summerness.

Summer officially started on May 4th (at midnight)... first there was The Movie, and then we had two weeks of hot weather. The summery things started early--first tan, first meal on the porch, first soft-serve ice cream cone, plus first-time-ever mowing the lawn, first-time-ever driving, first-time-ever playing touch football with out-of-hand brothers, etc.

It's been a weird year, already, and this summer is going to bring even more ending-of-an-age kind of things.

Our neighbors and basically-family-for-nearly-forever just sold their house and will be moving in July.  (thankfully to only about an hour away). My Hadley and Kerilynn are moving in a couple weeks, about four hours away. I alternate between "UM THIS IS NOT GOING TO BE OKAY AT ALL" and "this is doable and I can handle it and we'll still be able to see each other pretty often" and (most often) my mind just kind of skips over the fact that they are actually going to be gone, for the sake of sanity and functionality. Oogh.

Change. I've never been much a fan of it when it includes things coming to an end. Change is good, but it hurts. As Hadley said during a late-night chat, "Love God completely, or go out of your mind."


It's going to be a weird summer. But I'm bound and determined to make it a good one. You know when things are crazy and complicated, but at the same time, everything is good in a sturdy reliable way? That's the way it's been, and that's the way I hope it's gonna stay.

There have been a lot of times where I'm just kind of skidding through life, spazzing about some things, falling apart about other things, not exactly grounded and growing and learning and being stretched. But for reals, God has a way of changing everything and turning things upside down, and then making you happy to be upside-down. And then everything is so much more real, and I want to sieze everything and make the most of it all, and go out to coffee and hyperventilate about Jesus, and do pushups at random, and underline books ferociously, and snag videos of most everything, and make plans and goals about everything.

we had a pretty-much-all-the-kids-and-all-their-families picnic for mother's day.

he looks like he's posing nobly. hah, no. he was eating a sandwich and spacing out.

lol.

Joseph plays football spicily.

I'm hopelessly futuristic, and keep thinking about how I want to remember this piece of my life--this piece of life where I really discover God, where friendships get so deep, where my Bible is attacked with blue and green highlighter. I love this life, with all it's complications. I hear "live in the moment" all the time, but I've never really gotten it, personally. What I want to do is throttle the moment as I live intentionally with the future in mind.