You Don't See That Every Day

We only have 1 meet left in the season! I can't believe it has gone by so fast. The kids started running in August, just come-if-you-can practices, and ice-cream runs. And now as their times are inching down, as their muscles are stronger and their strides are faster. .. it will be coming to an end. The Boy's senior season has been good. No injuries, a little sickness, but nothing bad; he is running well, and taking off time at each meet. I know it isn't his favorite sport. It's more of a stay-in-shape kind of sport. But that's ok. It is a lifetime sport, so we're good with that. The Girl Who Swims, is also quite a runner. She continues to amaze us, just as her brother did as he grew through high school. Her times continue to shrink; her placing in races continues to get better. And she is good. I try not to get my hopes up, but a part of me wants her to make it to the state meet this year. If not, that's ok too, she's only a sophomore, she likes run

Going to the library is a big deal in our house. The kids beg me to take them more often than whenever the books are due. So last weekend I took the older girls so they could have some fun reading material outside of schoolwork. Which meant I also got to spend almost an hour looking at books. I'm on a cookbook fixation this month. (Swim season is rapidly approaching and rumor has it that my swimmer girl isn't supposed to eat sweets or sugars during the season. It's going to be a challenge to feed this girl. She loves her cookies and ice cream. So do I!) So I am looking at various cookbooks to get some new ideas. Hmm, this sounds a lot like a post I wrote a couple of months ago ... needing new dinner ideas. Anyway, there is a cookbook for just about anything! I came across the Polish cookbooks, and being half Polish, decided to look into them. Just to be fair to my husband's side, I did glance at the Irish ones... but didn't find much in the one I looked at. Head ch

Sometimes it's good to look back on things and see how far we have come.  A year ago today I had a gut-wrenching day.  Gut-wrenching in the literal term. I had no idea if I would be a widow by morning or not. Oh, I had hope. And I had prayer, fervent prayer that it would be "not" for the answer.  Never have I prayed so hard, or felt so connected to God.  I had no way to help, except though prayer.  I had no one to turn to who could actually comfort me, except God. Oh, I had friends and family praying and surrounding me with love. But none of them could say 100% that he would come home. Only going to God would give me hope.  For years I have struggled with prayer. I didn't believe that God would actually listen to me. I hoped He would; I hoped Jesus would want to intercede for me. But I think deep down I doubted my petty prayers would be heard among the masses God must hear daily. But on 9/25 last year, I had no doubt. I knew He heard me. I knew in my inmost

Once upon a time we had three children. And then number four arrived, on September 21 of 2005. Our third girl baby. Her oldest sibling, our only boy, shed a few tears when he heard the news. He has since gotten over that. We celebrated this girl's birthday in a strange succession of events this week. On her birthday we had a cross country meet to go to, and then rushed off to church for Awana. So we weren't going to be able to have our family celebration until the late evening. However, plans had to change when we got home and discovered our dog had escaped again. With thunder and lightning overhead our dog got scared and ran. So we spent a lot of time tracking her down -- the Internet was a wonderful tool that night, connecting us with a mutual friend of the family who found our dog. By the time we were settled back at the house we only had time for presents. So we had cake and ice cream the following night. And then yesterday she got to have a birthday party with frien

(Note: I wrote this awhile back, but forgot to publish, oops) One week of school done. And there has already been drama in the middle-schooler's life. Ugh, drama, drama. Immaturity and insecurity bring about a lot of pain and drama. I think the girls have it worse than the boys. My son had some at that age and learned quickly who was his friend and who had integrity versus who was still learning. It's a good thing those piercing words were not aimed at my daughter last week. My mama bear claws might have come out. As it was, I was angry at first with the girls who were laughing at another child. And then I was just really saddened to think they might know better but chose to act that way. I gotta admit, I cried a little last Wednesday as we prayed over the kids and sent them off to the first day at school this year. I have two younger ones at home that will keep me company and keep me hopping; but I really enjoyed having all my minions with us for the past three months.

A few years ago, like maybe five or so, the Girl Who Swims did some kids triathlons. And she loved it. Fast forward-- now in high school, she runs, she swims, she runs some more. This weekend she and the Mr. did a sprint triathlon together with a number of guys from the church. It was a beautiful day although it started a little early for a Saturday! We were up at the crack of sunlight to get to the lake in time. Thankfully we could go in two shifts so the non-participants slept in a few minutes more and didn't rush quite as much. The Mr has been training for this for just over a month. He runs regularly, and has been swimming ever since he started rehab on his shoulder. But putting the bicycling part into the rotation made the difference. The pants that were getting tight are now loose! And he had a great time just doing the course. He was pretty nervous about the swim section, since he isn't a swimmer. He did just fine, staying at the back of the men's heat, and ge

August 2016-- family campout. We made it to Diamond Lake this year for our camping experience. It has now become one of our favorites. Even though it was quite a long drive, with many "how much farther?" questions from the 6 year old, there was plenty to see, and plenty of time to talk. We did see a car accident that must have happened within the half hour; that was pretty sobering. We got there in time for the kids to set up the tent with Dad while I got dinner together with some helpers. The yellow jackets decided they liked our taco salad, so we had to move our supper time inside the tent. Once we were done the visitors left and we came out in time to go down to the lake for a beautiful sunset. A campfire, with s'mores and a game helped end the day.   Brrr - the nighttime is cold there! Even though we weren't all feeling rested the next morning we went on bike rides. Little K. is now pretty much a pro on her bike without training wheels. That was an

I met a lady recently whom I have come to admire. I don't know her well yet, but what I do know I like. Let me tell you how it happened.  Our older kids go to school with her kids, so I have seen her around but had never talked to her. Then she and her family showed up at our church. So I went over to talk with her. As we exchanged who are you 's, I mentioned that we homeschool, and she said, "Oh, I'm jealous !" What? Shake my brain, rattle it around, did I hear you right? I have never had that response to my homeschooling admission. Usually I hear things like, "I could never do that" or perhaps an inference to my state of mind and sanity. To actually have someone jealous of what I was doing ... I knew right then I liked this lady. But it gets better. We continued our conversation, and got around to the fact that I have 5 children. And she once again got me. She said something to the effect of how wonderful that is. People, that is not the normal r

Every few months I get tired of cooking supper. My inspiration is gone, my zeal and any interest in  meals is zapped. If I can swing it in the budget, we usually end up getting pizza or takeout on those nights. This month I did it a little differently. I told the kids to get in the car, and bring a sweatshirt, because we were going out for dinner. The Mr had to work late in the field, so he didn't come along. We headed west while the kids kept guessing. Eventually they figured out that we were heading to the beach.  We stopped at a favorite park in Lincoln City, to stretch our legs.  Then it was off to Mos for some clam chowder. Yum. We even head enough time to walk on the beach and, as usual happens, throw, er, skip rocks in the water. It was a lovely night. The next night I still hadn't recovered from my lack of cooking syndrome. So we grabbed some takeout and went out to the farm. It was so quiet and peaceful there.  We ate our food, sitting in the back of t

The annual family camp-out happened this past holiday weekend. We hadn't been camping with the extended family in a few years. But I braved the elements and took the 5 kids camping without the Mr's help. He had to stay home and work, (and recover from a bad cough.) We had a beautiful weekend on the coast. You know it's the Oregon coast because of the coats being worn. But this time the beach was warm, although it wasn't really sunny. The kids had a great time playing in the sand, playing in the water, playing with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. We took a hike out to Cape Lookout but only made it halfway. The hike was a bit more than we had anticipated with the young ones in tow. The drop offs were pretty steep. And although it wasn't too taxing of a hike, it was too much for the little guys this time. The Boy was able to finish the hike later with other relatives.  My youngest was really enthralled by the one park ranger's talk t