My Favorite Summer Memories

I was taking a load of laundry out of the dryer and my eyes fell on a book I had recently read that was sitting on top of the washing machine.  It reminded me of how much I loved reading this particular book and how much I loved having the time to read — which then made me think about the summer as a whole and how much I have loved this summer.

These last 2-plus months have been such a sweet balm to my soul, I wanted to record a few memories here for the 3 people – other than my mom – who might care. 😉

Vacation

Last summer, Mr. B. and I stumbled upon an opportunity to purchase a timeshare on the beach in Hollywood, Florida.  The price was so cheap we couldn’t believe it.  We kept waiting for the catch – like maybe the place was condemned or someone had been murdered in the unit they were trying to sell, but it turns out that the only negative thing about this little unit is that it is on the 3rd floor of a hotel that doesn’t have an elevator.  So basically after you unpack a car of a week’s worth of stuff, you want to keel over and die.

This year was so great.  We swam and read books and ate copious amounts of pizza and french fries.  I took the boys to a small tourist shop and we bought postcards for all of the grandmas.  One day Noah and I rented bikes and, when we felt we had burned a sufficient amount of calories, we went and ruined it all at Ben and Jerry’s.  I even got to slip away for an hour to have my toenails painted.

After a massively stressful end of the school year, I finally felt my head clear.  Plus, I got to spend an entire week not worrying about my hair, which basically is equivalent to the feeling that angels in heaven must have on a daily basis. 🙂

The Boys

I was telling a friend recently that one of my favorite things about this summer is that it has been the summer of best-friend-bonding between Noah and Jethro.  Jet is now 5 and Noah is 8, which means Jet is less a preschooler who needs naps and his bottom wiped, and is more able to keep up with his big bro.  The two of them have become so close as they have had so much more time together.  Case in point – they wake up at absurd hours that the sun doesn’t even think is acceptable, so they have plenty of time to destroy the house with their shenanigans before Mommy and Daddy get out of bed.

For starters, they are really into creating their own movies.  This typically involves them jumping on Noah’s bed while making up storylines about good guys and bad guys followed up with a lot of wrestling.  After they perform the movies, they fold pieces of paper in half to make “DVD cases” and then cut out paper circle DVDs and sell their DVDs for real money.  There are currently 4,000 of these paper DVD cases on the floor of Noah’s room right now and I am PERFECTLY FINE WITH THAT.  (If blogs had emojis, I would insert the one with the face that is crying in distress.)

After the movies, they transform the patio into imaginary restaurants and T-Shirt shops with homemade T-Shirts that say, “I POOPED TODAY!”  I can thank the tourist shop in Hollywood for that design inspiration.  It’s a best seller.  Then the boys go in the backyard and swim in the blow-up pool for hours playing games where they spy on the neighbors and I wonder if our entire neighborhood thinks we are seriously WEIRD.

As I type this, it is 9:00 pm and they are both in bed in their separate rooms talking on their walkie-talkies.  Jethro is mostly saying things about diapers and various potty-topics.  It is obvious that they will be scholars one day.  But truly, I love seeing them grow close.  I tell them all. the. time that having a brother is like God saying, “Here is a best friend forever.  You’re welcome.”

New Job

Something I haven’t shared here yet is that at the end of this past school year I got a little promotion!  I now get to serve our preschool with the title of Preschool Facilitator.  This is something that I am extremely excited/terrified/humbled/honored about.  For the entire last year I had this extreme burden in my spirit for leadership in our preschool, but we already had a director at the time and I didn’t understand why I was feeling so strongly about this.  When she announced her resignation and I was approached about the job, I knew it was the Lord.  Mostly because the job is way beyond my abilities and usually when the Lord calls you to do something, it’s way beyond our abilities so that we stay way at His feet.

Because of this new position, I have had to work this summer!  At first, this was tough because I thought I was going to get a break from having to PACK LUNCHES, but it has actually been wonderful to work on making our preschool even greater, dream big, and vision for our future.  I feel more than blessed to be able to lead these amazing teachers and families this school year.  I would so appreciate your prayers as I transition into this role!  Please pray for wisdom, confidence, grace, a quickness to bring everything to the Lord in faith and not fear/insecurity, and that I will be able to get to school ON TIME (I have issues with this every year because we live extremely far away from the school and also I have children who suddenly are naked right when it’s time to leave the house).

Other great memories from the summer were finally painting our kitchen cabinets, getting to be a part of some dear friends’ weddings, trips to the library, switching to a new ad network for the blog that promises no redirects – HALLELJUAH – and also that time we went to see the 4th of July fireworks and I went to crack a glow stick and it ended up exploding in my face and I thought I was going to be blind forever.

Good times. 🙂

How was your summer?

Joyfully,

Julie