The New Normal

And so a whole week has passed and I can barely believe it! Last Friday we arrived on the Luther Prep campus and registered Will for his Freshman year. 

It was completely and utterly exhausting, I kid you not. Heaven forbid we break tradition for moving in weekend not to be sweaty hot.  Because hot it was.  Like every previous registration weekend I'd ever experienced.  My sister- in- law, who lives nearby the school, commented it was the hottest they've had all summer. Of course it was! Especially since Will was assigned Wittenburg, 3rd floor nosebleed section for his dorm room. And our van's air conditioner quit on us. 

All I can say about the whole experience of taking my eldest child to school over 900 miles away in a different country, dropping him off and leaving is that I had prayers on my side, ya'll. I had texts and emails coming to me while we were there that included specific prayers offered up for me and my family. I even had one local homeschool friend put together a Canadian mason jar full of tea, chocolates and Bible passages of encouragement! There is no other way to explain how calm I've felt and sure that we've made the right decision. I guess it could have been that the heat sucked all the energy and emotion out of me. But I'm pretty sure that's not it. The prayers, definitely the prayers. 

After homeschooling him all these years and being the one who decided what he would learn, how it would be taught and in what way and method, I was seriously concerned about delegating this out. I can say now that the classes, curriculum, schedule, expectations, standards, methodology, doctrine and worldview are what I would choose for him. How amazing is that? He's also able to participate in many different sports, broaden his musical ability and talents and hang with fellow Lutherans. We ate in the cafeteria twice while we were there and I actually liked it! Of course anytime I eat something I don't have to make and then clean up I'm more likely to enjoy but that's not the point. It's come a long way since my high school cafeteria days. I wonder if they still serve breakfast Spam sandwiches? Anyhoo … 

I was thrilled when the Dean explained why there wasn't a rule book the size of the yellow pages. They look at each child as a soul, bought and redeemed by the blood of Christ. Each of them is a sinner by nature who will struggle and make poor choices. But they will also be looked at as a saint made perfect in Christ who is constantly growing in their lives of sanctification through the work of the Holy Spirit. Instead of coming up with a book of rules every student should follow if they're going to be a Christian, they are reminded of who they are in Christ.  Every week they'll have 9 chapel devotions to attend so that by the end of the 4 years, they'll have attended over 1000 chapel devotions. That's apart from the Sunday morning church service they attend in town.  

All this and more has contributed to knowing this is where he needs to be!

It was during the opening service in the gymnasium that I realized the last time I was on campus and in the gym was for my sister's graduation in May of 2000. I was there with a 6 day old Will. Little could I have imagined that the next time I'd be back was to bring Will there as a Freshman!

Especially after visiting my nieces in the girls' dorm (which happens to be nicer and better smelling than the boys), I recalled my own positive experience and just got so excited for him. This is what we've wanted for him and this is the only place to get it. We continue to pray that God blesses his time there and that he will continue to grow in wisdom and stature.

Now I'm not going to lie - this will take some getting used to. We just had the quietest car ride home. I guess we know who the instigator was in the back seat - haha! It feels weird walking past his room and it being so empty. It's weird around the dinner table, just the three of us. He's having all these experiences without us around and we've been getting tidbits of texts all week. I'm not sure how often he'll do his laundry or if he'll turn his underwear inside out. By the end of the year, his bedsheets may walk themselves off the bed.  He may never vacuum the carpet remnants  he picked up for his room. But a week under his belt and he's managed to make it to all his classes, got all A's on assignments his first week and commented after his first piano lesson today that "all those long, dead years of theory finally paid off".  And a much anticipated phone call on Friday night revealed a tired but eager student who "really likes Latin" with a professor I had 20 years ago! 

On the home front, I finally get to solve the mystery of who keeps spitting toothpaste on the bathroom mirror and missing the toilet. I have less laundry to wash. And Zanna's now the messiest eater at the table. 

Scenes from our holiday in the Northwoods of Wisconsin visiting my parents and enjoying time with my sister Rebekah and her husband Tom from England. 

Summer So Far ...

This summer has been peaceful, stressful, busy, relaxing - all rolled into one! After our trip to Wisconsin in June, we've been home ever since which is weird for us. And wonderful. 

The big project has been the basement construction. Now granted we're having it done so it's not like I've spent the summer drywalling (as if) but it's required us to move everything in the basement to the garage. Which means I went through everything and purged, sold furniture and items on kijiji, and boxed the rest up to keep. 

Anyway, it's a big project - one that we've wanted to do for a long time and we're really excited about having a home office for Wayne and a finished place for guests to stay when they come (otherwise known as Apartment 2B). And as mentioned before, a salon area for me! 

At this point we're up to painting. Back in the spring when we were discussing with our contractor ways to cut down on the bottom line, I willingly and enthusiastically agreed to do the painting. Dumb. As I type this out with my clawed hands and sore wrists, I am seriously second guessing this frugal assignment I agreed to.  

And because I like overextending myself, I also took on a much smaller project of updating Will's room to a "teen boy room". Gone are the bunk beds and in with a real queen size bed for my growing man. Fresh paint, new curtains and different wall art made it a fun update! 

The peaceful and relaxing side of summer comes in the many hours spent outside because I think this has been the most climate pleasing summer in years! We've taken a lot of walks and I love to hang out in the backyard and read. 

Speaking of reading, I've worked up quite a ferocious appetite for the written word and it's been divine! I just finished Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" and it was an extremely eye-opening book about the state of modern culture. I've also just finished "He Remembers the Barren" by Katie Schuermann. As one who has struggled with secondary infertility, I can personally relate to this book that deals with many questions women often ask themselves and often times never get answers to. This book needs to be in every church library and used as a valuable resource by every pastor.  I wish I had this in hand years ago but better late than never. You can listen to an Issues, etc podcast of her here.

All the hours of painting have afforded much opportunity to listen to many podcasts. A Sacramentally Shaped Life  , The Scriptural Content of the Historic Liturgy  and from Circe, On Igniting a Love of Learning in Your Students. I have also really enjoyed a podcast series from one of my favourite bloggers Edie from Life in Grace. It's a 7 part series titled The Life You Love Manifesto and I found much inspiration here! 

We celebrated the 4th of July this year on the home front and because it's also our anniversary, we threw a party. I had accrued quite a collection of red, white and blue party items. It seems over the last number of years anytime I was at Target in the States or when I was recently introduced to the famed Hobby Lobby, I would purchase in mass quantities whatever 4th of July party paraphernalia I could find - justifying my purchases with the conviction that I would have a party. And finally after 4 years or so, party we did! 

The kids have both just completed summer camp. Will passed the Bronze Cross lifesaving swimming level and is well on his way to being a lifeguard! He did very well by earning a 100% on both his written and practical exam. He certainly doesn't get it from me - I swim like a rock. 

Zanna enjoyed a "Sprouting Chefs Camp" at our local agriculture museum. She adopted a chicken for the week and cooked such culinary treats as Asian dumplings, cupcakes, sorbets and salads. She had a blast! 

Now we're just enjoying these last days of being home before we get back in the minivan and travel to Wisconsin. Will's social calendar has filled up with friends wanting to see him before he leaves. We've got VBS at church in the mornings and I've been working on getting the school year ready for Zanna.

Busy, happy summer days! 

Never Letting Go

It was 1988 and my 8th grade year. My family and I lived in the Bible belt of the Ozarks in southwest Missouri. I attended Pershing Junior High and I was a good student. I got good grades, made the National Junior Honor Society and managed not to cause too much trouble. I was quiet and shy and spent many hours reading in my room listening to top 40 music. We had moved many times over the course of my then 13 years. I was never popular or outgoing, so I certainly wasn't surrounded by hoards of friends, but the Lord always saw fit to give me one or two really good friends that I could count on and be myself with.

 I had always attended public school with the exception of Kindergarten and my 6th grade year where I was blessed to go to an area Lutheran Elementary School.  The oldest of three kids, I was the one blazing the adolescent trail for my younger siblings 3 and 7 years younger than me. I joked that I got to break my parents in.

This particular year was odd. We had moved back to Springfield, Missouri after having lived two other places since the first time we lived in Springfield. Things were familiar but things were different. We were in a different school district so the school I attended didn't have familiar faces I went to grade school with. No matter - I was shy and awkward back then too so it's not like I was stewing on the "good ole' days".  But the Lord blessed me as he had before and gave me two friends that were faithful in their friendship.

It was right before Christmas break if I remember correctly and I was coming home on the bus. I was sitting alone which I don't remember as unusual but I did find it unusual when a boy sat down next to me in my seat. There were plenty of other seats available. This boy in particular was "a jock" and had no business willingly conversing with "a nerd".  I don't remember what we talked about but I remember  being nervous and shy. He was flirting - definitely.  I was sweating - definitely. But I was also excited to have someone popular pay attention to me, who was hardly noticed most of the time.

I had a necklace on that day and he took notice of it and asked me about it. I think it was one of those half necklaces that your best friend wears the other half of? So I was explaining this to him while my heart was pounding and then he reached over to me as if to touch the necklace and instead - groped my chest.

This was scary for me now - I felt very violated and didn't know what to do. I wanted to scream but my voice was lost somewhere in my gut. My stop was coming up soon and if I could just get home and tell my Mom…

Mom wasn't home.

I went downstairs and sat in front of the TV. It was "Little House on the Prairie" and I don't remember the particulars of the episode but it happened to be about a character (one you only see once and never again) who gets molested or something. You can only imagine the condition I was in when Mom finally showed up from running her errands. I was a mess.

It snowballed from there. Dad arrived home and was told. Phone calls to the school were made and it didn't take long to find out the boy had been suspended for two weeks. I didn't have to ride the bus anymore but got rides from Mom or Dad. I went back to school the next day only to have to field a million questions from the other jocks and worse - his girlfriend (who didn't seem so surprised as a matter of fact). What started as an awkward year just got worse. It was better before when no one payed attention to me than now with all this unwanted interaction! Thankfully, my two God-given friends remained by my side and I survived the year.

I may have made it through the year but high school was looming ahead.  The thought of continuing on with these morons (my two friends excepted) made me sick to my stomach. I couldn't do it. I didn't want to do it.

I remember sitting on the bed in my room - brass headboard, floral bedspread, floral wallpaper that reminded me of a field of wildflowers, built in custom shelves my parents had surprised me with when we first moved in to house all my Sweet Valley High books,  my rocking chair in the corner - and I leafed through the Martin Luther Preparatory School catalog I had picked up when I had gone on a tour of it back in 6th grade while attending the LES. I looked carefully at all the pictures of smiling teens in classes, playing sports, singing in choir, acting in drama. I read cover to cover all about the high standards of a Christian education, the quality of the professors, the variety of the extracurricular activities offered, the dorm rooms and cafeteria food and the friendships made. I had noticed a difference that year I had gone to an LES - everyone of us were friends there - our common faith in Christ had a noticeable impact on the quality of my relationships there that even I noticed at a young age. I had also grown spiritually in that short time. Having daily Bible lessons and opening devotions, Bible memory work, starting confirmation and attending daily chapel had all contributed to a sudden spiritual growth.  I yearned for that again. Could this be the answer? 

And so it was decided - by me anyway. Now to tell my Mom since Dad wasn't home yet. Sure, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin was really far away from Springfield, Missouri but I wanted to get far away from my peers here. My parents knew how hard this year had been for me. Shoot, it had to have been hard on them!

My parents probably have a better recollection of how things went from there. I only remember that after confronting my Mom, I got the old, "we'll discuss this with your Father when he gets home" shpeel and I think she may have turned her back to me to wipe her eyes.  The next thing I remember was preparing to go! I had a black trunk we were filling up with new dorm bedding and matching towels and everything a 14 year old girl could need for dorm living! And off I went along with my "New Kids on the Block" poster!!

This was not a decision we had made years ago. This was not something I had been looking forward to since forever. I wasn't trying to get away from my family - I loved my family! I wasn't a problem child that needed to be sent off somewhere to get fixed. This decision came about mainly from my unhappiness and the events leading up to high school. It came from low self esteem, social clumsiness and a desire to want something deeper and lasting. But the reality is, mine wasn't the final decision to be made. It was my parents whom God had put in charge of my physical, social, intellectual and most importantly spiritual well being. They said yes. They footed the bill year after year. They flew me home and back for vacations or arranged a carpool. They supported my decision. They let. me. go.

My old alma mater of MLPS doesn't exist anymore. It amalgamated with the old Northwestern Prep to make what is now Luther Preparatory School in Watertown, Wisconsin where both my brother and sister went on to graduate from. Wayne never went, choosing instead to stay home in Calgary and go to his local public high school despite the fact his older brother Jeff attended MLPS and graduated the spring before I started in the fall. Jeff has three daughters now going to LPS with my own son starting in the fall- 3 weeks from now, in fact. So I find myself in the shoes of what my own parents once wore. An odd feeling.

So now as I live these last few weeks before he moves out to be 971 miles away from home, I'm torn as my parents must have been once. To keep him here for myself. To fill my wants, my needs. To let him define my identity. To keep him under the watchful eye of his father and me and continue to keep him in a safe cocoon we all are familiar with. Or … to say yes. To foot the bill. To fly him home on holiday or arrange carpool. To meet at Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving (as I used to do). Supporting his decision. It's time to let. him. go.

My heart hurts.

Thank you, Dad and Mom. Thank you for letting me go back in 1989 when it must not have been easy. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for footing the bills and sending me spending money. Thank you for praying for me. Thanks for the calling cards and coming to my games whenever you could. Thanks for driving all that way and  meeting me at Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving. Thank you for listening to me cry and be hormonal over the phone and restraining yourselves from coming to get me the next day. Thanks for taking me and my friends out to eat when you'd come visit. Thanks for the cards and letters in the mail. Thanks for the care packages and for individually wrapping the leaf cookies in bubble wrap every fall so that I could still enjoy them. 

I know that you never really let me go. You were just trusting in the Lord that He would keep me in His care. If anything, you beefed up the prayer warrior parent role and put it in His hands. You knew I would be connected to the means of grace daily and surrounded by professors and tutors who taught and disciplined with proper law and gospel. You expected me to mess up because what teen doesn't? but that I'd be messing up with a spiritual safety net to protect me.

Our Lord has been faithful and he heard all those prayers. Prep gave me a solid, Lutheran education, the best of friends, a chance to bring me out of my shell, to develop my God-given talents and look to Him for my self worth and confidence that I had been lacking. It was not without screwup, mishap, or poor choices. But God never let me go. He had used an awful 8th grade year to bring about a desire to go to Prep and used it for His good.

May I have the strength to now do the same with my own son.  Lord, give me the ability to deny my own selfish wants and desires and simply reaffirm that he's been yours all along. Comfort me knowing that you will use him and whatever experience he has there, good and bad, to grow and develop him into the man you would have him be. Thank you for never letting me go all those years ago just as you continue to hold onto all your children through faith in Jesus, Amen. 

Canada Day 2014

The Canadian Mint

Took me 12 years but I finally indulged in poutine - a French-Canadian delicacy of fries, cheese curds and gravy

View from the hill - Parliament Hill! 

Family Togetherness

Playing gin with Grandpa

What do you get when you put 4 families, 9 kids ranging in age from 8 to 17, 100 combined years of marriages, 3 brothers,

2 Grandparents, 3 opinionated sister-in-laws, wine (lots of wine),

a rental house in Wisconsin (recently renovated from being a bar) across from a lake that smells like dead fish, lots of rain, a three movie Narnia marathon, trying to feed 17 people for every meal,

two teens who just passed their driver's test and are cruising the roads, a lifeguard, a ping-pong table and a deck of cards?

A hot mess. Family togetherness. Because that's what family is! And I am blessed to be part of this family where we all come together with our hot messes - and at the end of the day, with all the baggage that we each carry, we are covered in a big, white robe of Jesus's righteousness. We are united not just by the blood coursing through our veins or by name but by the faith that we share through His blood. We were reminded of this bond with every prayer said together and evening devotion shared and worship offered - what a gift we have! We have each been shown grace and mercy from our Saviour and we are moved by the Spirit to extend it to one another. Messes and all! 

A Season of Change

Mother's Day Lunch

Spring is already on its way out the door! After waiting so long for it to come after a seemingly never-ending winter, we've been spending as much time as possible outside enjoying the warmer temperatures. 

Tulip Festival

I will always remember this Mother's Day as standing out in my mind. On the Friday before, I was surprised to turn around (while cleaning the junk off my stovetop) to see my husband and children dressed in their Sunday best - in the middle of the day! I was instructed to put something nicer on and told we'd be going out to lunch to a surprise location. Given the style of dress, I could safely assume we'd not be going to some of our favourites like the "Panda Garden Buffet" or "Lone Star Texas Grill". We ended up at the "Le Cordon Bleu" for an extra special lunch! It was pointed out that starting next year, I wouldn't have both my kids at home for Mother's Day (bahhhhhhh). Both kids were on their best behaviour with napkins in their laps!! It was wonderful!

The lilacs and lilies-of-the-valley were so pretty this year! It seems their time just doesn't last long enough. I'm finding that this is also true of the seasons of life. 

I love my Sally Clarkson books and cherish some of the insight she gives especially when I'm in the midst of "all of motherhood" and she has some perspective. She writes in "Seasons of a Mother's Heart" about spring:
The springtime of life in nature is when colour and music invade the silent cold of winter. Flowers bloom in a profusion of beauty, green springs up everywhere, and birds trill songs to blue skies. The buds on trees burst out in colour, proclaiming that everything isn't really dead, it just seemed that way for awhile, but now is the time for life. Spring has always been a time symbolic of birth - of babies being born and life beginning again in an endless circle of renewal assuring each new generation that life will continue in the years to come. 
God has designed beauty and pleasure to inhabit the simplest of things, but we have to be still in our hearts to enjoy them. We have to submit and assent by faith to the reality of each day however mundane, choosing to see with heart-eyes the reasons for thanksgiving and joy. Otherwise we miss the power of the spring seasons. Every new season or segment of life - newly weds, pregnancy, babies, toddlers, elementary school, hormones and teen years, graduation and leaving home, marriage allover again - are all spring seasons, springboards to new opportunities and adventures. Each of these times of life is pregnant with hope and life within them, and yet each of these spring seasons will also require some adjustments to change. 

Spring mantel

Yes, it is spring here. I've graduated my first-born from Halldorson Homeschool. I look back on the time and memories I've been so blessed to have had with him. I'm not tiptoeing through the tulips - I remember the good and the bad and there was plenty of both! But I don't regret a single moment.  Sure I could have done better. I shouldn't have done some of it. The truth of the matter is he and I are both who and what we are today because of it all.  And it all has been a blessing. 

Bird-banding field trip

So I'm embracing this coming new season in life and looking forward - to the experiences and opportunities that Will will have at Luther Prep, for the one on one time I have with Zanna, the things we'll learn together, the field trips that we have to take and a small dream finally becoming a reality right now as I hear the banging of the hammer coming from the basement … my own salon business. 

Spring is an invitation to enter into the joy of the psalmist with his proclamation: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24). It is the spirit of the new season and returning life. 
Spring is a time of living fully in the present, loving deeply, and celebrating the newness of life as it comes our way. 

Our Year in Review

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