Making Memories

Today I’m grateful for
A vacation that can only be described as perfect.
We enjoyed:

• A week away from our normal schedule and routine
• Camping at Sam & Ruth’s 5 star backyard campground!
• Delicious food
• Great conversation
• Children getting to know their second cousins better
• A meaningful worship service
• A lovely river walk, beautiful scenery
• Campfire, black sky full of stars
• Rehearsing old memories
• Telling the children stories of their Dads when they were younger!
• Monday morning iced coffee
• 4 nights in the beautiful Adirondack mountains
• A fun filled campground
• A little boy fishing
• S’mores
• The satisfaction of completing a long hike
• A beautiful view of Lake George from the top of Prospect Mt.
• A cruise on the lake
• Watching Nicholas mini-golf for the first time.
• Campfire meals
• Ice cream on a hot afternoon
• Loving to learn about history, together, at Ft. Ticonderoga
• Blue lakes and blue skies
• Just being a family - together.

For this I am grateful, “Thank you, Father!”

Now it's time to get back to normal after a week long vacation, to face the challenges, the chores, the busyness of life, but I do feel refreshed and ready to start a new month - August.  I really do need to get serious about planning and preparing for the year ahead.  I have all of my curriculum I just need to spend some time at the computer making lesson plans, especially for my kindergartener!  He's excited and so am I.  I'll be using "Five in a Row" with him (a literature based unit study).  I used this with the girls and it was a very fun way to learn.  Nicholas is most excited about his math book.  I just hope that excitement about math lasts for the next 12  years!  So my mind will be focused on school prep whenever I have spare time over the next 3 weeks.

Yesterday I finished the book “Heaven is for Real.”  Wow, this is a “must-read.”  I’ve been pondering it all day.  I plan to read it aloud to the rest of the family starting tonight.  I’m so glad heaven is for real!  For those of you that have already read the book, you'll remember the little boy's constantly telling his parents that "Jesus loves children."  I was so challenged, and I hope, changed by that.  I want to love children (not just my own) but all children, the way Jesus does.  For some reason, the Lord keeps bringing children (and teenagers) into our home, we'll have an extra person at our table every evening this week.  My goal - to love them and to provide a place where they feel safe and secure!