Tablerock 2010

When I started working on these pictures, I got to thinking that I couldn't remember posting our 2009 Branson/Tablerock trip.

And I hadn't.

All the pictures, still sitting in the folder, unedited, untouched.

Poor pictures.

So I put together a 2009 post - and back dated it so it appears in order and won't be left out of our blog book.

Click here  if you want to back track - the kids have changed so much.

You can also check out 2008.

With all the traveling we've done this summer, we had yet to see my family.

So I was definitely looking forward to this Branson/Tablerock trip.

My sister and brother-in-law from Cincinnati came too - so we were all together.

It was WAY too hot (as in 100 degrees) to hit Silver Dollar City.

So we just went into Branson for a little bit of fun before dinner.

Aunt Rebekah kept Mason company inside at the arcade...

While we took Taylor outside...

He ended up joining us and I was impressed he didn't throw a fit.

Poor guy was just too short for any of the rides.

We had to head back in to finish up our tokens.

If you want an arcade game that lasts forever - play skee ball with toddlers.

They can't get the ball all the way up the ramp, so it rolls back every time.

Endless chances.

Uncle Steve helped Mason earn lots of tickets.

Then we headed to the famous Lamberts!  Home of the throwed roll!

My parents' house is 2 minutes from there, so we put our name in (it's usually a 1-2 hour wait) and hang out at their house.

Taylor loved that you could yell out and they would throw a roll to you.

Sometimes she wouldn't eat her roll all the way, and decide she wanted another one already.

The next day I caught the kids picking flowers for me out of my mom's planter.

I should have told them not to,

but how in the world can you resist this face?

My parents' front yard - so pretty!

Then it was off to the lake!

This was the last lake trip of the summer-  and it was the exact thing that this little guy needed - one more time!

He did more this trip than he's ever done before in the water.

The most exciting thing was that he learned to balance himself in the water with his lifejacket and swim around all by himself.

Until this point we had to hold on to him in the water, he'd fall forward and not be able to hold his face out of the water.  He'd cling to us and not want to be let go.

This time - just about the time I told my dad that he needed to hold on to him to balance him.

Mason decided he didn't need anyone.

Once he started using his arms and legs - he stayed balanced and swam all over from one person to the next, sometimes not wanting anyone to touch him!

YAY  - now we have too water bugs!

I will say it was kind of weird seeing a 2 year old swimming around in such deep water all by himself!

a late boat ride...

We stayed at my parents' condo that is right near the lake, it's adorable.

My family.

Obviously someone is a little behind on the kiddos.

Before we headed for home, we got a little more lake time in...

We weren't 5 minutes down the road, and they were both out cold.

We turned around and started laughing when we saw this...

She brought this mask along but I had no idea she was actually going to use it.

I do believe that we could consider this trip the end of our summer.

More traveling than we've ever done in our life.

Lots of memories made.

Summer 2010.

stuck in the middle {thoughts from my heart}

There's a song that tugs at my heart every time I hear it.
It's about being caught in the middle.
Exactly where I find myself at so much of the time.
A song about wanting what God has for me, but not wanting to give fully of myself.

I find myself in these ruts, and they seem to come in cycles - they are gone for a few months at a time and then come back for a few months at a time.
Life gets crazy, my priorities get messed up, I get tired, routines are shot, I get stressed.
And I wonder why.  I look for answers.
I blame it on so many other things.

But really, I know my problem. 
Every time I stray away from God, my life gets crazy.
It's as if he is gently and sometimes more BOLDLY reminding me that I can't do this on my own.
He WANTS to do it. And he can do it all.
And I want that.  I think about all the things I SHOULD be doing differently.
I think about the commitment I need to be making to grow in his Word.
But then I don't.  Or I do it only half-way.

Which brings me back to this song...

Somewhere between the hot and the cold

Somewhere between the new and the old

Somewhere between who I am and who I used to be

Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me

Somewhere between the wrong and the right

Somewhere between the darkness and the light

Somewhere between who I was and who You're making me

Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control

Fearless warriors in a picket fence, reckless abandon wrapped in common sense

Deep water faith in the shallow end and we are caught in the middle

With eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is

But will we trade our dreams for His or are we caught in the middle

Somewhere between my heart and my hands

Somewhere between my faith and my plans

Somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves

Somewhere between a whisper and a roar

Somewhere between the altar and the door

Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more

Somewhere in the middle You'll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control

Lord, I feel You in this place and I know You're by my side

Loving me even on these nights when I'm caught in the middle.

Wow.
It makes perfect sense.
Deep water faith....in the shallow end.
The God I want...and the God who is.
Somewhere between my heart and my hands.
Somewhere between the altar and the door.
Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more.

I feel very much lost in the middle.
And then I feel attacked when I get lost in thoughts about how middle the lonely is.
I look around me and am surrounded with so many who I feel have it all together, have such rich relationships with the Lord, who are so disciplined.
But then I am reminded that even in these weak times  - even when I'm caught in the middle.
My God loves me just the same.
His love is unconditional.
His love is unchanging even when my habits and my priorities are all over the place.
Even when I'm caught in the middle - he loves me just the same.

So today I went looking for some scripture that I can rest on as I work to move from this middle ground.
To stir me and make me more than just luke-warm.
I'm reminded in James 4:8 that if I will draw near to Him, he will draw near to me. 
I don't have to HOPE he will be there when I get there.
I KNOW he will, and when I draw near, I know he'll pull me closer and closer.

And in 2 Corinthians 12: 9 and 10, I'm reminded that his power is made perfect in my weakness.
So why not boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses...so that the power of Christ my rest upon me.
I can be content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
Because when I am weak, He is strong.
In The Message it reads this...

"My grace is enough; it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.This is just what I need during these times that life that I just feel so weak."

This is just what I need during these times I feel so weak.

And then a promise that is speaking to me so much is the one from Isaiah 26:3,
He will keep me in perfect peace when my mind is steadfast and trusts in him.

Ahhh, perfect peace.
That's exactly what I desire.
And I know that perfect peace ONLY comes from Him.

In all reality, I know I'm not the only one stuck in the middle.
Which is why I'm posting this today.
I wanted to share what I'm finding and learning in case it can help someone else that's stuck right where I am.

today was a good one

My day started out in one of my favorite ways - we woke up to rain.

And to my husband still asleep beside me, which meant he wasn't going to work because of the rain.

Even better.

I cooked breakfast.

Ran a mile (which I hadn't done since the first week of July).

And soon after, I got in a cleaning/organizing kick.

Knocked out several piles.

The entire basement of kids' toys.

My office.

Dave and I both helped the kids cut out pictures from magazines and glue them on paper.

Canned some tomatoes and cooked lunch.

And even got a head start on some prep for dinner.

Then I got started on the kids' craft supplies.

They were everywhere.

Some here, some there.

Markers in lots of spots.

Paper and stickers stuffed in numerous locations.

I want to be more crafty and creative with them, but it doesn't come natural to me.

And it's even harder when it's all a mess and not easily accessible.

So I started organizing.

It reminded me of getting my classroom ready for the school year.

I felt like such a teacher again.

Stickers all in my Creative Memories sticker organizer (I don't really use stickers for scrapbooking anymore)

All the foam stuff in one bin.

All the paint, paintbrushes and stamps in another.

Then I filled two little tackle box organizers with small stuff.

Definitely stuff that a 2 and 3 year old will not be allowed to play with unattended.

Or I will be on my hands and knees for a month cleaning up.

Then all of our magazine clips in a basket.

Before I throw away any of my magazines, I go through with scissors and cut out anything I think would interest the kids - food, people, animals, things, etc.

Today's big find was a pickle.  And it was a good thing I found 2 of them.

The kids have fun sifting through these pictures and gluing them to paper.

I used these handy dandy pouches for guided reading in 3rd grade.

But now they are to collect the kids' artwork.

And one for me to stuff any ideas or instructions I find.

Surely it will all stay like this for a long time, right?

So we are ready to CRAFT!

I need some good toddler projects - does anyone have any, or any websites you like?

The weather today reminded me how much I love fall and how productive it makes me!

I wish it were here to stay.

surely I'm not the only one who's done this

Dishes sitting in the sink.

Out of time.

Lots of people coming to my house.

The dishwasher was full

And washing by hand was not an option at this time.

So I hid them.

As long as I remember to get them out before I preheat the oven.

Writing this post reminded me that they are still in there.

Dave hasn't even found them yet.

And obviously I should clean the bottom of the oven too.

haircuts

The kids were overdue for haircuts.

 I wish I could cut their hair - but I have no idea how, and I'm afraid I'd mess up so bad.

So we headed to Elbing so my friend Lori could do it the professional way.

Taylor loved it.

But that was expected, as we have played beauty shop and she has pretended to be Lori many times since her last haircut.

This little guy on the other hand didn't really want much to do with it.

If we asked him if we wanted Lori to cut his hair - he said NO!

So I thought that sitting and watching for a bit would help.

Nothing too drastic for either of them.

Just a trim for Taylor and a few more layers.

Dad was very adamant about letting me know that hers can NOT be cut too short.

Only a little bit was to be taken off.

That's the same thing my dad did when my sister and I would get haircuts too.

Then it was his turn.

He seemed like he would do okay.

Crawled up into the chair by himself.

And to my surprise he was calm.

Until his handful of Smarties dropped.

Then he lost it.

And never regained control.

Lori did a great job of using a sharp tool near a child who was screaming and moving his head all over.

But she got it done.

This was his first REAL haircut - not just letting dad buzz it all off.

I was glad to keep those long blond locks on his head.

cowley county fair

There is one thing you must know about Dave and I.

And one thing that I am SOOO glad we have in common.

We are concession stand and food booth JUNKIES.

Oh my goodness.

Put us at any event with lines and lines of food booths to choose from...including some of our favorites like, roasted corn, those fried swirly potato things (with cheese preferably), funnel cakes, cherry limeades, fried okra (Dave's favorite), homemade ice cream, roasted pecans.

I could go on.

Oh and the money, you say?

Food at those places is really expensive you say?

Hmmm?? We don't notice - we are too busy feeding our faces.

Just kidding.  Kind of.

We know it's expensive.

So what do we do about it?

Instead of riding 5 rides each - the kids just rode 3 rides each.

So mom and dad could have more food.

Because we are super cool parents like that.

And so far, they don't realize they are getting the raw end of the deal.

Maybe one of these days we'll just add a "concession stand food" category to our budget.

And make cuts in other places.

That would be delightful.

 I love this fair.

It has an awesome carnival.

Most of the same exact stuff that was there when I was little.
Like the squirrel cages above (not sure why, but we always called them that).
If you have a good partner, you can get that cage spinning like crazy as it moves all around.
Or if you have a bad partner (a mean dad or boyfriend) who takes control of the flipping gear thingy, and locks it upside down the whole time, you might get sick.
Or lose all the things in your pockets.

 This Gator Roller coaster has been there forever too.

 I remember riding this with my sister like it was yesterday.

 A storm came through before we started riding rides.

Lots of the booths were under shelter, so we were able to just waste some time inside, HOPING the storm would pass and the kids could still ride rides.

 And it did.

Lightning, LOUD thunder and tons of rain.

Over in maybe 15-20 minutes.

 All 4 of us rode the Ferris wheel.

I thought it would be so fun.

But I realized when I got up there, it wasn't so fun.

Not like I remember it.

 Dave played a game - it was "shoot till you win"

So we knew he'd end up with something.

 He won Taylor one of the purple monkeys on side wall at the very left.

We were about to buy more tokens as we predicted a meltdown from Mason because he didn't have one.

But to our surprise, he picked up the little corks that were shot out of the gun (you can see some on the ground in the picture) and he was just as happy.

Love this fair!

I have so many memories of watching the Figure 8 Race, the Demolition Derby, the Rodeo, meeting up with friends, all the rides.

I think we'll make this an annual tradition.

At least for the food anyway.

I {heart} my family

And I really really {heart} these pictures.

Taken by the fabulous Megan Duerksen.

 

So there you go.
I'm glad my smart friend reminded me not to show them ALL yet, so I can save one as a surprise for Christmas cards.
So I left out the best 2 or 3, since I really am not sure what I'll use yet.

Isn't Megan A.M.A.Z.I.N.G?

I bet you wish she could take pictures for you too, huh?

Well, I think she's booked - according to her photo blog.

But I know of some other fabulous photographers too...

Depending on where you are from...Winfield area, KC area, Newton area or the great big ole town of Whitewater...oh yeah, and Arizona anyone?

And although I do not know this gal personally - I'm thinking sometime we'll vacation to Southern CA, just so we can have her do our pictures. And really I could go on and on about different people I would love to take our pictures.

Now to update some of the frames in our house.

Oh yeah, and my blog banner and sidebar pictures too.

to sum it all up

For the past 2 weeks we've been recovering from the past almost 2 months.
Why does it have to take so long? 

It seemed like June 23 was the day we said bye-bye to our normal routine.

That was the day before we left with our community life group to Colorado.
Since then, we were gone more than we were home it seemed, we had no REAL food in the house till this week, our routine is shot, we're tired, I'm REALLY tired, things are getting done slowly.

I am ready to slow down. Ready for fall.

Ready to just be normal again and for my kids to be normal again too.

Our traveling isn't quite done.  We're headed to Tablerock this weekend to see my family!

So to sum up what's been going on around here..

Dave was in a wedding 2 weeks ago, one of his best friends from college got married- we got to see TONS of our college friends, it was a blast.  We cut it close on the tux, didn't know we were supposed to pick it up.  Nothing like picking his tux up the morning of the wedding - HOPING it fits. All was good though.

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In July, I went to Ft. Worth for Premier's National Rally - one of my favorite weekends of the year!

The first night was a concert by Point of Grace. They performed last year too.

This year they were decked out in Premier jewelry!

Just some of us, on red,white and blue day...

And we found out that the next leadership trip is to San Diego - the details are AMAZING.  So I'll be working all fall to get Dave and I's trip for free again.  It'll be over Dave's birthday at the end of April. He's VERY excited!

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Dave's dad had open heart surgery 2 weeks ago.  It was tough seeing my hubby so emotional and torn up about seeing his dad go into and come out of surgery.  We are thankful we had such great friends that helped with our kids through all those days we spent at the hospital with him.  And we are thankful God brought him out of the surgery and through recovery well!

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My 10 year class reunion was at the end of July - same weekend as the wedding. So I missed the main event. We were supposed to go to Winfield for a lunch on Sunday, but dumb migraine didn't let me get out of bed until 2:00 that afternoon.  But we DID make it to Winfield for something else later that evening... 

I have wanted to go to the fair every year, and keep telling Dave that our fair (as in the fair I grew up with) is SOOOO much better than Newton's fair.  He completely agreed once we were there.  Like 100 times better!

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I haven't been to Butz and Gutz pretty much all summer.  Nor have I ran.  I need to get back at it.  Recent pictures of myself say so.

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We just got our tickets in the mail for BLUEGRASS, the 3rd weekend in September -  AHHHHHH, I need that weekend to be here NOW!  And we need the heat to go away too.

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We don't like our new mattress - we went with the memory foam - we now have to sleep on it for 45 days before we can take it back.  But at least we CAN take it back and get something different.  We need something SOFT.  We thought the foam felt soft when we tried it out - but we need much softer.  We have about 20 days left to go. And every night we lay down, it kind of sucks.

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We got to babysit for this little cutie last week and my kids were in love. They pretty much smothered him the first 30 minutes.  Luckily he was cool with that. 

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My sister just moved to Cincinnati.  I don't know anything about Cincinnati.  And even though I was a teacher, I have a hard time even remembering what state that is in. I didn't have to teach US geography. It's in that bunch of states I always got confused with anyway.  She moved from the Dallas area.  Before that northern California.  I wonder how many cool places I may get to visit her?  We get to see her this weekend - in Missouri, not Cincinnati, thank goodness.

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Remember how I said our life hasn't been normal since June 23?  Along with that I am ashamed to admit that I have not had the time with God that I so desperately need.  And go figure...my life feels like a mess.  I've missed Him.  And need to get that time back FAST!

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I just heard from Taylor that the thermometer says that "it's 6 degrees till winter time"  Whatever that is, it sounds delightful.  I feel so bad for my husband - and of course those other hard working guys - that work in this 105, 108, and 110 degree heat all day long.  I don't know how they do it. 

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I picked up our family pictures today- and they are fabulous! 

More to come.