The Summer Groove

We've hit our summer groove, or so it seems. Mondays are babes in the woods day, when we drop Seth off at work, swing by the library, and end up at the Botanical Gardens where we meet up with Myles' friends, snack heavily, and just see what kids do in the woods without toys. Tuesday through Thursday Myles attends his summer morning out program from 9am - 1pm, and they have water days on Wed and Thursday, which means Myles gets to go outside, play in a kids pool, and even climb an inflatable tower/water slide. Lately, we've tackled a few fun projects in the time between Myles coming home and nap time, such as watering the plants together, playing kickball outside, or making corn muffins (Myles' help is messy, but so worth it as I see him learning new things and wanting to try his hand at cooking, cleaning, weeding, planting, and so much more!). Fridays we head over to another friend's house for toddler art, which includes a story time, song, art project, snack and sometimes a dip in the toddler pool. Weekends are for river swimming, gardening, potlucks, farmers' markets, and church. It's a good good life. We are blessed to the nines and filled up with gratitude when we take a moment to pause, be present, and give thanks.

Today we did some gardening. Finally pulled up the greens and planted two more rows of green beans along with some zucchini. Our tomatoes are beginning to flower and fruit, and we got some delicious green beans off the plants today that reminded me of summers growing up. Our red pepper plant's been a-strugglin, so we planted another and we're hoping for the best. With the rabbit fencing up, our basil has finally recovered and taken off.

Last weekend was an incredible treat. I was supposed to be in Atlanta for my final project with WAND, but the conference I was scheduled to present at had really low rates of registration, so I opted out and let the Atlanta chapter fill in instead. I can't help but think this was what God had in mind, because we were then freed up to host our friends Karson and Jason and Ashley who all came to town to attend Michelle's going away party as she heads off into the sun to get a phd. Hugh hosted a beautiful party, there were ASP toddlers all over the place, Myles even talked Hugh into giving him a personal guitar session, and in one of the sweeter moments I've ever witnessed, Myles was asked to dance by Lea, who is a few months older than him and loves to cut a rug (she gets it from her dad, folks...for those of you who weren't on the Jonesville porch in the summer of '99, shy Brian Johns gave an explosive introduction when he danced to a Brittney Spears song, forever endearing him to me. I was the envy of all center directors when he was placed on my staff).

We were very blessed to have Karson and Jason in town. Karson was diagnosed with breast cancer in '07, and after two years of being in the clear, they have now found cancer on her liver. Karson was the one who introduced us to the Caring Bridge website as a tool for communicating with loved ones when going through something like cancer. And what an amazing gift that was for my dad and all of us who loved him! Karson has so much going for her...an incredible husband, supportive groups like the cancer posse, meaningful work as a social worker at a children's hospital, a loving family. She seems far to young to be dealing with something like this. Those of us who love Karson and Jason are a bit shell-shocked as we try to figure out what this all means and how we can be supportive as Karson re-enters treatment. She could certainly use all of our prayers, so please be mindful of her and all that she's facing.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Without trying to judge it, I confess that I'm not feeling the typical tidal wave of emotion that I felt as recently as a few weeks ago when my parents would have celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary. Maybe I'll feel differently tomorrow. But this week I'm incredibly grateful for the gift of life, and I know it would please my dad to see me live my days with gratitude to God. Yesterday as we were coming from downtown, I made eye contact with a passerby and smiled at her and moments later she returned to our car and asked if she could talk to us. She began to break into tears and explained that she's "tenting out" because she doesn't want to live in public housing, her mom is sick with cancer, and she's been staying with her sons who are 10 and 14 in unsafe shelters (the co-ed shelters are very unsafe here). She asked for a ride close to where she's living in the woods, and we invited her into the car and took her where she needed to go. I think she just needed someplace to have a good cry, and she did. We listened and introduced ourselves and when we dropped her off I think we both were sobered by the pain of her situation. So again, I'm so grateful for every day in which I have a bounty of food on our table, a beautiful son in my life, a roof over the head, and peace all around.

My mom suggested that we go to my dad's favorite ice cream store tomorrow for Father's Day and I think we will. We'll put out a picture of my dad, light a candle to remember him, tell stories to Myles. And I can't promise we'll indulge in rum raisin, but we will certainly raise an ice cream toast to Robert Voss.

Wishing all the dads, daddys, papas, papis, fathers, and grandfathers out there a very Happy Father's Day!