On hope...

here goes....

we're nudging our oldest out of the nest on a prayer and hope

hope...

that all the hugs and "i love you"s and time outs and sleepless nights and potty training and shoe tying and tickle torture and "please look at him when he's talking to you" and 10 million buckles on car seats and stories and meals and vacations and snuggles and "if i have to come in here one more time"s and trips to the library and painting toenails and "vegetables are your friends" and "don't even think about it"s and prayers and chores and name writing and lap sitting and discipline and dancing and consequences and art projects and "you can do it"s and smiles and secret winks...

will all add up to enough

enough of a foundation to step bravely into the wild unknown and meet it with confidence

enough of the easy love and the tough love to treat others kindly

enough belief in herself and her Maker to rest in His peace when the challenges come

enough grace and generosity and wisdom to put a positive mark on the places she's going

enough oomph to not be lame, but enough sense to not be stupid

enough drops of joy to fill her bucket to overflowing

i'm not worried.

i'm not nervous.

i'm really, really jazzed.

she's gonna' rock it.

but there is that one little corner of my mind that i suppose will always be there...

each time she ventures on a new path.

that part that wonders if we've measured it out right...

...if we've dispensed just enough mercy and the perfect amount of grace

have our expectations been too high?  too low?

have we been too hard?

or worse?!  too easy?

did we laugh when we should have disciplined?

we should have had more dance parties....definitely....more dancing makes for better people, right?

except there's that bedtime thing....and, well, the responsibility piece.

ugh.

it IS a puzzle, isn't it?

i guess at the end of the day, all we can do is hope.

hope that our mistakes, many as they may have been, are sinking in the ocean of love we've poured out

but i guess it's not really so much about us and our job as parents

it's mostly about her

God planted her, we've diligently watered and pruned

now it is her turn to take the stage....and bloom.

on hope we're sending our very heart on a big yellow bus tomorrow.

on hope, trusting her to be the person we've prayed she would be.

on hope...letting go of control...watching her make beautiful mistakes and do amazing things.

MN Landscape Arboretum

here's a place where happy lives

it has been on our summer bucket list for a few years now and it never dissapoints

a whole flock of geese welcomed us on our trip to the MN Landscape Arboretum this year

we could have left after the first 15 minutes of just chasing these dumb birds around.

our kids were in heaven.

but we ventured into the peaceful gardens and i started dreaming about what an amazingly fun job this would be

the girls were hoping to find the zillions of tadpoles that we happened upon last year, but we were too late in the season

so, they settled for rock hopping, which was a fun consolation prize

the exploring never ends here

after a few hours of climbing and exploring we headed to their favorite part, the play house

j and i struck up a conversation with some other parents there and i didn't get one picture :(

but as the sun set we hopped in the car for the 3 mile tree tour, which is always the cherry on top for me

with that, i'll mark the end of my summer posts

it was such a sweet time with our girls.

i know i've said it before, but life with these little chickadees just keeps getting better.

on a tad more sour note:  the alarm is set.

5:00 am

and it's not that i'm sad about going back to work

we need the routine and i've got a weird excitement about this year.

anywhoo...the only tiny problem is that we failed to prepare our kids for the 6:30 am wake up call they will be getting in just a few short hours.

more responsible people would have eased them into this the past couple of weeks.

every summer we have good intentions....we really do.

but then we just can't let go of these summer nights and ooops - the kids slept in until 8:35 today!

and just like every other summer, we're going to have to rip the band aid off tomorrow.

ugh...prayers would be appreciated.

with that, i'm off to get some last minute work done...because we all know that seating charts don't make themselves.  :)