Progress in Kayaking and Swimming

When you ask literary kids to label their sandwiches, funny things happen. 

The girls are old enough to take the kayaks out without me now. So they've been exploring the pond together, each in their own boat, while I get even more reading done on shore. It's lovely that they are good enough swimmers and old enough to be trusted to do some exploring on their own. 

The other day, I saw that they were bent over, intently watching something happen on the surface of the water or on their boats for over half an hour; I couldn't tell what they were watching from where I was on shore. But, they paddled over to the shore and showed me, they were watching a dragonfly nymph emerge from the pond and come out of its skin and lengthen and dry until it was ready to fly. They were astonished and enchanted. 

After two weeks of swim lessons and practice every single day, the girls have progressed to swim level four. They know freestyle, backstroke, elementary backstroke, and breaststroke. They have started learning butterfly. We've been enjoying doing laps together for the last few days, which is really lovely, because I have always wanted them to share my love of swimming laps. 

Life Together by Bonhoeffer

Norah was assigned this for college, so her dad and I bought a copy for ourselves to read. I’ve only read a portion and it is already one of the most life-changing books I’ve ever read about how to think about and treat the other Christians God has placed in my life.

Watercolor in Summer

We like to focus on watercolor in summer. It’s the perfect summertime medium. With assorted liquid watercolors, a tray, brushes, paper, etc., we can do just about any project on Let’s Make Art. The videos are free on You Tube. If we don’t have the exact color or brush being used, we just just substitute a similar color or brush and it works fine.

Camp Mom

We struggled to make ends meet when our kids were little. 

It's the same story as every other one-income family. 

We were sacrificing my salary so that I could remain home and raise our kids. 

Therefore, we certainly could not afford all the amazing summer camps available for kids.

But nevertheless, we wanted to give our kids all the enrichment. 

But the only thing our kids had was me. 

I was literally the only thing we could afford back then. 

But I wasn't Swim Camp.

Or was I? 

I remember standing in my kitchen realizing that my kids did not actually need camp.

I was qualified enough to be hired by just about any camp I was looking into.  

So why couldn’t I just be the camp? 

I could find a place with free to little admission fees, some of the same exact places camps were going to.

I could pack lunches.

I could take my kids everyday for a week or even two just as if it were an actual camp I'd paid for and was dropping them off to. 

The only difference: 

I'd be the one leading the activities.

But I was already mostly doing that all the time as a stay-at-home mom and homeschool teacher anyway. 

They say necessity mothers invention. 

But even the perception of necessity can force invention. 

So I invented "Camp Mom."

I determined to choose a beautiful spot where land meets water and we'd just go, day after day like it was a place we had paid and registered to be.  

And looking back from this point in time, I see sixteen or seventeen summers of memories made at local beaches, pools, and ponds.  

I taught my babies then toddlers then preschoolers then elementary kids then preteens then teens to swim better and better, little by little each year. 

We also explored nature. 

We got exercise. 

We got to know each other. 

We laughed. 

I stopped feeling sorry for myself about our lack of funds.  

I stopped feeling impoverished because of my career choices, mostly because I stopped acting impoverished. 

Camp Mom, for us, has always been some type or version of a "Swim Camp," since swimming is what I enjoy, what I'm passionate about, I was a lifeguard at one point, I know most of the strokes, and could learn how to teach them, etc.

(But if you are a stay-at-home mom with littles and limited funds and you want to do some version of Camp Mom, it could look like something else. You could hike or visit playgrounds or do crafts instead.)

Camp Mom has morphed a little over the years and now that we have more financial margin, but the changes came about incidentally, almost entirely after-the-fact.  

We were doing "Camp Mom" at a local pond for a while when we noticed that the lifeguards were giving swim lessons. 

We assumed that the lessons were too expensive. 

But, after a full year or two, we asked about how much the lessons were and found that, miracle of miracles, the price was reasonable and/or we could actually afford the price at this point in life.

So now, we actually pay for some swim lessons, and the kids finally get the enrichment of learning from someone else, someone they really want to please, and they make good progress. I can just sit and read my book for a while. It’s lovely. 

So Camp Mom now has a portion of the day where the girls meet with a lifeguard/ instructor (besides me) and they learn the strokes from him or her. 

But Camp Mom is still mostly swimming for hours with Mom and each other and friends who want to come, reviewing the strokes, racing, diving, jumping in, playing, kayaking, picnicking, playing cards,  wondering over the nature we see at whatever beautiful place we've chosen to be. 

And at this point, I bet we could probably even sign our kids up for an actual camp somewhere. 

But we’ve been so shaped by the years of “Camp Mom” that we just wouldn’t do that, because the way we see it now, there's no time for camp. 

We're too busy spending summers together. 

Revelation In Time

So much remains the same; Yet everything is different. 

We take communion regularly.

The communion tables says, "This do in remembrance of Me." 

Back in the tabernacle, the sacrifices were regular, too, but they did not take away sin. 

Even there, then, they were a reminder.

"But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sin year after year." Hebrews 4:3

Aslan urged Jill to, "Remember. Remember." 

This is what all worshippers must do. 

Past worshippers, standing where they were on the timeline, were remembering their sins and looking forward to a future sacrifice.  

Then Christ came in fullness of time.

He died on the cross and became that sacrifice that removes sin once for all. 

And He "took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, 'This is my body broken for you; do this in remembrance.'" Luke 22:19

So now, thousands of years later, where we stand on the timeline, we are always looking back at a past sacrifice. 

Such is the nature of a revelation that comes into time and space; It takes the shape of the space it's in. 

God revealed Himself to us here and then and now. 

So some of us look forward while some look back.

Some were even standing at the foot of the cross! 

But all adore the same Christ. 

All remember their sin, their need, and Christ's sacrifice once for all. 

The line then seems to transform into a circle where every man's a point; Christ is center. 

Leisurely Creative Productivity

The girls are getting a lot of painting done in their free time this summer. That's one thing I love about summer. The extra hours without as much schoolwork allow for leisurely, creative productivity. 

A Tribute to Topstone

 Adele painted a tribute to our beloved Topstone.

She used a small canvas and acrylics.