simplest plans

I know I haven't blogged in a long while. God has been doing some amazing things in my heart and in our marriage, and I have been learning SO MUCH! I love that having babies is such a spiritually growing experience. Anyway, this is worth a blogpost:

Jarrad and I are fairly responsible. While we aren't mega-planners, we do like to have an idea of what major occurrences are in the works for us. On Sunday, however, we got in the car to come home from church. The weather was beautiful--and HOT. It felt so much like summer that I found myself saying, "I wish we could go to the beach." Silence. "We could," said Jarrad. Silence. "Can we?" says I. We did. We got home, threw everything together (after I rushed to wash the diapers...no one wants to come home to stinky diapers! My wonderful friend/neighbor, Theresa, agreed to come over and let them dry after we left), and we left for the beach within 3 hours! I think that's impressive, considering we have two little ones in tow. We passed through Jarrad's grandparents' to visit with them and to get the key to their wonderfully peaceful [and free] beachfront condo.

And that's when the purpose of our trip began to change. We found out that a close friend of the family was going through a really difficult time, and, wouldn't you know, she lives close to the beach. So today, our only full day here, we took the girls, and visited her.

If I had known what was going on, I would have called and offered to be there with her. But she would have said, "No, no, you don't need to come," and I would have respected that and stayed home. So God worked it out for us to take a "random" trip to the beach so that we would be here for her. And then, when we got to her, God worked it out that her neighbor has a wonderful little swing set, where Jarrad and Rachel occupied themselves for almost the entire three hours we were there, as Carly and I gave our friend a much-needed distraction and a listening ear.

I could write it all off as an inconvenient coincidence. After all, we came for a break--a vacation! Instead of wiling away our time on the beach, we found ourselves consoling a friend. But I find it most humbling and exciting that God clearly had a purpose for this short trip. I love how He works things out like that. In the meantime, our little family of four have had a wonderful time together. Rachel and Daddy have spent a lot of time on the beach, playing in the sand and low-tide pools, and Carly and I have done a lot of playing and snuggling indoors. She had her third ear infection last week, and she's still not quite well. We've been outside some, but I'm happy to mostly keep her in and enjoy the quiet together.

I'll post new pictures soon (I know...it's been awhile). And I'll write more Godstuff soon too. Promise.

to the beach and beyond

Since my last post, we've had a most relaxing family vacation at the beach, Rachel's first real experience. We went last year, but she was still just so enthralled to be walking and independent, that she mostly walked circles on the beach, in our condo, and wherever else we were. She hardly noticed the water and the sand last year, but this year, she was fascinated by all of it. She loved swimming, especially in the pool, where she figured out how to slowly get herself around with the aid of her swimmies and nothing else. "Rachel do it by yourself" was her catch phrase for the week, and she did: she jumped in, she swam, she dug holes in the sand, and she collected seashells, all "by yourself."

I theorize that this vacation will go down in history as our easiest because we had three of us hanging out with just 2-year-old Rachel all week (GiGi came with us), and sweet, young, innocent Rachel was perfectly content to play and enjoy her surroundings at all times. When she wanted to go from the ocean to the pool, we went, and when she wanted Daddy to play with her, he did. Next year, and forevermore, she will have to share everything. And I'm sure that, just when we think it should get easier--when the kids are old enough to kind of take care of themselves--they'll start getting grand, conflicting ideas of all the things they'd rather be doing. One will want Daddy to come to the pool, while one will refuse to leave the beach, and another will just want to go inside for lunch, or maybe off to the local beach junk store. And so, in honor of the most relaxing vacation ever, a video by Daddy...