For granted...

Things you don't appreciate until they're gone...

- beds
- air conditioning
- bottle openers
- Bryan and Rand

That should give a pretty good picture of life for the household h at this point. We still don't have our stuff. The AC broke yesterday.

* Update: I wrote this a few days ago. We STILL don't have movers, but we do have Bryan, Rand, AC and bottle openers, so other than my relationship with the moving company, things have vastly improved.

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Camouflage crazy...

Wow, I'm definitely back in Texas.

Child-sized gas mask...



Do people really wear these?


And my favorite, camo and implants.


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Lemons to lemonade...

I left Grandaddy and the big boys at the park while I ran home to print, sign, scan and email the 1000th document for this closing. While I was gone
There was a downpour. This is what I found when I returned...


Davids method for cleaning off his brothers.



Things were decidedly more civilized when Mimi was with us yesterday.

If I don't post ever again, it's because the movers and lending company finally gave me a heart attack.

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Arboretum...

I zhike my boots...

I love these boots. I had my eye out for cute boots with no heel for several months before I found them. Normally when I want to fish for a compliment, Chris is my victim of choice. He was already working in Houston, so in desperation I tried to pry a compliment out of David...

Me: Do you like my boots?
David: (confused apathy) They're okay I guess.
Me: (sigh)

On the cruise, our room connected to the room where my three year old niece Layla stayed. As I was putting on my boots for dinner Layla ran in the room...

Layla: (enthusiasm) Aunt Summer, I zhike your boots.

----------------

In other news, Jacob lost his first tooth yesterday.


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We're back...

Things I want to remember from the cruise...
- David, J.T. and Andrew exploring the ship together and drinking Cokes in the Viking Crown lounge.
- Hanging out on the balcony.
- Ian and I with the same hairdo.
- Aaron winning Bingo.
- David and Andrew dancing at the family disco because I wouldn't let David swim until they danced.
- Getting all 20 of us on a boat to Cococay at the same time.
- The little boys in jackets and ties and the little girls in fancy dresses on formal nights.
- Jacob so excited about his date with Chris.
- The boys making up a complex war game in the empty arcade.
- Bryan to Gran on their date: "I'm glad I'm not as old as you. You're a hundred years old."
- Playing checkers with the boys in the game room. I offered to switch sides of the board with David if he got frustrated. He immediately began sacrificing his men then asked to switch sides.
- Rand riding all over the ship in the backpack.
- Wonderful dinners and an absurd amount of food.

Things I'm okay forgetting...
- Rand's daily nasty overflowing diapers
- Finding out in St. Thomas that 2 piña coladas and 3 virgin daiquiris cost $50 after we ordered them.

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Cruising...

The brothers h are on a cruise. We'll see you back in a week.


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Painful...

So it turns out there's a real downside to going all in on friendships. As I was crying my way out of Northern Virginia last night I thought, "This is why some people keep their distance."


This is our goodbye dinner with friends.

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Seasonal and comfortable settlement...

Over the past weeks, I've reflected on my time here in Northern Virginia. Chris and I came here battle-weary. We arrived at that little cottage in Houston newlywed and barely grown up. We learned a lot about how to be married in that house. I learned that God doesn't owe me my version of the perfect life - that even when it's not okay, it's okay because Jesus changes everything. But we left that little house with fresh wounds, and in one of life's great ironies, Northern Virginia - upwardly mobile, driven, success obsessed Northern Virginia - has been a place of rest. In his commentary on Noah's Ark resting on a mountain top, Matthew Henry says

"God has times and places of rest for his people after their tossing; and many times he provides for their seasonal and comfortable settlement, without their own contrivance, and quite beyond their own foresight."

Thank you God for this season of rest. Thank you for the women who helped make it so.


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Moving day...

Today is moving day. The brothers' stress manifests itself differently. Jacob had a meltdown when there wasn't a soft place to lay down this morning. David's came when we packed up the Legos last night. Bryan flips out over things like a wet shirt (actually not unusual). And baby Rand spent about five hours on my back in the Ergo. When I put him down he would toddle after me and hug my back when I bent down. Baby speak for, "I'm stressed. Please hold me."

When the boys saw the empty house, David said, "This is NOT a good place to play hide-and-seek. But it's a GREAT place to play tag - you're it!"


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Crack attack, literally...

You know when you find one of your kids doing something and you think, "Not laughing right now is really key." I just failed horribly at that. I found one of the brothers in the bathroom methodically taking each brother's toothbrush and using it to scrub his butt.


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MFEO

To understand this post you need to know that the Internet service in our new home will have a data limit, above which you pay extra.

As we were leaving church yesterday, I was very emotional. Because we're MFEO (here), I thought Chris was with me in spirit. So when he started his sentence like this...

"What's bothering me is..."

I did not expect it to end with this...

"that data cap."

The laugh was timely. I love that man. We're so different. 99% of the time that's a very good thing.

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Where two or more are gathered...

Today was my last day at church...

In the praise and worship band I see the man who taught me how to play the guitar, the man who helped me pick out a guitar, and a man whose kids have grown up in church with mine. The worship leader was a kind of goofy high school junior when we moved here. Now he leads worship, and he's amazing at it.

I see a woman and her beautiful seven year old daughter. She was pregnant with that child when I met her. I imparted all the wisdom of a first time mom of a four month old on my first visit to her house.

I see a man who had dinner at my house six years ago. He was heartbroken at the time. Through this church, God has brought such healing to him.

My pastor preaches a sermon that touches my heart and my mind. He nudges me weekly toward the narrow way.

In the hall I pass a man who loves the Lord with quiet relentlessness. I know this because for two years I taught his daughter in Sunday School. She told me what he taught her.

I see so many women who have brought me meals and cared for my children.

I see God's people taking communion. The elders serve first the congregants, then one another. I know many of their stories. I've seen in their lives how God can take what is broken and make it beautiful. It feels like the smallest taste of what heaven will be like.

I'm going to miss this church.

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