last week

of summer!

Like all last weeks it is filled with much preparation for the year to come.  So fun!  Nothing like fresh new school supplies, spiffed backpacks, crisp fall clothes to sweat profusely in don for the first day of school!

Personally, for me, I always look forward to getting our home really back in order after a summer of fun together.  I am longing and yearning (and yes, I know this is weird) to scour my cupboards, wash the floors the old fashioned way, and organize all the nooks and crannies of closets.  Away go the swim towels, out come the fall coats.

What is it with living up north and all the variations of fleece, down and gortex that we need.  Honestly!

I need a good system for mittens and hats.  And our boots need a better place to rest than the floor of the shoe closet in the mud room.  So I'm going to get organized that way this fall, too.  We have six shelves in there...and soon there will be seven of us.  Hmmm.  Time to get creative!  Jim, you just lost your shelf.  How's that?  Just kidding, honey.

We have one last weekend up at the cabin with my parents.  It will be special and bittersweet this year.  The cabin is for sale.  Anna is fervently praying it sells in ten or twenty years.  :)  So we are so grateful for this time to say goodbye together and play and a beloved place.  As we leave, I think we all need to say, "Next spring in Arizona", instead of goodbye!  We have many new places to make memories together.  The lake has been a blessed place, and now there are new locations for us to discover and enjoy together.  It's us, the people, more than a specific place.  That's what matters.  Mom and Dad, we love you!  Thank you so for the gift of Lake Tahkodah ALL these years!

We are in the process of weaning Luke off of one of his seizure meds and ramping up on the other one.  He is doing great.  The side effects as we switch are not horrible, but are a bit challenging.  Opportunities to speak truth and love on Him with grace and gentleness.  His stamina amazes me, and he is plowing such good ground.  We stand firm on the promise that God is with us and for Luke; in all of it!

At work, I am in my last two weeks.  I am done on the 15th.  Wow.  Can't quite believe it.  We are recruiting for fall teaching, and busy getting the rooms spiffed and in order, prepping curriculum and doing all the things that a new programming year brings.  What an incredible team I have worked with.  I am so grateful the Lord will keep us close and while I will not be there in a paid position, I will still work with them as part of our covenant community.  I'm already dreaming about Jesuralem Marketplace next volunteer opportunities.  :)  Embedded code.

It is now 8:11am.  Time to get the kids up.  In a week, Cooper and Jeb will have already been in school for half an hour.  Ouch!  The early mornings are always a rude awakening (pun intended) to the school year.

I wrote a friend this morning and said, "It will be a big school year this year".  Never were words more aptly written.  It will be a big school year this year.  The year of Emma Kate!  And other things, whatever they may be.  Thankfully, God knows!

3 pounds of bacon,

two loaves of bread
and a passel of lake-lovin', smelly boys!
(sung to the tune of "12 Days of Christmas)


That about sums it up!
Minus a shout out to my lake-loving, strawberry eating, sunscreen applying expert of a girlie who loves to catch fish, find turtles, jump off the dock in her lifejacket and !

Last day full day up here at the beautiful and much beloved cabin.  It has been a lovely week full of great family time, deep restfulness, fun friend visits from the Anderson crew on Thursday and Friday and then at dinnertime last night the arrival of Pearson (Jeb's friend) and Louis (Cooper's friend).  Last weekend starred Jack (another buddy of Coop's) and Abe (Jeb's sweet pal).

I feel like I've fully relaxed for perhaps the first time in seven months.  My mom even remarked as she rubbed my shoulders yesterday that all those "bubbles" she has felt when she's massaged my shoulders for the past months are nowhere to be felt.  I'm profoundly grateful for this time away.

This week has been a true gift for our family.  Summertime memories we will store up and treasure.  A victory for me, personally, of staying up here all week with the kids and feeling very at peace with anything that might or might not happen with Luke's seizures.  Nothing happened.  Thank you, Lord, for that respite.

I've spent a lot of the week in a dialogue with God where I keep circling around and He just keeps holding me and quietly building me up.  We have much ahead of us this school year.  So much of it joyful and incredible, with the addition of Emma Kate in the next months ahead.  There are reams of beautiful things to look forward to for all of us.

I'll be honest and say there's much I'm anticipating and looking toward with what I'm trying not to have as worry, but instead readiness.  And without a list of all that it is here, instead I guess it is best to remember for myself that God is going before us and He knows.  He is there.  He is able.  He is ready, and even now in advance I see ways He is preparing us for there.  For what's to come. And it is all for His glory and our good.

My anticipation of Him, is sweet.  He is our stronghold.   He is my rock, and the giver of every good thing.

if we click our heels three times

can we avoid the tornadoes?

Perhaps sparkly red shoes would help?

In any case, I am now ensconsed with four children in the basement of the cabin.

Charming times.

Cabin basements are really great places to be.  Right now,  I'm REALLY glad the cabin has a basement.  And it isn't a dirt floor with spiders and cobwebs.

 I can post from the basement.  And watch doppler radar from my computer.

In fact, a basement has never looked so good.

Day 3, hour .5

8am.  Slept in until 8am.  Seriously vacation time.

Usually Jim and I are true early birds.  For me, it is carrying the Taylor torch.  And Grandpa DeBoer's habits, minus the 6am call to check on the weather! Early birds all over the place on my family tree.

Coffee.  With Cooper.

Luke wearing Pa's Hamline sweatshirt for the second day in a row.  Wearing it because it is Pa's.  And Luke is President of the fan club.  Quote of the day yesterday, "Pa is the the best skiier ever".  Um, it is summer and no one else was even talking about skiing.  For Luke, it all comes back to Pa.

The weather up here in northern Wisconsin is so glorious.  The sky last night over the lake as the sun dropped down over the horizon was breathtaking.  We all agreed it looked like a postcard it was so perfect.  It felt fake!  The sky is a light summer blue in the days with puffy cotton ball clouds that occasionally whiz by.  Quick, cheerful clouds.  The water shimmers in the sun.  It reminds me of 30 years of summer up here.  All I need is my sister, a boom box, a diet coke and some spf 4 with lemon juice in my hair and I'd be 15 again.

I wish my camera would download pictures to this computer.  And somehow I just know the pictures would not do the beauty of this place justice!  Perhaps the fact that this may well be our last summer here has me taking note of each day and treasuring it away in my heart.  Lake Tahkodah has been a sweet gift for our family.  We are grateful for each and every year.

Cooper is now down fishing at the lake.  Jeb is in the bunk house reading in bed (a boy after his mom's heart!).  Luke and Anna are rustling around for breakfast.  And that must mean my post is surely done.

Emma Kate, what are you doing now?  It's night where you are and I imagine you tucking in for the night.  Bless your sleep, in Jesus name, my sweet one.  I can't wait to look at the sky with you, see the morning arrive with you here in our home, and feel the warm weight of you in my arms in the summer sun.

Love from the cabin,
Sara

vacation: day one, hour 5

Here's how our first day at the lake is going down:

• 3 cups of steaming hot coffee.  Complete bliss.
• Talking about Emma Kate
• 3 chapters of my book, "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
• Discussing China trip
• 3 meals prepared: pre-breakfast fresh fruit and cheese, bacon and croissant breakfast, build-your-own sandwich lunch
• Dreaming about going to....China
• Steak marinating for grilled dinner with fresh green beans and a huge caesar salad.  Yum!
• More talking about Emma Kate
• 6 kids outside ALL morning kayaking, fishing, basketball, baseball and swimming
• Thinking about Emma doing all that with them soon
• Husband putzing with boat repairs and trailer maintenance (I'm sure he's humming he's in heaven)
• Emma Kate!
• One blog post written.

Soon to be followed by:

• boat fun on the water (read: Jim giving older boys a run for their money on the tube)
• more boat fun on the water (read: me giving littles a run for their money with the sssslllllllooooooowwwww pontoon and said tube)
• lakeside snacks
• dinner (there's a food theme here)
• bonfire
• s'mores

Wemy parent's cabin!