Sometimes you forget just how fun some glue, beans, pasta and a piece of paper can be. Anna and Hudson had fun making some Easter Bean/Pasta Eggs. The concentration from this little “gale” (Girl, but she says gale) was amazing. She was hard at work!
(post on the marathon coming soon….stay tuned!)
As of 5:53 PM Pacific Standard Time this evening, the house in Arizona sold! Praise the Lord! Papers are signed by both parties and the official record has been submitted as change of ownership. WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO! Yippee Kai Yai Yeah! Thanks for praying for us and walking with us on this 2 and a half year journey!
Our (now) annual foray to Florida to cheer on Uncle B’s baseball team began on Thursday – and we arrived in fashion, in style, and in the rain. All winter long, this beautiful state has been cold and sunny. We arrive, and the rain comes that ends the drought – which is good I guess. Good for them, not for us.
Just so you know, ran doesn’t stop us. We swam anyway. Hudson went swimming and dancing in the rain first. After Hudson’s nap and my run, we jumped in the pool together and then Anna joined us for about 5 minutes. She was a little more sensitive to the cold rain falling on her. :) After her “shwim”, she had fun at her “bathtub beach”, as she called it.
Anna was ecstatic that Uncle Tommy needed help shaving his “wish-kers”.
Hudson is a big fan of the game room here at the house – air hockey, pool, and darts. They were both so excited to get in the pool that they got up early – and I had to figure out how to divert them for a bit until it warmed up – at least until it was 65 degrees outside! Good for us, the pool is heated to a toasty 83 and it is to be sunny and 72 the whole week.
The real story begins this evening. The rest of the crew (Grandmom, Grandaddy, Grandmother and Uncle Tommy) headed to the late starting double-header that is an hour from the vacation home. It was to start earlier, but delayed as the field needed time to dry up a little bit and grounds crews got to clean. So that left us three Smiths to enjoy the warmth and spend the evening together. We went to the park and played baseball (Hudson is really good at throwing the ball to himself and hitting it – really, he impressed me!) and blow bubbles. We then tried to find a Chick-Fil-A, but the closest was about 30 minutes away.
So we choose to go to another eatery – a sit down restaurant that I’ve been to before and thought the kids would enjoy. My first clue that we were in for an momentous evening should have been that when we stepped in, an elderly woman with a cane said in a thick Southern drawl, “There’s no bathrooms honey. No toilets workin’.” Fine, my kids peed before we left, we should be able to make it through dinner.
We stepped up to the counter as a group of 4 turned and left after talking to the attendant. She promptly gave us a courteous leave-if-you-want smile and explained the entire area was out of water. No one in the entire restaurant row had running water. A main had broken. No bathrooms, no sinks, no soda fountains, coffee or tea. I think she almost fell over when I said we’d stay. No problem, we can drink juice or milk. And they actually had iced tea – which now that I think about it, I am wondering how cleanly the water was that used to make my pot of tea before the main broke. Oh well.
We sat, ordered our drinks and chose our meals. Hudson charmed the wait staff as he politely asked for more crayons, by himself at the front and he even went back to make sure he said thank you. We awaited our desired entrees and were successfully entertaining ourselves until my entirely full glass of iced tea spilled right on my lap. Cold – wet jeans! Oh my goodness. Thankful for the couple behind me that gave me napkins and got the waitress to help me.
A new iced tea arrived, in a cup with a lid (HA!) and our meals came. Anna was enjoying the edges of her cheeseburger and I realized that her cheeseburger was still pink in the middle. Not gross pink, medium well pink, but still, not done all the way through for a child’s meal. The waitress brought her a fruit cup to enjoy, which she did, as she had already brought the kids ginormous cookies for dessert. She also brought me a key lime muffin – delicious! Hudson told me he had to pee. Super. Wait til the parking lot I guess….let’s top off our night with charges of indecent exposure. He tried, couldn’t, and waited till home.
We paid, came home and got ready for bed – as the time changes tonight and we had to get there early.
Recently, Hudson’s preschool teacher told me that she loves his stories that he tells and she’s not sure how many of them are true. She mentioned one in particular, and I told her “Well, that’s a true one! And Ms. Sharon, most of the stories he tells are probably true, because that is how our lives are.”
I have a feeling if Hudson told this one at preschool, she may wonder.
I have some friends, all mommies, that recently discovered that they need to be aware of their responses to their children when they are frustrated. Um…well, I think this applies to the whole world!!!! As I was thinking through some encouraging thoughts for those that are down on themselves, this verse came to my mind.
Psalm 103:8
The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
I think the key to this verse is that he is abounding in love. Sure, we know we are supposed to be slow to anger, but how does this apply to us? Lavish love. When anger arises, lavish love. Give a hug. Say a kind word. Smile, even if it is forced, because it will eventually become a true smile. It certainly sounds easy on paper, but doing the real thing? Take it as a challenge. Just for today, lavish.
And then at the end of the day, maybe, just maybe, you may be able to look back and see how God used it to touch you as well.
P.S. I’m taking this as a challenge to myself as well.
Half MARATHON. Yes. I typed the words. I am doing a half-marathon. In 17 days. No, I didn’t just decide today, I decided 3.5 months ago – and started training. I was originally going to do a nice half in our AZ hometown, but plans fell through (that’s another post coming sometime soon), and I will be now running in the Washington, D.C. National Marathon on March 20th.
Not in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought I would commit to something like this (if you’d asked me 10 years ago). But after graduation from college, I took up running as a hobby; a way to relax, to unwind, be in my own mind and worship God in the silence and rhythmic pounding of my feet. I no longer had coaches giving me workouts, teammates cheering me on, or specified event training for field hockey or track. I had a roads, desert trails, a mountain and some sneakers.
So I took on running. Easily at first – it took me a while to get up the nerve to actually “run a race”; because despite popular belief, I may be built like a runner, but I don’t race. My goal is to finish and not puke. (sorry, that’s not very poetic, but it is the truth.)
I did the usual 2 milers, 5k, 8k, etc. But I made a promise to myself that I wanted to challenge my body to go further. So, 13 miles it will be. Kinda nuts to say it, but well, I know I can finish, just a matter of how fast. I’ve been training and trust the system. I am tapering off of running at the moment, as my knees started to take a beating and I’ve done the long stuff.
I say I wanted to challenge myself, but I also have other reasons too: I want my children to know that Mommy takes care of her body so she can play with them for a long time to come, so they can see that taking care of your body is a good habit. I want to run because I know my Dad would be proud of this accomplishment.
I want to do this because I am raising support for the American Cancer Society and my Dad’s Scholarship fund at the college we attended. I want to do this to raise awareness; to let people know that skin cancer isn’t just caused by the sun. I want to do this so my husband is proud of me. I want to do this because I want to prove to myself that I can be mentally strong enough to do something I know my body can do.
And I want to do this because, heck, if I can “run” a 10 month marathon of being pregnant (two times!), then I can do this.
Think of me.
Pray for me on March 20th at 7AM EST.
And if you desire to fight cancer and raise
up future Christian leaders,
sponsor me.
