Play Time

Bryce and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary this week. Some friends watched the kids while we got a day and a half away in Phoenix, staying at a friend's guest house. That was so special! This summer has been a time of much-needed connecting for the two of us. Somehow in the busyness of birthing two kids, welcoming seven new staff and undergoing a heart surgery--all in three years--we got a little stressed. We feel like we're heading into the fall semester in a much better place.

Yesterday we piled into the van to do some family errands. The kids' favorite part was our last stop, where we got a car track for Simmy and a pink cell phone for Lydie. New toys are a pretty rare event around here. Sims slept with pieces of his new track in his bed, and Lydia's phone was playing the same bars of "Ode to Joy" well into the night. When I went back into the kids' room to put something away, Simmy was still laying there awake. He mumbled something and when I asked him to repeat it, he said, "I'm grateful for what God provided, for my new toy," then gave a shy little grin. "God did it because he loves car sets!" Well, I don't know about his theology, but it was endearing to see his gratitude. He kept asking why we got it for him. How fun to get something just for fun!

Lydia, for the second time this week, discovered some of my high heels sitting around and decided to take them for a spin, complete with cell phone, pipe-cleaner boa and Nemo ring. She managed to stay upright in them, which is rare. We say that she is the definition of precarious: unstable and about to fall. That girl does hit the floor with regularity! It is just so fun to watch her be utterly feminine. She loves her accessories: shoes, hats, barrettes, beads... even the way she "wears" her blankie wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl is so different than her big brother. She's fast turning into a little girl. It's hard to believe that she'll be two in only two months!

This week is our last before staff meetings start the following week. We'll be doing lots of preparation, and helping various staff members move into their new homes. This fall we'll have a team of 10. All very exciting! If only we can take time to enjoy what we have, and be grateful for what God provides!

Floral Mayhem

Well, I designed flowers for my first wedding last weekend. Actually, I just did the reception. But with 30 guest tables and a head table to cover, the reception was plenty enough! All in all, it turned out well, but boy, was it a crazy process!

First of all, the bride liked some vases that were really for floating candles so the stems of the flowers didn't want to stay down. They'd float out of the water. My attempts at hot-gluing foam didn't work. The glue wouldn't stay attached to the vase, and it looked chintzy anyway through the clear glass.

So while I was praying for another idea a friend called and reminded me of this stuff that expands in water and you add to soil to keep roots moist. So we added some of those granules to the water to help keep the stems in. And it worked!

But the even bigger issue ended up being the flowers themselves. We had decided to use gerbera daisies, astromeria and lisianthus, all in shades of creamy white and soft yellow. I made a mock arrangement to see how many stems I would need of each, then ordered through a wholesale florist in town. Well, when I went to see the flowers two days before the wedding, the lisianthus looked beautiful but the astromeria and daisies were both the wrong color! When I tried to do a test arrangement, thinking maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought, the result was horrendous. The bright white of the astromeria made the creamy lisianthus look dingy and the daisies were shockly bright yellow. So much for subtle and lovely!

At that point, the florist couldn't return the flowers so we made do. She had some floral spray paint, so we painted the astromeria yellow. Then we cut a bunch of vines from our back yard for added greenery, then went to town making the arrangements without the poor gerberas that just wouldn't work no matter how hard we tried.

It was five hours of hard work on the day of the wedding with four other people helping, and as it was, we were 10 minutes late to the wedding, still in our work clothes! But Bryce brought our fancy duds and after the ceremony we changed in the church bathroom, then headed to the reception in style. It was fun to eat a good dinner together, enjoying the visual fruit of our labor. And most importantly, the bride (and her mom) were pleased.

It was quite the learning process for me. And now I'm glad it's over!

Van on vacation

Well, we got back on Sunday from a sweet vacation in central California, chilling in a cabin among the redwoods. We got lots of time hiking wooded trails along flowing creeks (Actual water in a creekbed! Novel thought for these desert dwellers!) and wearing sweatshirts to ward off the nighttime chill. It was a great change of pace—and scenery—for us all.

One highlight of the trip was our new (used) van that made the trip much more comfortable. We got a great deal on a Toyota Sienna, which allowed us to have a back seat for stretching out for much-needed naps during the 18 hours it took us to get there. Bryce thought he'd compromised his masculinity by giving into a van, but after two trips to California in as many weeks, he now says he's a believer.

For parting thoughts, here's a picture of Lydia just taken today. She's been a blast lately, trying out every new word she can. She's gone from hardly saying anything, to repeating practically everything she hears... and not just one word at a time. She repeats phrases. Quite clearly! Tonight Sims found a squished golf ball, commenting on how it was dead. Lydia looked at me. "Dead ball," she said in a sweet little voice.

We're glad to be home, glad to be enjoying life as a family, glad to have a little of the summer still left, and glad for a God who has been very good to us.

Susan