37 Weeks--3 weeks of camp to go, too!

Oh, my this summer has been crazy. I keep waiting for us to slip into the sweet rhythm of camp like we did last summer and it is just.not.happening!

Our summer camp season is about nine weeks total--
1.pre-training week, when all the ropes and wrangler staff and early staff arrive
2. Staff training
3. Overnight 1
4. Overnight 2
5. Day 1
6. Day 2.
and 7.8.9. Overnights 3,4,5 respectively

We are entering week seven and I'm still learning names and getting the hang of things!
Staff training is always crazy and fun, then I strategically signed us up for VBS (I said, YES to the VBS) because O-1 is so stinking crazy and busy for T that we might as well be out of the way. We had a blast at VBS--what a fun, wild week!

Then, O-2 hit and we were all ready to get our camp groove on (and go on a much-anticipated date!), when all of a sudden early Thursday morning we all came down with the stomach flu. I'm talking sleeping on the floor 'cause you can't muster the energy to get off of it stomach flu.

Finally, D-1 came--and my sweet nieces who along with J and A were all Day campers. We had a blast having them stay with us, but the mornings were much earlier than normal and the week FLEW by. I barely remember it!

This week was D-2 and I was all geared up to get into a rhythm, have some fun with the staff and BOOM! Sunday night T and I headed to the hospital to find out if the pain in my back and cramping in the abdomen I was experiencing was labor or something else. No baby arrived and we were sent home, but my back was messed up. The next day I saw my doctor and begged for pain relief, which he graciously prescribed and thus began the week of nearly non-stop sleeping on the couch, interspersed with pill-taking, water drinking and going straight back to sleep. Thankfully, my sweet mom came to help and took O home, J went to Day camp and Miss A played with our camp Mary Poppins most of the week.

Now we are thirty-seven weeks and while I'm a bit weary of being pregnant, I'm also trying to savor camp, get ready (because that hasn't been happening these last weeks!) and just focus on parenting our three children who have been living the wild and crazy life of camp and grandparents. : )

Oh, and I need to clean the house. I feel like we are on a rotating cleanliness carousel where one area will be nice and calm while everything else is in disarray. It's like a juggling act around here, really.

This is such a random post (hello, it's not even technically morning, yet), but here are some more random things:

1. Chik-fil-A sauce and fries must have some sort of legally addictive ingredient. I cannot get enough.

2. Cookies and Cream Ice cream is a good consolation for the ridiculous distance that Chik-fil-A is from our house.

3. I get ravenously hungry between 3:30 and 6 am--nearly every morning.

4. The blessing of being in the body of Christ has been so felt by the kind care shown to us by the staff during all the illness and injury we've dealt with. I'll never forget how three of the female staff took (unsick) O to camp the day the bug hit and just took care of him. We didn't have to ask, nor did we have to worry about his safety or what he was doing. What a blessing! My goal this summer was to more intentionally serve the girls and it has ended up that we have been the recipients of service from them ten-fold. More examples come to mind--the guys who will take O from me to run around and wear him out (and give me a break), the kind words, the sweet attention given to our children.

5. I love my husband. Wouldn't trade him for the world. He is such a servant and so kind and gracious. He's also kind of cute. : )

6. This summer, as I've struggled with sin, it's been encouraging to look back and see that there has been victory over previous "major struggles' and that the Holy Spirit really is working in me--even as I grapple with new and fresh temptations. One of my greatest fears is becoming stagnant and looking back on a time of life where no growth happened.

7. After four pregnancies in six years, I am totally okay with never wearing maternity clothes again. I don't take lightly the blessing of fertility and good pregnancies we've enjoyed, but I am very excited to put away the maternity clothes and even wear the transitional things I keep hanging onto for the post-partum time. I cannot wait to be able to walk (not waddle) and sleep on my back and belly and eat raw fish again. Also margaritas and mojitos.

That, too.