Abundant Recompense Copy

Well despite appearances, we're still alive over here. It's crazy what summer break does to my amount of free time. We are really enjoying our summer. We traveled a lot in June and are taking a break from it in July, and have a couple more trips planned for August. It's nice to be home for a while. The kids are loving the trampoline and sprinklers this summer. Addison and Bryn are reading books like crazy. Leah's started reading this summer and knows quite a few words. Asa is very slowly starting to listen more. He's learning to be safer with heights and the road, thank heavens, but I still can't hardly stand to watch him on the trampoline or the slide or the scooter. The boy is an adrenaline junkie. Nate and I were called as Primary teachers. Nate teaches Bryn's class, and those kids are lucky to have a teacher like him. He does a great job. I got moved from teaching the 9-year-olds to being the junior Primary chorister a couple weeks ago, and though I miss...

I think I mentioned before that we were in Canada for a work conference for Nate. That meant that from about 8:30 to 4:00 each day he was in class and I was with the kids. I was daunted, let's be serious. It's scary for me to adventure without my chief adventure buddy, especially in another country (even if it is just Canada). Nate had prepared pages upon pages of options of places for me to take the kids exploring, so day 1 came, he headed to class, and I figured we might as well give something a shot. We started with an easy one, within walking distance of our house. Summit Park was the name, and let me tell you by the time we were done, we were grumpy. It was hot as blazes, and the highlight of the park was this creepy retaining pond surrounded by high fences complete with barbed wire and metal spikes on the top. At the end, the kids and I had a frank discussion about how this was the dumbest park ever and we needed to try something else that afternoon. That was the beginnin...