July 25th is our anniversary. Our 15th anniversary.  Let me just say, that I’m most certainly too young to have been married for 15 years.

I mean, there’s no way we’ve had a combined total of 15 jobs.

6 vehicles

3 church homes

2 job layoffs

the birth of 5 sons

11 cell phones

5 addresses

one town

3 desktop computers, 2 laptops

Countless memories

“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”
―Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Here’s to the next 15 years.
(hopefully we’ll be less hard on electronics)

I love this picture from my friend, Elizabeth’s wedding. Isaac’s face!

I stayed home from work and took my vacation time. I like to call it my “staycation”. 

Steven went to a conference with some youth from our church in Indiana. They come home tomorrow. While he was gone, he got laid off from his job, with 499 other people. 

We marked the one month anniversary of having no air conditioner. The person we rent from is super apologetic about it not being done yet, and insists they’re just waiting on a part. But really? A month? Thank goodness two friends have loaned us window units. It’s hot here. And humid.

While leaving the park yesterday, that was near a ball field, I got hit by a flying softball! It didn’t really hurt me or anything but still, what are the chances??

We had this sudden little storm pop up out of nowhere with lightning and thunder. The lightning caused a power surge and we lost power for like 30 seconds or something. Apparently the surge damaged my coffee pot, and it caught fire inside! It was like, 4 months old! 

Yesterday Isaac (age 5) asked me who Steven’s parents were. I said, Mema and Pa! You know them! He said, “Well, duh, I know them, but I didn’t know they were his PARENTS!”

While leaving Great Clips today, I told Isaac and Oliver, “Thanks for being so good in there, guys!” and Isaac replied, “It was our pleasure!”

I sent the following text to my sister: I’ve always secretly wanted to be called Baby, but that only happens when I sit in a corner somewhere and Steven quotes Dirty Dancing.

Our neighbors are the parents of a classmate of Elijah’s. Our kids have gone over there to play, and theirs have come over to play at our house. The Mom worked with Steven until the layoff, and is in fact how I found out about the layoff when she came over and we talked about it for like 20 minutes the other day. The Dad’s name is Justin. I don’t know, after all this time what their last name is. In my phone, he’s listed as “Justin-Neighbor”. And I texted him with a layoff question for his wife and he gave me her number. I don’t even know her first name. She’s now in my phone as “Neighbor’s Wife”.  I have a problem with names.

Alex has become a talker. Seriously, he talks from the time he gets up until he goes to bed. If he’s not otherwise occupied, he follows me around the house talking nonstop. I have to tell him sometimes that I need to go to the bathroom and go in there to be alone for a second. I love that he wants to talk to me, I really do. But I’m not kidding when I say it’s constant. 

I’ve done four things for work during this vacation so far.  (Downside of a staycation)

I took Alex to a late movie, while a friend babysat my other sleeping kiddos. We saw World War Z, his first zombie flick. 

Last weekend we watched Moneyball from the Redbox at Kroger.

Brad Pitt is way more attractive to me now that he’s aged a little bit, what’s up with that?

While at Chick-fil-a earlier this week, Alex was sitting and talking with me since he’s too big to go in the play place. (and we’ve already established the talking thing) He left to go to the bathroom and a woman in the play place asked me if we were from England. I almost laughed out loud. Alex has a certain way of talking, he always has and for the last few years, he’s been telling me that kids at school are always asking where he’s from and if he’s from England. It’s the first time it’s happened when I was around to see it. 

We’re not from England. We’re native Arkansans. 

Jefferson Lines is what it said on the side of the bus in huge letters. It was the name of the charter line that carried my 240 + member high school band to Washington D.C.  It was a pilgrimage made every 3 years by our high school, a time honored tradition. A 27 hour bus ride, one way.  We worked hard for an entire year leading up to that summer break. Excellence was what we strived for, and it was what we were known for. It was what landed us the honored position, a spot that was held for our band, every three years, the lead band in the Independence Day Parade in D.C. 

I have so many wonderful memories of that trip, so many moments that stand out in my mind. I’d always loved the fourth of July, the fireworks, the family gatherings, the national pride, but it was different for me after that trip. Spending our nation’s Birthday in the Capitol, well, it changes a person. 

It wasn’t the whirlwind trip through the Smithsonian, or standing in awe at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial that stood out to me, although I remember those things very well. It wasn’t that we got to sit on the White House lawn and watch a fireworks show, completely in sync with the National Symphony Orchestra playing live right there with us, that blew our little Arkansan minds. 

It was playing a concert for retired Veterans on the lawn of their facility. It  was watching the ones that couldn’t come down to sit on the grass, be wheeled to their balcony windows by nurses to hear us play patriotic tunes. It was seeing hands over hearts, and salutes as sharp as they were 40 years before, respect and duty just as vibrant as it was 40 years before. 

It was standing, in our band uniforms because we didn’t have time to go back to the hotel and change, at the very corner of the Vietnam Memorial. Each of us, teenagers, overwhelmed at the sense of loss, and the sense of pride. We stood together, side by side, the reflection of our uniforms staring back at us in the glossy stone and  we laid a wreath from us to them. Not missing a single note, flower, beer bottle or joint left at the wall for an old comrade who didn’t make it back by someone who had loved and enjoyed those things with them many years before. 

I’ll never forget as we prepared for the parade, lined up, ready to march. The full band was behind me, the flag line behind them. The only thing in front of us was the majorettes, perfectly poised to begin. Our rifles came out of parade rest and we were at attention. The drum beats counted us off and we lined up. We made the turn from the prep area onto Constitution Avenue and marched right underneath a huge United States Flag. There were people, lots of people, but I really didn’t notice them. The rifle line position is head up, not straight ahead, slightly up, looking right into the sun, proud, slightly defiant. Our rifles snapped in unison to the routine. Occasionally the view was obstructed from a toss in the routine, but it didn’t distract us. We knew they’d fall right back into our hands, and pop against our gloves without a wobble. It was what we had worked towards for over a year, for some of us much longer than that. 

It was an honor to be there, to represent our state and our town, and to experience Independence Day in the place they do it the biggest. It was more than a band trip, or vacation, or another performance. It was something that changed us, for the better.

This past weekend one of my good friends got married. We took the boys to the reception and had a great time. It was held at the Botanical Gardens in Fayetteville. The weather was perfect!