Life At The Circus

My daughter turned 7 last week.  She wanted a gymnastics party with her friends.  I had no idea how to throw a gymnastics party.  Turns out if you invite 10 gymnasts over to your house, you don’t have to do anything to turn it into a gymnastics party.  They do it themselves.  We picked the girls up from practice and brought them to our house for the party. Minutes after walking in the door, they were on the bar downstairs, then the trampoline, then doing their routine in the back yard.  In the midst of the all that flipping, they also ate, tie dyed and played a messy game with cones and icing.   Cartwheel once again proved her awesomeness when she made an appearance and then tolerated being passed around from one giggling girl to the next.   Seriously, look at that cat’s face?  That look says it all.  Yet she didn’t flinch once… she let every single girl hold her. World’s Best Cat.  right there. ...

1o years ago Scott and I went before our church and made a commitment before God to raise our son as a disciple of our Lord Jesus Chris.  Father’s day weekend, 2004, we rejoiced with our congregation as he was baptized.  This was not a sign of our sons salvation.  It was the sign of God’s promise to save and cleans sinners who call upon Him.  Our son was not saved, but we rejoiced in the seal representing God’s power to save.  In June 2004 our son was accepted into our church family to be raised as a disciple in the community of believers. This weekend, we watched our saved son go up before that same congregation and make a public profession of his faith.  Our son has accepted the promise and this weekend he was recognized as a full member of our church. What a blessed experience! I remember vividly when he was four years old and he first told us that he had asked Jesus to forgive him of his sins.  We had prayed with him before bed and I prayed something to the effect of, "pleas...

The last true day of our vacation (the day before we headed home) was in my opinion the most relaxing day of the week. We slept in, ate breakfast, (the kids did the dishes), and then we headed out for a morning hike along the beach.   The tide was out and we discovered many living creatures in tide pools on the rocky beach . We made our way to the other side of the island and even caught a glimpse of the Boston skyline.   The kids enjoyed splashing in the water and skipping rocks.   Then we headed back to the beach we spent the afternoon at the day before, stopping for a picnic  lunch (and some sword fighting) along the way.  We spent the rest of the day camped out along the shore.  The kids had the most incredible time digging, throwing rocks and balancing a board on a giant rock.  They pretended they were surfing.  When they started the tide was low and they could easily get to the rock.  As the tide slowly ca...

It shouldn't shock me, but yet it does.  How completely DIFFERENT each of my children are.  Their personalities are so unique, it truly amazes me. Take my youngest. Oh my goodness... he is such a goof ball, and a FLIRT, but I'll save that for another post... Here the kids are in Boston. "Kids, get together so mom can get a picture of the four of you by the fountains." And he does this....  

After our rain delay/rain out, we finally made it to Peddocks Island… one day late.  After hiking the LONG hike uphill to our site, I am so glad we didn’t attempt it during the torrential rainstorm. It was a big enough hassle getting our stuff from the van to the ferry, off the ferry, on to the other ferry, off that ferry, and then up the long hike up hill to our site… but the weather was gorgeous.  And once we were there and set up, it was pretty much perfect. If you ask the kids, they will all unanimously agree that camping on the island was there favorite part of their vacation.  I honestly liked the whole week for different reasons, but it was a truly relaxing and fabulous way to finish out the week. After setting up camp, we explored the old army fort.  We got an awesome, private tour from the island historian.  Then we walked down to the beach and camped out for the rest of the day.  The kids happily played in the sand, rocks, and water, while Scott and I read books.  Then when w...

The plan for today was to wake up and prepare to catch a ferry to Boston Harbor Island to begin the camping portion of our vacation. However, we woke to this. And after checking the weather saw that the day was going to be off and on rain showers for the remainder.  This seemed like less than an ideal setting to haul all our camping gear onto a ferry, off a ferry, onto another ferry, to our campsite AND THEN set up a tent… a tent with a screen roof none the less.  So, we opted to stay another night in our hotel and spend another day visiting Boston. We drove into the city intending to find some Boston Baked Beans for lunch.  However, we couldn’t find parking anywhere close to the restaurant so instead we visited the ducks.  This was a cool bonus perk for me as I wanted to see this if we had time, but then had taken it off  the agenda. Since we learned yesterday that parking garages were out of the question, and street parking seemed hard to locate in downtown Boston, we decided to driv...