Thank you to those who have been praying for me! God really has given me a sense of joy this week. On Thursday David’s parents gave us a 12-hour date: they babysit the kids from 7 am to 7 pm. David took the day off work, I took the day off school, and the kids had a field trip to Edventure with Grandpa and Mum-Mum. We hadn’t left the boys — or any of our kids for that matter — for this length of time since the adoption, and boy, did we need a break. Most of all I think we just needed to feel like a couple again. To…

by David I took my first Manventure. My brother Joe and brother-in-law Alex have talked for a while now about taking an epic outdoor adventure to test our mettle and grow our friendship. Alex recommended the Adirondack Park in upstate New York, a six million acre preserve punctuated by lakes, rivers, old-growth forests, wetlands, and forty two mountain peaks over 4,000 feet in elevation. It’s the type of place that makes one, as John Muir put it, want to “throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence.” Well, it was slightly more complicated than that. Alex, an ultra-marathon…

We took our last trip of the summer, to Isle of Palms, SC, this week. If it seems like we traveled a lot this summer, we did! This spring we planned our first ever full-week family vacation, in the mountains outside of Brevard, NC. Well, lo and behold we adopted two little boys instead, so we canceled our reservation — both because it was scheduled for two weeks after Gabe and Noah came home, and because the place we chose wasn’t exactly a toddler-friendly environment. Instead, God provided several small trips, this last one to our friend’s family’s condo in Isle of Palms. We spent three nights there, and I…

We hit the beach for a couple nights this week to join David’s parents and meet up with his brother, wife, and family from Pittsburgh. Gabe and Noah got to meet uncle Joe and aunt Lindsay and cousin Lucas. We haven’t spent much time in Myrtle Beach, and had a wonderful stay. We loved our hotel, which had a spacious suite for us and Steve and Linda with a full kitchen, and was right on the beach. The main attraction for the kids though was the hotel’s water park, and we especially appreciated that half the water park was indoors so we could take breaks from the sun. A great…

Both our husbands were traveling for work this week, so Shari and I hit the road on our own Monday for a few days at New Smyrna Beach in Florida. Our longtime friends, the Phillips, have been so kind to share their family’s beach house with us for 20 years of vacations now. I’ve loved introducing each of my children to this McWilliams tradition, and this year was two-for-one with Gabe and Noah! After my sob-story post last week you may have been a little nervous about me taking yet another road trip, but let me tell you what: this week was exactly what I needed. It was what we…