Opening up this blog tonight, feels a bit strange, I'll admit. It's been a month since my last post.
What a month.
Tonight we had friends over for dinner. For meatball subs. They are those friends. You know the ones. They have your kids over when you are out of town, your house doesn't have to be perfect when they are coming, you don't have to have everything ready before they arrive and the kids can't wait for them to get here.
Please tell me you have friends like this in your life! If not, I'll pray that God will bring them!
Our dinner, conversation, laughter, and watching the kids together was like a sigh in my heart.
The happy kind.
The "we've survived this crazy, insane, heartbreaking, joyous, exhausting two months of Summer and here we are with people we love and it's nice" kind of sigh.
Grateful for friends like this. Who encourage instead of wearing out and who share the struggles along with the laughs.
In the last month (after having all eight troops home only one night since Memorial Day), the Coach and I traveled to California for my uncle's funeral - spending time with family and sharing lots of hugs and so many tears.
We spent July 4th at the farm house with much of the same family, enjoying time with our troops and setting off enough fireworks to hurt someone - but it was quite a show and everyone remained unscathed.
We welcomed my uncle's family, hosted them at the farm and at our home and loved them in whatever way we could, while they buried my uncle here in our city. With more hugs and more tears and SO. MUCH. SAD.
We packed the troops (in just a few hours the night before) and drove to beautiful Breckenridge for a week of COOL weather and hiking and cousins and puzzles and rafting and trains and coffee and more hiking.
Arriving back here last week . . to find it HOT and busy, once again.
God is good.
Even in our heartache, He's there with us. I love that. My Jesus WITH me.
It's about time to think about school supplies and khaki pants and new football cleats and who has what teacher and volleyball has started and I'm doing a boot camp for the next four weeks and the Coach is busier than ever at work and . . .
He will be with me in all of that, too.
Happy Sunday.
