My bloggy friend, Amy, wrote a post yesterday on her delightful blog that made my heart ache. 18: How Many Summers Do You Have? You should wander over there and read it because it happens to be the inspiration for this post.
Isn't that the thought weighing heavily on everyone's minds lately! How Many Summers Do You Have Left? That seems to be the topic of conversation with everyone I meet these days...perhaps it's because I'm the one always bringing it up. But even after I do, my friends chime right in with their own lamentations about how quickly time has flown in their families, too, and how few years there are left to fit it all the things that still have to be done.
Savannah is graduating in December, so this is our LAST summer with her! This may have been a big part of the reason for the impulsive Memorial Day church history trip. There are clearly NOT enough summers left for all the trips we wanted to take with the kids. When they were little, Craig always talked about taking a family vacation to France so the kids could see where he served his mission, and so his mission could see the kids! We haven't yet made it to France or to a lot of the places that were on that original list...Canada, New York, Washington DC, or...Hawaii! (ugh...how many Hawaiian kids do you know who have never been to Hawaii?? I'm pretty sure that's some kind of cultural irresponsibility that I'm going to be accountable for at some point in the future.)
It feels like I'm trying so hard lately to hang on to the little pieces of today without fretting too much about how they're going by faster than I would like them to. But as much as I try to suppress the desperation, I can still feel it lurking beneath the surface. Every shopping trip... Every last day of school tradition... Every family prayer... makes the countdown in my head more and more apparent. 18 years seems like a shockingly short amount of time when your oldest daughter is 17 1/2, and the others are not far behind.
But...as I was writing my very long comment on Amy's blog post, I had this little moment of clarity and personal revelation...
Craig and I may not have covered the whole list of stuff we wanted to accomplish before our kids leave the nest, but we've done a lot, and they have seen and experienced A LOT in those 17 1/2 years. They've been to the Everglades, Rushmore, Carlsbad Caverns, Zion, the Grand Canyon, Teton, and Yellowstone. They've slept in a tent, caught a fish, driven a golf cart and a tractor, and hiked for miles. They've seen oceans and mountains, lakes and deserts. They've experienced snow pants and snorkeling gear, ferries, cruise ships, and jet skis. They've seen alligators up close, had monkeys untie their shoes, and had a picnic with a bear. And in 2012 they saw the world's largest ball of twine! But while all those trips are definitely memorable and fun, they're not the only way we can make an impression on our kids. Even though our days are flying by and filled to the brim with so many demands and responsibilities, these kids are STILL HERE. No one has actually left yet.
So, instead of regretting what we don't have time to do, I've been trying to look for the things I CAN do. I've said yes more often. Yes to otter pops. Yes to snuggling. Yes to staying up a little later. I've been trying to flop on their beds a little more often, and hang out at the pool WITH them instead of sending them off with friends. I take the long way home when I have just one kid in the car with me and look for opportunities to hear what's on their minds. I crawled into a fort made out of blankets last night and just listened to McKay tell me all about his dream car. And hopefully, one day when they're all out of the house, we can look back and say, "We didn't do everything, but we did enough."
Perhaps those unchecked adventures are still possibilities in our future. Maybe one of the kids will want to go to BYU Hawaii and we'll get to make a family trip out of setting up a college dorm room? Maybe we'll just have to take some sons-in-laws and a daughter-in-law with us to NY or DC. Maybe we'll take GRANDBABIES to DisneyWorld! Or...perhaps all the things we didn't get to do will become the things that make it on our kids' FUTURE bucket lists for their own families.
There are lots of stages of our lives that are over, and many exciting ones left to come, but oh, how happy I just am for today. For this summer. For these days. And for the way life looks at this moment.
Oh, I had such great plans for all the blogging I was going to do on the road last week. Unfortunately, we were SO busy and I am SO not used to blogging without my MAC these days that every time I attempted to post something, I just gave up. Instead, I have notes on my phone, and scribbles in my journal, and ideas still swimming around in my head for all those awesome posts I should have written. I promise to fill in all the gaps from this trip as soon as I catch my breath and go to the grocery store and get kids back to school and do a million loads of laundry. But until then, here's a little bit of our weekend drive home and a quote from the Conference talk we listened to this morning while the sun came up.
I hope you had an amazing Thanksgiving and that you're also in your warm, comfortable home right now, surrounded by people who love you, and about to crawl into bed.
"The gradual increase of light radiating from the rising sun is like receiving a message from God "line upon line, precept upon precept" (2 Ne 28:30). Most frequently, revelation comes in small increments over time and is granted according to our desire, worthiness, and preparation. Such communications from Heavenly Father gradually and gently "distil upon [our souls] as the dews from heaven" (D&C 121:45).
"As you appropriately seek for and apply unto the spirit of revelation, I promise you will "walk in the light of the Lord" (Isaiah 2:5). Sometimes the spirit of revelation will operate immediately and intensely, other times subtly and gradually, and often so delicately you may not even consciously recognize it. But regardless of the pattern whereby this blessing is received, the light it provides will illuminate and enlarge your soul, enlighten your understanding, and direct and protect your family."
David A. Bednar The Spirit of Revelation, April 2011
Welcome to the Road Trip edition of H54F. We left this morning at 5:00 (ish) and have had a great day on the road. It's so nice to have kids who are old enough to be entertained and happy while traveling in a van for 12+ hours.
1. Even though the burnt orange blood running through my veins makes morally opposed to the state of Oklahoma, we did have to drive through it. (And it's actually really beautiful.) By 8:00am we could no longer put off the starving children in the backseat, so we gave in and stopped for breakfast at this cute little donut shop in Norman, OK of all places! Fortunately several of us were decked out in our Texas sweatshirts so there wasn't a chance we'd be mistaken for Sooners (phew...)
2. We saw a lot of these today! And, do you know what? It turns out I kinda love rolling fields and amber waves of grain.
3. Cawker City, KS. We detoured through this cute, little (and I mean little) town so that we could visit...(insert anxious anticipation here)
4. ...the highlight of Mack's trip, The World's Largest Ball of String
someone put these cute googly eyes on it so it feels a little more personal than just the average ball of string.
5. Somewhere in the middle of those beautiful wheat fields, between Kansas and Nebraska, we found the geographic center of the US. So we admired it for a minute, took a picture, and then drove on.
Right now, everyone else is peacefully snoring in our hotel room in North Platte, NE and as soon as I post this, I will be, too. Well, I don't actually snore. But I will be peacefully energizing for the last half of our trip tomorrow. We start bright and early at 6:00am. More Road Trip adventures to come. (Maybe they've added something exciting in Wyoming since our last trip through.)
Hope your Friday was great and the rest of your weekend is amazing!
I LOVE road trips so much! We've been planning this one for a few months, but now that it's finally here, we're all about to lose our minds with excitement. The Scout Master has been out of town since Monday morning so I've been busy cleaning out the van, doing laundry, hunting down warmer clothes for everyone, cleaning the house and packing. (hmmm....I wonder if he purposely timed this trip so that he could get out of all the hard stuff???)
We leave tomorrow morning at 5:00am...or as close to that as possible. The van is stocked with snacks, water bottles, electronic devices, and about 4 weeks' worth of outfits because you just never know what kind of a mood you're going to be in when you're on vacation...or what the weather's going to be like...or if there will be a surprise fancy dinner involved. It's always good to have about 4 extra pairs of shoes just in case.
Mack has planned a short detour to see the Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, KS into our route, but if all goes according to plan, we should arrive at our destination sometime late Saturday night.
Today I'm so grateful for trips to look forward to, family to spend Thanksgiving with, and amazing neighbors who are willing to get our mail, feed our fish, and make sure our house is safe while we're gone.
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