numbers to provide entertainment. We walked and talked, and sat and talked, and we celebrated life by simply living it.

We will continue to have highs and lows, and what else is there to do, other than ride them together, accepting this life for what it is? Getting through the lows, knowing they won’t last forever, and celebrating the highs, recognizing them as little tastes of heaven.

Twelve years ago, I thought it was a pretty good idea to get married to Ben.

Now I know it was one of the very best decisions I’ll ever make in this life!

(If you feel like reading about how we met, I shared that story here and here!)

Weekend Favorites, Morgan Style

I received a wonderful surprise yesterday on Facebook. Our fantastic friend Morgan (who we’ll just label as our official family photographer?!) was over on the weekend, along with some other Red Rock Bible Camp friends, and she took a bunch of pictures of the time we had together.

She is such an amazing photographer, and over this last year, has taken a bunch of pictures of our family that are totally my favorites:

Isn’t she amazing?

Anyway, the pictures she took of us on the weekend meant so much to me for a few reasons:

1. My camera battery is dead, and the charger is lost in some box somewhere that has yet to be unpacked, despite my best, most organized efforts to keep such a thing from happening. No more pictures until I’ve unpacked everything!!
2. We loved having camp people over. Let’s make it official? “Camp Fix” at Ben and Kendra’s, first Sunday of every month?! 🙂 Or something. It was a fun day. I wanted pictures of it, but was resigned to the dead battery.
3. These pictures are so us – the little things we do all the time, captured forever. I bet I’ll love these even more when our girlies are all grown up.

So here we go. Thanks to Morgan, I present…Weekend Favorites:

Hurray for sunshine and parks and family and friends.

Wishing you a week full of favorites!

Making This “Ours”

Alright, everybody, today it is time to update you all on what we’re doing to make Niverville “ours”.

1) The boxes are being conquered, one by one, and the dishwasher is installed! (Ben has actually done many wonderful things to make our home feel more settled, but this is the only picture I took…)

2) The backyard has been tramped through.

There are killdeer birds everywhere around here, and Anika desperately wants to see one pretending to be injured, to lure us away from it’s nest. So she tried to chase them in our yard, and Kaylia ran around, talking about “killrobins”, and thought the whole thing was great.

Now what other kinds of adventures can we think up??

3) We are socializing! Anytime we see people we know, we practically beg them to please come visit! I’m realizing how much we grew accustomed to people dropping in at any time of the day when we lived at camp.

So if you live in Niverville, and need friends, please let us know! We are so up for friends right now! 🙂 And we are so very thankful for everyone who has taken the time to visit, or have helped us clean and unpack. We love you all!

4) All three play structures have been explored. It has been officially decided that there is no one favorite, but rather, we will be enjoying the variety of all three locations.

5) The sky saves me every day.

I used to look out at the trees each day, but now I look at the sky. I didn’t see it much at camp – the trees blocked the view. But now, it is beautiful and glorious, and I can sit on our couch and watch the sunset.

*************************

And then last night, we went for a walk, and suddenly I felt like we would be okay. Maybe it was the water, or maybe it was stopping to watch the ducks swim by, or maybe it was just enjoying an evening together as a family.

Somehow, it felt like a little, old, familiar piece of what we used to have, tucked away among all that is new.

Whatever it was, it was a good feeling.

We’ll make this “ours”, a little bit at a time!

Pictures of a Summer Afternoon

“Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”  ~Henry James

I love summer. I love watching our girls loving summer, too. Hope you’re having a good one!

Last Day

Anika asked if we could please have a very fun day today so that it could go by very quickly, so that we could go home sooner, because she is homesick.

I wanted the day to feel as long as possible!

 

We had a picnic in the park, and it was the most beautiful day ever.

After lunch, we played on the play structure for a little while.

Then my mom took Kaylia home for a nap while the rest of us went for a walk. It worked out well, because the stroller would never have fit on the little bridges we walked over, and if we would have let her loose, Kaylia would have run right into the water with the supposed alligators, which we did not see. Safe in a playpen, fast asleep, was the best place for her!

But the rest of us had a great time. We toured a swamp. We saw what Florida used to look like before people moved in and made it more liveable.

I’ve always loved these little bridges and paths.

 

 

 

After the park, we made a couple of trips to the pool, and packed up. Tomorrow we fly home. I’m sad, but I miss my house. And I’m ready for Christmas, and Christmas must have snow. So back to the snow we go!