june.

The month of June felt wonderfully, blissfully, like summer.

I did a whirlwind of homeschool work at the beginning: reporting, purging, and organizing work from last year, as well as registering us for the coming year. And a little co-op planning as well. Then I was very ready to put thoughts of school aside for a bit and enjoy a slower pace, being with friends and family.

Our church is doing a 6-week women’s and men’s Bible study on the book of John, so David and I have been going to that Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I’m also in a book club with a group of women that my friend Savannah is leading. We’re reading an incredible book, The Epic of Eden. I’m learning so much about the Old Testament through it.

Here’s what else we’ve been up to …

 

Eating breakfast with friends at Soda City Market

 

Checking out the Owens Field Skate Park and watching the planes take off

 

 

Swimming at the pool with our friends the Palmers. We also spent an evening swimming with the Schoolers at John’s parent’s house. Here are our four adopted boys, eating pizza and talking about birth families.

 

Making card towers! (Gabe)

 

Noah is being tutored in reading once a week by our friend, Sarah, who’s amazing at what she does. He loves it when she comes over and never has to be convinced to do his homework for her. Amie confided that she’s a little jealous that Miss Sarah isn’t tutoring her this summer.

 

Amie and Claire got second ear piercings!

 

We got Judah ready for two weeks at Deerfoot Lodge camp

 

And then we dropped him off at Deerfoot. It’s outside of Cashiers, NC, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We did drop-off in a day and that ended up being a long, 9-hour day for David, Amie and me.

 

 

 

We discovered that while we were gone, Kira ruined my favorite mustard-colored pool bag

 

Amie and I went to the very cool AMC movie theater in Harbison with a group of ladies from church for a private showing of Downtown Abbey. Recliners! Wine! We all want to go back to watch the Elvis movie.

 

I’m doing some summer reading with my rising 9th-graders, so I sneaked away to Indah one morning and thoroughly enjoyed reading Kidnapped and taking notes with a mug of almond milk chai (with a shot of espresso)

 

I was able to attend The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference virtually with a few friends for the second year in a row. It’s such a good time for learning and fellowship. We split the time up between two of our houses; and the day we were watching at our house David took the kids to the lake

 

On Father’s Day weekend, David and the kids ran a 5K to Soda City, where we met up with my parents to celebrate

 

Then we drove to Spartanburg, where I got a tattoo!

 

You read that right. I actually did it! I told a group of friends in January, “For my 40th birthday I either want to get a dog or a tattoo.” Well, lo and behold, I got both.

I thought about this one for a long time — about 20 years to be exact, ever since I took Romans class in Bible college. The olive branch comes from Romans 11: “…and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree…” It’s a reminder to me that I, a gentile outsider, was invited into the family of God. Now I belong. And also that I’m apart of a much bigger story, a story that is not over yet.

 

When we got home, Kira had ruined my favorite mustard-colored armchair.

Yes, we finally learned a valuable lesson about keeping her out of the crate when we’re not home.

 

On Monday, David headed to Birmingham, Alabama, with the pastoral staff at our church to the PCA’s General Assembly, which is their annual gathering of pastors. They had a wonderful time of learning, worship, fellowship, and decision-making for the future of our denomination, and returned to their work in Columbia feeling hopeful.

 

David loved connecting with many friends he’s made over the years … including friends and teammates from our time serving overseas. And he got to catch up with his childhood friend, Isaac Adams, who’s a pastor in Birmingham. Isaac recently wrote a book called Talking About Race: Gospel Hope for Hard Conversations, which David and I loved and highly recommend.

 

The kids have spent lots of time with young neighbor friends this month.

 

 

me: “Noah, do you want to go to the zoo splash pad with Alyssa and McKensie today?”

Noah: “Do I want to go!? Mom, they need me. They need someone to pull the wagon and help with the kids!”

It’s so fun for Noah to be big brother for a change.

 

Along with babysitting and doing a craft class with Cornelia (more on that later), Amie has done some pet-sitting. We love our friend Anna’s dog, Zuna, and every day she either came here to play with Kira or we took Kira over there. Noah contributed with a couple “dog-training classes.”

 

We’ve had an incredible June garden bounty. These are our favorite cucumbers ever — perfect for snacking with Trader Joe’s Everything Bagel dip.

 

We made a trip to Ikea with Noelle and the kids while our husbands were away and before we even left town I got in a car accident. It is a sore subject. I was convinced it was the other driver’s fault, but the police officer said it was mine. With no witnesses, he is exactly right. It hurt my pride but I’m very thankful that God kept us all safe.

 

And an hour later, we still headed to Ikea! It’ll take more than that to come between us and an Ikea trip.

 

 

 

David got home from Birmingham Friday afternoon at 3:50, and at 4:00 I left to head up to the mountains to get Judah from camp.

 

After doing it all in one day the first time, some friends very kindly let me stay the night in their cabin in Cashiers to break the trip up. Plus, I got a night all.to.myself! It was blissful.

 

And I was very very happy to see my boy the next morning.

He had a great two weeks, and I soaked up every moment of our 3.5 hour car trip home (with a little stop at Flat Rock Village Bakery for lunch of course) to hear all about it. I wish he’d write about his experience here on the blog. We’ll see. For now I’ll just say that the ease with which he talks about his faith, his dependence on God, the sin he faced in his own heart, and things he learned through some adversity he faced were left me speechless. I am so very humbled by the young man God is growing him into.

 

And then, just like that, the family was reunited and it felt so good. I hold onto these moments, as many of them as God gives us together. Not only am I very aware this summer that Judah only has four left before college; but he’s talking about training to be a Deerfoot counselor in a couple years, which would mean a summer away working while he’s still in high school. I think that would be a fantastic fit for him, but my heart still aches. I missed him for two weeks. What will two months feel like?

 

I’m aware that this boy — these children — are not mine. They are God’s. He’s given me this incredible privilege of being their mom, of stewarding this gift in our home for a few short years. And Lord willing, He’ll give us many more wonderful years of being part of their lives as they grow up into the men and woman He’s created them to be, cheering them on in any way we can. It’s an ache, but it’s a good ache. God is good.

 

Amie battled a bad cold last week, and when Judah returned, he and I were hit with it. So we had a slow week resting and feeling generally miserable. We’re still marching our way through our summer book series, the Wingfeather Saga. We finished the second book a couple days ago, and I got so choked up by the end of the last chapter that I just handed the book over to Amie to finish. She knows what that means by now: Mom is going to cry.

 

Happy July!