July - The Large Gulp of Summer

Summer days. Summer daze. It's all the same. We've had a lovely July. One part was a Klassen reunion at Deer Valley Meadows in Alberta. That was Pat's moms siblings and all the descendants.  Or I should say, almost all. That was great!


And then we came home to Bible School for Wyatt in the evenings, in which he consumed copious amounts of chocolate milk and cookies and proceeded to do his sleepwalking/peeing-in-the-corners thing. I think he enjoyed his classmates and teacher as well.


Also, we hosted a school reunion for Pat's classmates in Swanson. We laughed and listened while the classmates remembered numerous events. The classmates even had a volleyball game, just them, with their teacher. It was great to watch! They truly had so much fun together. The group singing Sunday afternoon was the cherry on top of the sundae, including the tears and emotions.


We've had delightful visits around the campfire, installed lights around the trees, mowed the yard and weeded garden, eaten green beans and canned and blanched the rest. We've held baby frogs and watched our mama cat swell to rather uncomfortable-looking proportions and watched the papa cat catch mice. We've walked the road on warm dusty afternoons and paid shop bills and gone swimming down at the river. We've petted baby coons at the neighbours farm, laughed at ground squirrels eating lime & black pepper chips with all the paw-licking after and eaten s'mores made over candles on the kitchen cupboards with friends. We spent days planning our annual camping trip to the northlands only to cancel out last minute because of the ugly forecast. We've read books and picked up toys and vacuumed dirt and listened to birds singing through the open windows early in the morning. We've even spent hours (Pat & I) side by side, in the middle of the night, vacuuming flood waters in the basement. We've stood together on our covered porch, watching the lightning and listening to the thunder crash and admiring God's greatness.


The best days.


These are the best days ever.


The ordinary work days and long summer play days and go 'til we drop days.


Sometime soon, I'm going to have to put on a new hat; a school board wife hat. I'm not sure how that is going to coincide with the Villa board wife hat. I've had a few moments of anxiety trying not to think about it. All the cleaning days in August and September. And the meetings. And the stuff....


And this doesn't remotely cover the work topic. We laid off our one last guy in June and just last week got a redeeming order. The prayed for work. We all have our times of drought, I know. We are so grateful for so many blessings that don't involve money.


I have this beautiful thingy that says: There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. That sums it up. So with these few thoughts...!