Time marches on

Today I am 

 Ta da! 

I don't really care about my age. At least I  haven't yet. Maybe that will change as the decades go by. For now, it doesn't bother me. 

My hubby did a great job. It's not fair that it's left up to the spouse but since we don't have other family here he's left in charge. He came through. 

He surprised me at lunch (every Tuesday we have lunch with friends at park or at the church). He brought flowers and a cupcake for me and cookies for all the kids. It was very special. Loved it! He also brought home dinner and dessert and cooked it all. Then they introduced me to the movie Escape from Planet Earth. We do family movies for birthdays. That ways everyone is included. 

My dear friend Jen said she was bringing me a birthday sombrero to lunch but instead came with this cute thing. 

A DIY mug from Starbucks. She said it gave her the cold sweats thinking about writing on it so she let me come up with my own plan. Like Jen, I got a bit nervous thinking about what I could permanently write on this cute mug. What if my writing was terrible? What if I hated what I picked? I know...I've got to relax a bit more :) after some deliberation this is what I came up with 

Seek first the Kingdom. 

It's my life verse and since I drink a lot of coffee while reading my bible in the mornings, I thought it was appropriate. I did NOT use a ruler so don't pay attention to the "straight" lines. It makes it unique! 

My birthday reminded me (thanks to endless Facebook notification day) that I am truly blessed with family and friends. Thank you Lord for another year! 

He's back!

After a long and eventful 12 days Mark has returned! 

Here are the kids on the way to the airport to pick him up. Tad excited. Me too :)

Here's what we did while waiting for his arrival. 

Jack insisted on getting his picture taken with the bear. 

And here is their sweet reunion. 

Kate is already showing him her new shoes. I'm pretty sure the kids did not stop talking until they were sent to bed. They had so much to fill him in on! 

Mark had a great time in Texas and California. He said that the Texas retreat was life changing. It was wonderful hearing his stories of healing. 

Even California was great because God has given him a new perspective and enthusiasm for school. It's gonna be a tough year but God is working on us to improve life with school. He's challenged us to be more intentional.  Last year we sort of just existed. We did whatever came up whenever it came up. As a result we were exhausted and didn't feel like we'd accomplished much. So our approach this year is to have scheduled focused time on the things God is calling us to do and to greatly reduce and sometimes eliminate the things He isn't requiring us to do. 

For Mark it means family, pastoring, school and rest. Those 4 things need scheduled focus. Other things need to be scaled way back. Not always eliminated but certainly shouldn't be consuming his time. 

For me it's family/household, homeschooling, women's ministry and rest. Notice we have to be intentional about resting or, as we've discovered, it doesn't happen. I need to consolidate and really protect my focused times on these things. Right now it feels like everything is running through my mind all the time and nothing is getting done well. It's all just leaking out and consuming brain power and energy. So not good. 

This year we will be intentional about what God has for us and frankly I'm super excited to be more focused. I can see so much more being accomplished! 

And it starts this next week...August is on the crazy side. Grace for the moment! 

Boulder and back

Today we headed up to Boulder to visit Mark's family after the kids' sleep over. 

Real quick, the sleep over was deemed very successful. All the kids had a blast with each other watching Star Wars, eating pizza and telling stories. They also dressed up like Darth Vadar and another bad guy and had light saber sword fights. Seriously a slice of heaven to my children. 

After we rounded them up, I drove us up to Boulder to visit the Palmer side for Margie's birthday. It was great to be able to spend it with her! I'm sad I didn't get any posed pictures of the day. Just a few random ones. Didn't even include everyone! Oye! 

The picnic area. 

The birthday girl and Kieran. Kieran LOVES grandma. The rest of us are pretty much chopped liver :)

My view of the Flatirons from where I was sitting. It was a beautiful day! 

I did capture this sweet one of my niece Alannah. She's a seriously, curious, adventurous, adorable sweety. 

After Boulder we came back and recovered from the weekend. Saw my brother and his wife and baby and my sister and her husband and baby. My other sister is at Cheyenne Frontier days so we're helping watch Lilah and Ashlyn. My kids are again in heaven. 

I was able to speak with Mark briefly tonight in between coming back from his Quest and heading out to CA for school. He was hoarse from this week but in very good spirits. He said it was life changing and that it was an amazing time with The Lord. So happy he had a great time. Now I'm looking forward to more details! 

Adventures in Golden

The kids and I have been up in Denver since Wednesday. Since Mark is on his Quest I thought this would be the perfect time to come up and get LASIK done. I've been wanting this for several years but was even more motivated recently when my eye dr said I was a candidate and then my brother had it done. 

My sister, Meghan, drove me in Thursday morning. I was 95% excited and 5% nervous. They, of course, make you sign all these waivers like in the event your vision does not improve....or you still have to wear glasses....or you lose your eyes to infection....oye! I kept thinking to myself 'are you sure you want this?!' But in the end it went super easy and smooth and I can see!!

The procedure itself took like 5 minutes. I couldn't believe it was done! And having my eyelids propped open and them touching my eyes didn't bug me at all. They are quick, efficient, and talk you through every step. They also make you hold a sock monkey in case you wanted to "help" them at any point ;) 

Afterwards things were blurry but I could already tell that I was going to see better. For a couple hours my eyes felt scratchy and tired and honestly that was the worst of it. Once I started putting in the medicated eye drops things felt better and better. Today, 2 days out, my left eye is totally clear and my right eye is still slightly blurry. My right eye has an astigmatism so they said it would take longer to completely clear up. But it's already so much better that I am confident it will continue to improve. I can read street signs, see leaves on trees, identify faces from across the way and wake up without having to find my glasses or contacts! It's still quite surreal.  

Here's a picture of what I have to wear at night. They don't want you accidentally poking or rubbing your eyes until the flaps completely heal. It's comical so I figured I could share :) 

You actually tape them to your face! Jack loves them! So here I am recovering from surgery, dying to talk to Mark (tomorrow afternoon!) and hanging with family till my vision clears. 

In the meantime we are loving hanging with the cousins! Here are a few pictures from our excursions lately. 

Jack holding Ashlyn. 

Jack photobombing Kate holding our newest peanut, Emma. 

Me teaching Emma how to use her cousin's mustache pacifier. 

My kids and the neighbors kids (twins Jack's age who live across the street from my parents) having a light saber battle in the dark. Coolest sword fight ever! 

Stroller brigade. All the aunties and all the cousins and Nana went for a walk down by the river in Golden. Along the way we stopped to look at chickens. 

And play in the river. 

And snap a photo of all the cousins in birth order. This was truly the adventure ;)

We've also had a family dinner with everyone except my sister Katie who lives in NYC and will be here in 2 weeks. I'll be missing that family dinner :(

This is what my parent's cul de sac looks like when we come over. Still missing 2 cars though....4 Toyotas in this picture. 

My brother-in-law (red shirt) and my niece Ashlyn. And my brother and his brand new peanut Emma. Both being good dads. 

Round one of dinner. 

And after dinner a little run around in your undies shenanigans...

Tonight all three of my children will be heading to the neighbors house for a sleep over of epic proportions. I asked Sam (the mom of the twins) if she was crazy and she said yes and it was gonna be a blast. She can sit and talk with Kale about all things Star Wars. Seriously impressive! My kids are so excited they can hardly stand it. It will be Jacks first sleep over. Sadly, or maybe to our benefit, his brother and sister are going with him. If anything doesn't work out we're just across the street I suppose. 

I'll let you know how it goes! 

What's with our house?

Many moons ago I shared that our house was going up for sale. Back in April I believe. A lot of things and nothing has happened since then.

3 weeks after it was listed we had a buyer. After negotiating, we went under contract. They wanted to move in June 14th - 5 weeks from then. So we got a move on and 3 days later found a house in town and got a contract on it to move the same weekend. All was grand. We thought...

Right before we left for Florida our buyers pulled out. Their reason wasn't very convincing so we're pretty sure there was more than what we knew. Because our house wasn't moving forward our sellers wanted out of the contract we had with them as well. It all kinda went kaput! 

We were disappointed but okay. God has never let us down. Since then we've had only one showing and they didn't like it. Other houses are selling but ours isn't even being nibbled on. I started to wonder about it and maybe even worry a little but then I stopped and listened to God. 

There's nothing I can possibly do to control this situation. So I let it go. It only takes one looker to be the one buyer. And Lord knows that I'm terrible at keeping my house in "showing" condition all the time. I think I might lose my mind. So I'm praying for no showings but the one that needs to happen in order to sell. And that would just be the most awesome testimony to share about God's specific provision in our lives!

And wouldn't it be grand if that one showing happened while we all were gone...

Back near the end of June

A few weeks ago we decided to really rest. Kale went up to camp in the middle of June (the other kids and I helped drive all the campers up then we stayed with family.) this is what I was doing during that time. Holding my niece Ashlyn....

And then hanging my my nephew Gavin. It was heavenly. And no it didn't make me want another one. :) I'm good! 

This week I'm heading up there again and will get to meet the newest lovely. 

Not long after this trip we decided to head to the hills and camp. Really relax! And we did. And quite certain it was the best trip we've had...ever.

No meltdowns. Yes a couple almosts but nothing compared to even a year ago. We brought two hammocks, sheets for building forts, yarn to make crafty things and skip-bo cards. We also made ice cream in a bag (thank you Pinterest) and s'more banana boats. We went fishing one day (don't have a clue what happened to those pictures 😞) and hiking the next day. I do have photos from the hike!

Me and my little man. The smoke haze was really bad that day so we didn't get to enjoy blue skies but it was still beautiful.

We are hoping to go camping in August. We are realizing that we need to be intentional about resting. With homeschooling, pastoring and Mark getting his masters degree we can just go with the flow and never do anything! He has 9 months left of school and we're gonna make this year better than the last. 

And he's off!

We spent the morning wrestling, hugging, laughing and snuggling daddy before his long trip. We will miss him tons! 

We look forward to his return and we pray for his refreshment! 

Tomorrow

Today was a great day. Church was beautiful (yes church can be beautiful), my prayerful meditation on the couch with my eyes closed (aka nap) this afternoon was fabulous ;) and our time spent with precious friends this evening at the annual Bastille Days celebration was marvelous.

 

Every year our French friends have a celebration for France's independence. Even though I'm not French I love this day. This party is fun because it involves fellowshipping with all kinda of wonderful people. It means eating some of the most delicious food you've ever tasted. And it's just having a good, relaxing time. And our kids are big enough to go off with their friends and play so Mark and I can eat and and talk and laugh and not worry. Love it! 

Tomorrow Mark will be leaving for 12 days. It's the longest we've been a part in our 13 years of marriage. I'm excited and sad at the same time. He will first be in Texas on a Quest. I did a HeartQuest back in March. You may remember me sharing that it was a life changing experience. I pray that Mark's heart is blessed by this time away with God. I'm so excited for that. After the Quest is done (it ends on Sunday evening) he hops on plane and heads to CA for a week of school. He did this last year to begin the year. So it's gonna be an interesting 2 weeks. 

The kids and I will be heading up to Denver and I will be having LASIK surgery this coming Thursday. I am 95% excited out of my mind to not be needing contacts or glasses anymore and 5% scared out of my mind to have a laser in/on my eyeball. Fun times! 

Where was June? Hello July.

Update------

So I started this post back in June. Took a break, then totally forgot. I decided today that I needed to find a mobile app to help me keep up on blogging. Being able to blog as life happens rather than wait for a time to sit down might actually allow me to be more regular in this season of my life. It's worth a shot! At this point today, I'm going to post this then I'll come back and update more. Then hopefully I won't be playing catch up forever! 

So much to say!

First off, I'm an auntie again!  My sister Meghan had her little girl early June  (5 days late poor thing!).  Originally I had posted that I have one more baby left but my littlest niece, Emma, was born end of June so I had to correct that as well. Emma is my brother's baby.  It's raining babies :) and I love it!  Now to figure out how to get up there and love on all of them!

We went to Florida at the end of May. I had originally talked about how much laundry I was beginning to tackle but that's irrelevant now....isn't this fun? ;)

Florida was wonderful (although I am so thankful we don't live there).  Sorry to those who love Florida - it's just not my thing.  Give me my beautiful, dry Colorado sunshine.  Yes you need lotion but at least I feel clean! Lol!  We had a wonderful time at the conference, heard awesome speakers and had fabulous times of worship.  It was refreshing and the kids loved the kids stuff.  And Disneyland was super fun.  Crazy busy, hot and humid and crowded but it was a blast.  We went from ride to ride and just tried to enjoy every single minute.  Yes there were a whiny moments, tears and stress but the joy and fun and thrill of the time far outweighed the difficulty. I'm throwing in a few fun pictures for your viewing pleasure.  Some I have posted on facebook or instagram but there are a couple new ones.

This one I took the night before we left.  I asked them if they were excited to go...Apparently Mark and Kate were the most thrilled :)

Here is little man on the first plane out of Durango.  This was his first plane ride ever.  He was a bit thrilled.

 On the first night in Orlando we headed to Downtown Disney and saw the Lego store (of course!).  Buzz and Woody here are huge and made completely out of Legos.  Very impressive.

 One of the speakers at the conference was John Bevere.  He was great.  Actually all of them were.  Challenging, encouraging, convicting.  Just what we needed.  Well worth the trip to hear the speakers and be a part of our Foursquare family.

 Above is a picture of the best Disneyland tour guides - Ashley, Chris and Kim.  These wonderful friends helped us navigate the parks, the rides, the shows and everything else.  AND they took our kids to a Lilo and Stitch breakfast (below).  Something Mark and I weren't able to do.  Such a gift to have them here with us!  This was Jack's only time to hug on Mickey and he was beyond excited.  I guess he almost tackled him with his enthusiasm.

Pluto was also there getting pictures.

 On the day we went to Hollywood Studios Mark was picked for the Indiana Jones stunt show.  He was uber happy about being on stage.  His blue and red striped shirt and his jumping up and down got him picked from the top row of this huge theater place.  He played a towns person in the stunt show and loved it. :) On another note, Kale was picked in the Monsters Inc show and interviewed and he totally hammed it up.  He was also chosen for the pirate show, with Jack Sparrow, to come on stage and learn how to be a pirate.  Jack was a bit jealous that Kale kept getting picked.  Thankfully at the end of the pirate show Jack got called up and received his pirate papers too.  Kate was just happy to watch it all.

 Jack's little legs probably walked 3 times as far as ours did.  Kim finally packed him on our walk to Asia at Animal Kingdom.

 The weekend we went to Hollywood studios was Star Wars weekend (super crowded) and Kale was beyond happy.  And so was Mark.  So we saw storm troopers, clone troopers, jedis, chewbacca, jawas, Darth Vader, Anakin, and some girls.  I was looking for Hans Solo but he was a no show...We had to go on Star Tours twice of course.  Do you see the look of pure joy on that kids face? That's when a clone trooper walked by.  He looked like he would faint.

My favorite show that we saw was Finding Nemo. They all were good but this one was impressive. We also saw Beauty and the Beast and Lion King. Always nice to sit in an air conditioned theater! This is where we briefly lost Kale (the only one a really nervous about being lost). We took a right while he went straight. He found us, however, before we even realized he wasn't with us. Each of the adults thought he was with another one. Scary for him but it worked out alright.

These are a couple pictures from our hotel room. We did well all of together for a week in the same room. We laughed because our AC kept going out and our TV wouldn't work but for the amount of time we actually spent in our room it was just fine. The walk from the conference e place to our room was easily half a mile. Lots of exercise for us!

There were so many things that its hard to post it all but it really turned out to be a great trip. Not exactly restful but so much fun.