thoughts from the deep recesses

A reason to wear a hoodie... I get tired of tank tops and shorts all summer long. I love that it's cool and crisp at the beach in the morning and I need to pull on a sweatshirt. Asia's long morning walks - every day when we're at the beach house, Asia gets up early and goes for a walk into town. Sometimes I get up and go with him, and sometimes I roll over and am thankful that I can sleep for another half hour. I always save up my magazines for about a month before we go to the beach... it's so fun to finally get to pull them out and read them. Sharing a pot of coffee with my brother each morning... Watching the kids play. No matter how old they get, when you combine water and rocks and sand, the kids play. And play. And play. S'mores. Day trips... my brother is really good at finding fun things for us to do together. The Oregon Coast is full of so many fun places to go. The yellow bedroom Asia and I share is so happy... Sharing meals. I love cooking for people - an...

I have more cherries than I know what to do with... But we sure had fun this morning... Cherry picking is so easy - there were literally handfuls hanging on every branch - it took no time at all to fill our four buckets. And now I have a teeny tiny bit of a tummy ache. But I'm still eating. Yum. Cherries.

We rode from Harrison, Idaho to Hayford State Park yesterday. About 17 miles round trip. Our friends, Justin and Tarah came along with their two little boys. I'm loving this trail... yesterday's portion rode right along the banks of Lake Coeur D'Alene. We saw blue heron, osprey, and a river otter. I'm a happy girl whenever you combine family time with a decent picnic... and we had both yesterday. Good stuff.

I had the day off from work. I don't think, in the almost five years I've worked at the store, that I've had a Friday off unless I was going out of town for some reason or another. Or maybe a birthday or anniversary. So having today, just a normal summer Friday, off from work was a treat. I managed to make the most of it... I started the day with an hour long walk with Gracie. We went to Manito Park, my favorite place in the world to walk... I started the laundry when I got home - I proceeded to get four loads washed. Everything dried outside on the line, except for the last load, which is still out there sucking up the summer sunshine. Kyler and I tackled our front sidewalk - which has lately started sprouting weeds and hadn't had a good cleaning at all this year. It ended up being a huge job that grew as it went along. We ended up edging the whole lawn too and laying the extra sod we pulled up on our bare patches. Too bad I showered before we did all that work. I was ...

Several people have asked me about our trip to the ER last week and I've been horrible about getting back with the story... I ended up taking Ethan down one evening last week because he was very confused, with slurred speech and difficulty forming words... it was terrifing as a mom. And of course Asia was out of town. They did a CT scan and bloodwork, which all came back normal. The best the doctor could come up with was that he had a concussion from a fall a couple of days before... Apparently, you can have a delay in the symptoms... I'm putting my application for my trip to Sierra Leone in the mail this morning, along with my deposit to open my account for the trip. Can you believe it? My husband reads. A lot. But he only reads one genre. Fantasy. If you recommend a book to him (especially if it's non-fiction) he will go to the library and bring it home, get me interested in it, and then I will read it. Then I will tell him about it. And then he will go around talking abo...

Me: " Kyler, you know that I love you, even in all your teenager teenagery-ness?" and he gives me a thumbs up from the table where he's eating his cereal...

All week I've been pondering the idea of living fully. Prompted by the sermon at church on Sunday, I'm chewing on the idea of experiencing all that each day holds... whether it's a glorious day spent by the river with the sounds of my children playing together or an evening spent in the emergency room, scared out of my wits. Wherever God has me, I want to fully be in that moment. Even in the doldrums of a summer day that seems to never end, I want to live it. Love it. Embrace it. So I'm breathing fully. Savoring the little things. Tasting more. Reflecting. Even in conflict and boredom and tiredness - I want to fully be there. So that's what I've been thinking about. How are you all?

Very Vanilla Muffins Greek Pasta Salad Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies Sweet and Sour Roast Garlic Basil Bow Tie Pasta Oat and Toffee Cookies Easy Dinner Rolls Vanilla Coconut Bars Chicken Potato Packets Black Bean and Corn Salad

Obviously, I'm having some difficulty blogging lately. Part of it is having the kids home all the time. There just aren't a lot of quiet moments to think through posts or form coherent sentences. In some ways, bloggable material is short... when every day is a repeat of the last, there aren't a lot of things I can write about without boring myself, let alone my readers. And partly, I'm just trying to enjoy summer without giving myself any pressure to blog... as my kids get older, I'm trying really hard to cherish the time we have together. This summer feels like a bit of a passage for me, as I'm watching Kyler go from little boy to teenager - from wanting to be home and be a part of 'family fun' to wanting to spread his wings and spend more time away from home. It's tough on me... and I'm holding onto each moment with him, knowing they are going to become fewer as he gets older and his horizon expands. So the blog is low on my list of pri...

Sunshine. Roller coasters. Friends stopping by on bike rides or coming over for dinner. Strawberries and raspberries and fresh nectarines. Water parks. Sangria under the deck umbrella. Sprinklers running. Flip-flops. Walking the dog in the late evening. Frisbee golf. Walking to the pool. Kids sleeping in past 9:00. Fans. BBQ. Toenails painted bright pink. Clear blue skies. Vacation Bible School. Screen doors slamming. Summertime.

We're up to our elbows in strawberries here. Our friend Brynn joined us up at Green Bluff for an early morning of strawberry picking. Five batches of freezer jam, strawberry shortcake, and a full flat still sitting on my counter. It's strawberry heaven. Wish you were here...

We took the kids to north Idaho to try our first leg of the Trail of the Couer D'Alenes . Eventually, we'd like to bike the whole trail, so we thought it best to start at the west end, so we could make our way to the next access point... then next time we'll start there and continue east until eventually we've ridden the whole trail in short do-able segements. Little did we know, the 7.2 miles we chose to ride was all downhill one way, and of course, all uphill on the way back. So while we rode almost 15 miles, those last 7.2 miles were a KILLER. It's a converted railway trail, so the grade was gradual. But it was also long. Literally almost all 7 miles were uphill. But we made it. And thankfully we'd packed a nice big picnic which was waiting for us back at the car. We all felt like we accomplished a great feat. And we had lots of fun and saw gorgeous scenery along the way. Now we're off to some friends' house for fireworks and a 4th of July sle...

Photo taken by Ethan last week on the Bainbridge Island Ferry

We had friends over last night for paninis. Do you panini? Seriously. Summer is all about paninis here. Yum. And then we had pudding parfaits for dessert. Angel food cake, raspberries, strawberries and bananas, mini marshmallows, whipped cream and three flavors of pudding. It just doesn't get any more fun than parfaits. Panini and parfaits. We sure had fun and were out on the deck with the twinkle lights until 10:30 talking and laughing and picking through the fruity leftovers... Love summertime.

So after our little visit to the COTN offices, Asia and I have been talking. And he really wants me to go to Africa soon. He's the one who hears my heart best, and he seems to understand my need to go and see . There's a huge part of me that is: first of all - terrified at this prospect. secondly - worried the kids would be upset, since we've always talked about going as a family lastly - TERRIFIED. But here's the deal. I talked with the right people at COTN, and was totally blown away by their willingness to help us with raising support for our family trip. And prayerfully, I believe we'll be able to go as a family in maybe a little over a year. But I can't really imagine waiting a whole year. Can you imagine not seeing one of your children for over a year? Perhaps going (on a COTN sponsered 'Vision Trip' ) will help give my brokenness some focus. A direction. A clearer understanding of what God is trying to do with my heart. So I...

I need to mop the kitchen. It's been really hot here, which means Gracie has been drinking tons of water, which means there's tons of doggie slobber on the floor. I know. Gross. I have a class tonight that requires a handout with diagrams and written instructions. It's not going to make itself, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to start it yet. The sheets have finished washing and I need to take them outside to the clothesline to dry. I love air dried sheets. I told the kids we were going to start organizing things in our basement storeroom for a garage sale. I should be all over this one, since it's a good 10 degrees cooler in the basement. But I'm feeling hung up because I know I don't have enough boxes to accomplish what I want to. Am I the only person who gets paralyzed by lame excuses? My hair has been air drying for an hour or so. I should go do something with it. It's a fuzzy mess. The table needs to be wiped from the graham cracker and...