The doctor said not to walk and to rest my feet this week, and I really like it.

Is that funny that I like it? Am I not supposed to? Does that make me sound lazy? I’m not lazy. I’m quite industrious here on my sofa. Yes, I do admit to spending way too much time reading Facebook yesterday. Way too much time, but that aside, I’ve been productive. According to my Fitbit, I still managed to get 4,000 steps yesterday. Maybe this is what it’s like to have a desk job instead of being a homemaker.

I have blogger friends who do this everyday. They work on their writing, promotions, and blog work all day long, and they are far more successful than I am with their websites due to their consistency. Maybe I should do this more often. I love it.

What do I do all day?

For this entire week, I am sitting on my sofa doing things on my computer.

First, I get the boys off to school. The middle schoolers don’t need anything from me, but I chat with them while I drink my coffee. Then we wake up the younger two. I fix their breakfast, boss them around, and then I walk them to the bus stop. No one ever told me when I was just a 6-year-old bossy know-it-all-little-girl that I could use that for my motherhood gig. Ha!! I’m kidding. I direct the children. Does that sound nicer?

Then I come home and eat breakfast while I check the messages and see if there’s anything new and interesting on social media. I’ll call my mom or text my husband. I look over my checking account and pay the bills.

Once my feet get too cold to sit any longer, or my sciatica kicks in from the sitting, I get up and do a few chores while I listen to a podcast. My current favorite is the Thankful Homemaker. She’s a little older than me, and her stuff is so wise and Biblical.

Then back to my sofa I go to create pins for Pinterest, read other people’s blogs, and work on writing new content and fixing up old posts as well. Today I learned that broken links are bad for search engine optimization. Yipe. This website goes back to 2014. I have about a billion broken links, especially since Top Mommy Blogs shut down, which I was a very active member of.

At 3, the boys come home. I do more chatting, and we work on studying and homework. Caleb has been walking down to the bus stop and picking up the younger two for me while I’m down. Around 5 or 5:30, I whip together a dinner. Alan comes home around 6 or 6:30, and we usually all eat together. Then we wind down and spend two hours getting our kids to bed. I know that’s crazy long, but I like to read with them.

Do you know what this week taught me?

God provides exactly what we need. This has forced me to sit down and work on something that I actually love to do. It’s a gift. Too often I don’t work on it because I feel guilty to be blogging when there are bathrooms I could be scrubbing, and even … well… I hate to admit this. I judge people for doing this very thing…. There are still blanket Christmas lights on three bushes outside in my front yard, and here it is already January 15th!! Alan took down all the lights that were up high, but he left the ones on the bushes for me to do, and I haven’t done them. At least I did unplug them around January the 5th.

So see, there’s always something, with a house full of people, that needs to be done, but this has forced me off of my feet and onto my laptop. I couldn’t walk around all day if I wanted to. It hurts too much.

It’s funny how our disadvantages can become our blessings.

That’s how it is with my sore feet. Here is this unexpected free pass to stay home and write and edit to my heart’s content, and so for that I am thankful. Yep. I am thankful for bad feet!

What are you thankful for today?

*Linking up with Finish the Sentence Friday on tamaracamerablog.com.*

The post It’s funny how our disadvantages can become our blessings. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Yesterday I caught myself wallowing in the overwhelm of life. This is something I do for at least 15 minutes/day. Ha!

The boys and I have officially been in our new house for exactly 2 weeks now. There are still around 10 cardboard boxes scattered around the house, the hard ones, the ones you save for last. All of 3 or 4 things are hung on the walls, and the counter tops aren’t cleared off yet, not even to the manageable level, because we haven’t figured out where everything goes.

I just returned home from the grocery shopping with John David, so the kitchen is covered in food to be put away.

This was not grocery day. Grocery day looked much worse than this.

It is so easy to dwell on your problems.

Staying positive while staring at the seemingly 1 million things we still need to do doesn’t really come naturally.

I caught myself moping yesterday, as I sat down on my screened-in back porch, at this old glass porch table we’ve moved along with us at least 4 different times, maybe more. We’ve owned this porch table and chairs so long I have no memory of buying it! Thank God for things that last! Look! There’s a positive thought!

Sitting out there watching the two youngest boys jump on the trampoline and the little dog run around the yard, suddenly things didn’t seem so bad. It was even nice weather out! Cloudy and cool, a welcome change after 95 degrees.

Looking at your life in a positive life takes thought until it becomes a habit. Positive thinking is the OPPOSITE of unrealistic expectations, which are perhaps the biggest enemy of my lifetime. Unrealistic, idealistic expectations–ugh–make it so easy to think negatively because up against the ideal, everything is a disappointment, even when it shouldn’t be.

Thinking positively requires actual effort to flip the way you look at a situation, a person, or anything. It’s a learned skill, even.

I think it’s most important in your head, in the way that you think to yourself.

For example:

My usual pattern is this–

I can say what I said in my first paragraph.  10+ boxes are left to unpack. The closet broke today. The house looks untidy still. There’s nothing on the walls, and I haven’t even decided on a color scheme for the front room (which everyone will see). I’ve failed at this. Why can’t I do a better job?

See my broken closet? It’s so bad, I had to prop it all against the wall, or it would all be laying in the floor. Everything on the upper shelf crashed down around me too.

See.

When you put a successful spin on that thought process, you are allowing yourself to be happy.

“We are rocking this move. Only a few boxes are left. I know where almost everything is. Alan can fix the closet himself, I’m sure. It will be fun to decorate the front room. Besides all that, we’ve already met most of our neighbors, found a church that we like, been invited to someone’s house, and put together a swing set and the trampoline. Anyway, this screened-in back porch is AWESOME! Everything is going to be okay.”

I know you all can relate to this. No way am I the only person who beats myself up.

But another thing has to go too: Comparing yourself to others.

Comparison is TOTALLY the thief of joy. No other way around it. Life isn’t supposed to be about competing with your friends and strangers. We’re all different people with different circumstances, so it doesn’t make any sense anyway.

I think it’s more productive to compete with ourselves. Trying to beat your best time on a run, learning a better way to do something, accepting constructive criticism, and improving on anything that you do to compete with yesterday you, that’s a healthier way to live. I can’t control how fast this friend, according to her Facebook posts, is at unpacking. I can only focus on my own boxes.

I found this adorable heart, from Valentine’s Day, in one of John David’s boxes. There are positive things about moving.

**********

By the way, John David was absolutely adorable at the grocery store. That boy sang contentedly as he walked right in my way through the whole store. “B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, and Bingo was his name-o.”

Did I shush him? No! It was precious and not too loud. I felt like everyone should be thanking me or buying tickets. Sounds funny, but I’m serious! You’re welcome, Target, for the happy little entertainment we provided today.

Our poor first 2 children would’ve probably been shushed, but we are not the same people we were back then. Parenting has begun to wear away our sharp edges. We are only 13 years in. Imagine how soft we’ll be by 20 years in!

The post How do you think positively 2 weeks after moving? appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

*** Disclosure for legal purposes: I often include links in my blog posts, and I do collect advertising fees for these links. I do not promote any product I do not believe in, and all opinions are my own.***

Everyone goes through hard or hectic, confusing times. It seems like we’re constantly wading knee-deep in and out of huge changes for as long as I can remember, really.

2018 does not wish to be upstaged. As peaceful and incredible as 2017 was, 2018 decided to leave more of …an impression. Personally, I liked the humdrum and happiness of 2017 much, much better.

I won’t go into all that is going on, but we’ll just say the hurricane is still swirling for our family, and I do mean my whole extended family in several different ways.

3 generations of amazing strong, brave women. We all came from Beth and Max. In that photo we were gathered for Madison’s Sweet 16 party.

Do you ever feel like your life has a soundtrack?

Raising children has been the adventure of my life, and there have been many anthems over the years, like I Feel Better When I’m Dancin’ and Day by Day (the hymn) and Mama Loves the Baby. I sang “Mama Loves the Baby” to John David so many times to get him to go to sleep. When I’m an old senile woman in a nursing home, don’t be surprised if I’m sitting there rocking and singing “Mama loves the baby, Mama loves the baby. Mama loves the baby, oh yes she does..”

Have you ever had an MRI? Two weeks ago I was in the MRI tunnel. Normally that never bothers me, claustrophobic-wise during a hip/lower back MRI, and I’ve had several of those, thanks to my sciatic problem. But when I do the cardiac one with all the breath holding, I go a little bonkers in there. Literally I feel like I’m trapped and hyperventilating in some kind of hole I cannot get out of.

Thankfully, they give you music during an MRI. She asked me to name an artist I like because their music comes from Pandora. It randomly selects songs in that same genre as the artist you name.

Now you know I have a whole playlist of songs/artists that I love, but when put on the spot I could not thing of the name of a single person who sings songs on the radio. Not one.

I thought long and hard and managed to come up with Rachel Platt. Only it turns out there is no Rachel Platt. It’s Rachel Platten. Thankfully, Pandora understood what I meant anyway. It did give me Rachel Platten songs. I was hoping for Fight Song, but that didn’t happen.

However, Pandora did play Brave by Sara Bareilles, which came on right when I needed it. My right arm, which had the IV in it had fallen asleep, but I couldn’t move it. There was that tight space, and there was just no where to run, but this song came on. This song is one I listen to at home, but not so much that I’m sick of it yet.

And it has been truly my anthem. Having “I wanna see you be brave” sang to me over and over again, was perfect.

Brave.

I don’t always want to be brave. Do you? Doesn’t it feel better to cuddle up on the couch and hide?

But we weren’t meant to be scared little mice or to hide away. We were made to live and to love even when life is making us cry. Life does that sometimes, and it comes at you from all corners at once. Or you just see your family dealing with something hard, and it gets you down, you know?

I think it’s important for us to fill up our tanks with God’s love, so we have that love and light to give because He is the light, and He is the love.

“‘Together’ is a really good word. Together is what we need when we hit tough patches in life. Making decisions when life is making you cry shouldn’t be done alone.” –Lysa Terkeurst, in The Best Yes

How do you fill your tank with God’s love and light? We need God’s word for that, God’s word, other believers who lift us up to the light, and time and space to think on it and pray.

I’ve personally been reading in Isaiah, of late. Isaiah has a surprising amount to say about Jesus, considering he was born centuries before Jesus. Isaiah was a prophet, and he was writing about what was coming.

“Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say ‘Here I am.’

If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.

And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”                     Isaiah 58: 9-11

God wants to “see you be brave” too.

I hope you can pump your fist through your trials and sing, “Let the words fall out honestly. I wanna see you be brave,” too.

Alan brightened my morning by showing up after the MRI to take me to lunch. Is there any feeling like when people care?

This has been a highly frustrating week here, but I know all problems are eventually resolved or transformed into memories. It’s always a reminder to me to rely on God and lean on those who love me, and to be there for them too. Having faith and having each other is what makes it all worth doing.

The post “I Wanna See You Be Brave” appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

*This post does contain some affiliate links, which means that if you purchase through my site, I receive a small percentage.*

I’ve been dealing with my own feelings of failure for a while now. Have you ever felt that way? I read this story this week, and I poured tears as I contemplated my own “failure.”

There was this man. He was from out-of-town. He wanted to teach people about Jesus. That landed him in prison, and not just prison. First, he was stripped and beaten, and then they put him in prison.
He got out though.
And then you know what he said about that trip? He said, “It was not a failure.”

Public humiliation. Beaten! Imprisoned!

That was not a failure?? He was basically chased out of town. He can’t go back there.

But that man was Paul, and that town was Philippi. You can read more about that story in Acts 16:16-25 and 1 Thessalonians 2, all of chapter 2.

“You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition.”    1 Thessalonians 2:1-2

It was not a failure because they STILL did share the gospel, as they set out to do. When we tell people the good news, that Jesus loves ALL of us and wants to save and be a friend to ALL of us, we aren’t responsible for how people respond to that. That doesn’t mean be a jerk and don’t care. That means don’t be obnoxious. Share it, and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

Public disgrace does not equal failure.

Things not ending as planned does not mean we failed.

Being physically destroyed is not failure. It’s not.

You are not a failure either. Think of your most recent failure, and then consider. What did you learn? What good came out of that?

I was reading about all of these things in Children of the Day, by Beth Moore. It takes books like these to help me understand things like Acts 16 being tied to 1 Thessalonians. Believe me, I’d never figure that out on my own. Every single Beth Moore Bible study workbook I have ever read has been a massive blessing to me.

This one is no exception. She just HAD to go and ask us what our most recent failure is. She left a little blank space for us to write about it. Ha! I got out my spiral notebook and filled up a whole PAGE.

I wrote, and I thought, and I cried, and I prayed, and in the end I was reminded.

“Though a righteous man falls 7 times, he will get up, but the wicked will stumble into ruin.”  Proverbs 24:16

Failure stings when it’s something that means the world to you. It stings like getting stung by a HIVE OF BEES  or 50 fire ants.

I set out to home school those two years with two objectives:

1. I wanted to give them that one-on-one boost with their academics.
2. I wanted to improve their character. No, I can’t improve it myself, but I wanted to promote it. I wanted to provide the right environment and the right tools for the boys and God to work that out.

I was not able to accomplish what I wanted, academically, and to make it worse trying to be a teacher, homemaker, blogger, and mom all at once made me MISERABLE. It was heart-breaking. Even as I write about it again, it’s like my heart is all ripped up and bleeding. I want to pound my fists to the wall and then lay my head against it and cry until there’s no water left because no matter how hard I tried, everything felt like failure.

I love these children with such intensity, I want to fix every single problem that they have, but that’s not possible, is it? The ability to fix everything was so far beyond my control.

So I failed. Or so I thought. But you know what? I did not fail. They didn’t fail either. Nothing failed. There was nothing wasted here.

In those two years, I saw their character bloom. I saw love, humility, honesty, justice, kindness, and goodness in my boys.

Caleb was saved and baptized, of his free choosing during that time at home with me. I even heard him teaching his friends about Jesus.

There was spiritual warfare waged over the souls of my children those two years, and God won.

I grew to understand the boys’ strengths and weaknesses. I came to terms with my own limitations. We emerged a different family than when we went into this.

I failed in some ways in order to learn. Sometimes we have to fall to learn, to grow, to become.

We saw it happen with my children too. We watched them overcome the kind of adversity that would have CRUSHED me at their age. I would not have handled it with the strength, dignity, and courage that I watched my son display.

That’s not actually failure is it? But it sure feels like it when you’re laying in a wad on the ground.

So no, we have not failed. We have only fallen and gotten back up again, and we too shared the gospel in the process.

All of these thoughts led me to this song, and I can’t get it out of my head. Its “fall down and get back up” message resonated with me. Yes, we are trying EVERYTHING. It’s a fun song, and my favorite line is this one:

“Birds don’t just fly. They fall down and get up.”

You’ll have to click the link below to go to YouTube to see the lyrics and hear this song. It’s worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92h9xWDLllg

Ok. Your turn to answer Beth Moore’s heart-wrenching question. Failure. When did you last feel it?

“Ask yourself: Did we do the will of God as best we perceived it? Were we authentic before God and man?”    —Children of the Day, page 41, Beth Moore

And I would add, what did you learn? Then maybe it’s not such a failure after all, and even if it is, get back up again.

The post It was not a failure, though I thought it was at the time. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

How’s everyone’s Cyber Monday going? Ours was great. We did no shopping, but I did go to my cardio aqua-therapy class!!  So fun and invigorating!

This giveaway is for two packs of fill-in-the-blank notes from Lil’ Miss Gratitude!!  One of your packs will be thank-yous, and the other pack will either be birthday cards or “Hello” cards.

The front of the cards come blank so your kids color the front, or you can also send them out uncolored! These are appropriate for ALL AGES of kids.

I colored this one!

My boys colored this one. Creative.

These are an awesome way to get your kids expressing gratitude, brightening someone else’s day, and all without the whining and fussing.

Here’s a sample of a completed card:

Sample of a “hello” card that we used as a thank you note.

Joshua needed to write about 12 thank you notes after his birthday party, and when he saw these fill-in-the-blank cards, he was so relieved, he ACTUALLY SAID, “Oh, phew. Thank you, Mom. Thank you so much for these. This makes it so much easier.”

Click here to learn more about Lil’ Miss Gratitude!

Giveaway rules! TWO simple ways to enter the giveaway this time.

1.) Subscribe to my newsletter. I have one going out this week! Already subscribed? No problem. That also counts. No need to subscribe again. Just click on the giveaway form below.

OR

2.) Visit Lil’ Miss Gratitude on Facebook, and  give her a “Like.” 

OR You could also do BOTH and get double entries.

I wish you could all win! Merry Christmas!!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Cyber Monday Gratitude GIVEAWAY!!!!! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan and me the night he left for Iraq, 2003

This week is Veteran’s Day, and as the wife of a veteran it’s a holiday full of meaning for me.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, I thought I’d share this letter that I wrote to Alan on New Year’s Eve, 2003. Alan was in Iraq, and I was living in Texas. What started out as this nightmarish, depressing event (sending my husband to war–I was all of 22 years old) had gradually turned into a year of growth and new friendships.

Did you know that we military wives have our own “battle buddies”?

We do, and they were a life-saver that year. That was the year I learned that I do not enjoy teaching. I experienced the first major failure of my life when I quit that job before the year was over because it was so hard and miserable I couldn’t handle it.

I found many things I didn’t want to be. I thought I would never figure out what I DO want to be, so I headed back to graduate school, but the answers weren’t there either.

But I was never fully defeated because the Lord sustained me.

He sustained me with mentors and friendships and love, and when 2003 closed, I was still full of hope. This is what I wrote to Alan:

**************************

9 months down!!!!!                             I love you!!!!!!!!

Wed.,  Dec. 31, 2003

Day 275

Wow! This is the final day of 2003. But like I read in one of your letters, it was indeed a rotten year. Good riddance, 2003! Don’t let the door hit you on your way out. One thing’s for sure. It’s a year we won’t soon forget.

 But I’m so glad it’s over. For me, 2004 brings so much hope! Much like 2002! I remember New Year’s 2002 so well, and so fondly. I KNEW big things were in store for me that year. I knew you were becoming an important part of my life. And I had a feeling my life would be forever changed. I had a feeling you were “the one.” I remember sitting on my porch, holding my little Sylvester and crying. They weren’t tears of sadness or even tears of extreme joy. I guess it was just a moment in which I was preparing myself for the future. And I was letting go of the little girl inside of me, the innocent girl about to be rescued by her prince, about to grow up.

 I didn’t know I would be getting married that year, or moving far away, or even that I’d be graduating.

I knew nothing of what was in store. Yet I can CLEARLY remember that the Lord was preparing my heart.

He was preparing my heart for you. And all the wonderful things you brought into my life. No one changed my life more than you. But it was a wonderful change.

 On the flip side, 2003 was not so wonderful. It was equally eventful. Only the events of 2003 often brought grief and hard lessons to be learned. I know we have grown this year though. We do grow from trials.

 But 2004 means something much different to me than either 2002 or 2003. To me, it is a year of hope, love, and laughter. That’s because when I think about 2004, all I see is you coming home to me, and spending a year together with you. Wow! How amazing it will be! Me and you together at last!

 So from January to March. Those 3 months are the joy of anticipation. And then You. You here in my life again. I can’t wait!

 I don’t have a New Year’s resolution. But I have a New Year’s hope. It’s like the final hump in this long deployment. The halfway mark was hump 1. And the end of 2003 was hump 2 to me. 3/4 of this journey is over!

 Yes!

************

3 months later, I hung this sign at our very first home together. I lived by the airfield, so I got to see Alan’s ginormous cargo plane fly right over my house as it landed. I’ll never forget the elation of that day.

It was a 4 page letter, and that was the first 3 pages, and I actually did write “Yes!” that BIG at the bottom of page 3. I meant it that large. In fact, it’s actually a little bit larger. I wonder whatever happened to the fourth page.

Happy Veteran’s Day, y’all!! I’m so thankful for my veteran.

The post A Letter of Hope from 2003 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This was the best surprise I’ve ever pulled off.

We are not typically adept at keeping exciting news to ourselves. We are the kind of people who announced we were pregnant the second we found out.

But this time we played it cool. We DID tell the boys we were headed to Disney World. However, we did NOT tell them that I copied my friend Amy’s Disney itinerary as closely as I could, so our Disney vacation would be shared with Xavier and Zoe. (Don’t worry. Xavier and Zoe’s parents were in on it. I wasn’t completely stalking them.)

So Alan and I rode down to Florida, enjoying our secret.

Believe it or not, JD was the MOST visibly excited one. “I’m just so excited to go to Disney World. Can I ride Dusty? I wanna ride Planes.”

Road trip discovery!!! Best coffee ever, y’all!! Raceway gas station Community Coffee. I gotta find a Raceway close to my house now. I am hooked.

scenes of happiness

Art of Animation Resort

Our resort was the bee’s knees, y’all. We stayed at the Art of Animation Resort at Disney World, which is actually a VALUE level resort. The family suites sleep 6 and have 2 full bathrooms. There is a cafeteria open until midnight, several swimming pools, and all the free drink refills you want, if you have the Disney Dining Plan.

Art of Animation Cars Family Suite. This room was all themed out for Sally’s Cozy Cone Motel. That couch turns into a bed.

There was a life-size Lightning McQueen, Mater, Sheriff, Ramone, and many others. It really upped the excitement level of staying at Disney World.

He was a little disappointed that he couldn’t get in and drive Lightning McQueen. Bless.

Magic Kingdom

Day 1 was off to a rocky start. First, we were later than we had hoped to be because….well because we are us and we have four children.

That’s 6 people to apply sunscreen to. Six people to feed. Six people to dress. Six people to brush teeth. 6 people to use the bathroom. Six people to get on each other’s nerves. 6 people to make jokes. 6 people to keep up with. 6 people to wake up. You get the idea.

So we finally made it to the pearly Magic Kingdom gates, through the bag check line, and to the bracelet scan ….and…..

whomp whomp whomp

“We need you to go to guest services.”

Denied entry. Now that is sad.

There was a line at guest services. I guess we weren’t the only ones.

Turns out that we had to prove that we were military b/c we’d gotten a sweet military discount on those tickets.

Now, if our resort peeps had known, they could have validated that for us, but we didn’t think to tell them, and they didn’t ask, so this had to be done at the gate. It was a good thing Alan had his ID with him.

Phew! Finally got through that. We made our way over to the train. Poor little John David tripped as he was climbing onto the train. He cried. It was loud. After a few minutes of that, a sweet lady from behind us passed him an entire package of Starbursts to cheer him up.

We needed that. I wish I knew her name. I’d shout it from the rooftops.

We are not familiar with the parks, and pretty much everything has changed since we went 8 years ago, so it took us a while to find It’s A Small World, where we were scheduled to meet our friends at 9:30.

JD, with his consolation candy

Miraculously enough, we were only a couple minutes late when we spotted our friends!

Xavier ran over to us, and Joshua…..looked confused. It was hilarious. Joshua was silent, but his face seemed to be saying, “Um, yes, hello, who are you?” to Xavier. Of course, after a few minutes, Joshua and Caleb figured out what was going on, and they were so happy. Joshua actually turned to Caleb and said, “Caleb, pinch me. I don’t think I’m awake. I must be dreaming.”

Yes, it is indeed a small world after all.

We all rode 2 rides together, and then split up for the 3rd because not all of our Fastpasses were together.

We were nervous about JD’s ability to keep his Magic Band on his arm. See, the Magic Band is of great value at Disney. All your reservations are programmed in there. It can also identify a lost child. And as an adult, you can wire your credit card info on there so you don’t even have to carry around money. Magic bands open your hotel room, know your fast pass times, and contain your park admission ticket. They are a big deal.

So you can imagine my dismay when after ride #2 of day #1, I look down and realize that I have lost MY Magic Band. Well, of course I did, really. I’ve always had trouble with bracelets. Grooooaaaaan.

The boys headed off to use their Fast Pass with Alan. I headed back to the Haunted Mansion. If a cast member (Disney employee) finds a Magic Band, it’s kept at that ride for an hour. So I figured I had one hour to get that band back. I had it when I got on the Haunted Mansion ride, and it was gone afterwards, so that had to be it.

ugh. We had walked a long way. It was sunny. I was sweating. I missed turns, I turned back, but I eventually found my way back to Haunted Mansion, using my handy-dandy Disney app.

I asked each cast member I passed, “Have you seen a pink Magic Band?”

No.

I went all the way through the suddenly very long Haunted Mansion line. No band.

I was annoyed to have to ride the ride again, by myself, but I did it.

It wasn’t scary, but creepy skulls and ghosts aren’t my thing. “Why this ride, Lord?” I thought.

Call me crazy, but he answered me. I thought about my tendency to gloss over everything bad and pretend like the gross, evil, and unfortunate things in life don’t exist. That’s apathy, really. But these things do exist, and they must be faced.

I prayed for God to just please give me my band back and get me out of there.

At the very end of the ride, as I went through the exit corridor, I asked a young lady, and she said, “Hold on.”

Then she was gone all of two minutes and came back holding my magic band.

Thank you, Lord!

I’m happy to tell you that bad things come in threes, so that’s the last one. The rest of it went well:

So excited to find this!

Oh, the tea cups. What adult likes this ride? This was the only ride that made JD cry.

Happy People

By lunch, JD reached full melt-down level.

But Caleb and Dan were dying to ride these cars, so we split up here and met back at the restaurant. Lunch made all the difference too. When in doubt, feed the children!

I thought Zoe’s ears were adorable.

riding the People Mover

Country Bear Jamboree

One of the best things that happened: It rained almost every day, just enough to cool things off. The heat was not nearly as bad as I feared it would be.

Dinner at Tony’s Town Square. JD slept through almost every single evening meal in his stroller.

Alan bought these ponchos for $1 a piece at Target from the camping section. We were thankful to have these!!

Amy is the real deal New England Patriots fan. She’s even from New England.

Granted, we got off to a rough start, but by lunch I feel like we had things turned around in our favor.

It struck me during our vacation what a positive difference it made, sharing this trip with good friends. Our kids were braver about trying new things, and I think it helped Alan and me to be more relaxed and fun. People often say that Alan and I are laid back, which is a real head scratcher for me because the truth is we are tired, uptight people. We do like to have fun. It’s just that we’ve been so busy changing diapers, enforcing vegetable consumption, teaching reading skills, coaching memory work, cleaning up, and taming boys over the past 10 years that sometimes it feels like fun is a relative concept. 

Our friends, Amy and Sean, are in the parenting trenches just as we are, so they’re understanding. Plus, we have shared history. They’ve already accepted us for who we are. I’d like to put my finger on what it is that makes me like these friends so much. Because I do. I love their whole family, and Amy is one of my few closest friends. They are upbeat, and they are real at the same time. Amy is the kind of friend I can be myself with, and they are good about keeping in touch.

There is a certain quality you find in just a few friends in life, a quality that cannot be aptly described with words.

All I know is to call them “kindred spirits” as Anne of Green Gables did, but it’s more than that. There are some people who can’t help but be the main characters in your life. It is a matter of both mutual respect, shared interests, and plain old convenience and timing.

But I think God’s hand is in it too. Sometimes, once I realize a friend is definitely more than a passing acquaintance, I stop and wonder, “What is it, God? What should I learn from them? What do they need that I might offer?” It’s usually both. It’s that whole iron-sharpening iron thing.

It was a refreshing visit, especially as we enter another phase of meeting new people and being “the new kids” yet again.  My heart starts to get tired of putting my best foot forward, and that is why I drag my family out on all these vacations. I have this need to remind myself where we’ve been, where we’re going, and who we are before we plunge in to building a new community for ourselves.

And I have to take a little time. I wish that it were everyday, but sometimes it isn’t. But never forget to take a little time to read God’s Word, the Holy Bible, and get down on your face, and pray for the courage and strength to tackle the next thing. It would  be beautiful for life to be like the ENDINGS of your favorite movies, full of pot-luck dinners, and breezy sun-lit paths. But instead, it’s more like an obstacle course, where your relay team keeps changing. God is the only constant.

Today I found this verse:

In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of a thundercloud; I tested you at the waters of Meribah.  Psalm 81:7

In your distress, you called and I rescued you.

Yes!!  That was exactly it. This year and many times before!

It rang so strong and true with me that I wrote it down in 4 different places, one of which was where I copied the verse on my wrist in red ink pen. Alan said it looked disturbing. Sigh. I just wanted a place I could see it that wouldn’t wash off when I washed my hands. Being disturbing was not my intention.

But y’all!!! Sometimes life IS disturbing!!!

That is why we NEED friends! And vacations! And PRAYER!! And a little silence and rest. And upbeat people.

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