Who's hosting who?

Grams, Steve, and Flora left the California coast for Wooden Road last month for Grams' 92nd birthday.

The pictures tell the story, but here's the gist: They wined us and dined us, shopped us til we dropped, played with Will til he crashed, lavished us with gifts, and overall left us wondering: Who's hosting who?

Grams, Steve, and Flora,
We loved having you here, and Grams, we are truly honored that you'd spend your birthday with us. We enjoyed every minute of your company and can't wait for October (and then November!). Steve, I only wish we would have seen our bird watcher friends again. We'll have to invite them to join us for mint chocolate chip ice cream next time.
Much love,
Ryan, Susan, and Will

The birthday girl

Her birthday dinner: grilled salmon, quinoa, and salad!
Good choices, Grams!

Beautiful for 92 years

No caption needed

Flora's pasta salad - Delish!

2 (almost) and 92!

Flora, Flora, Flora! She MADE Will this beautiful quilt for his birthday in September.
It is a masterpiece, and I'm thrilled to own some of her handiwork.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Flora!

Every morning he was here, Steve walked to our house from the hotel at 7am
(that's 4am his time) just so he could be with Will the moment Will woke up.
He threw Will in the stroller, pjs and all, and took him to the hotel for breakfast,
where he and Flora fed him to his heart's content.
Again I ask: Who's hosting who?

What's there to say about this but PRECIOUS!?

World Cup! 

They take good pics together. (See the last time Steve visited.)

Four generations

Wining and dining

When Will got restless at a restaurant (when didn't he?),
Steve whisked him outside to play. This particular time they found a dog.
Will is in love: a water fountain AND a dog.

Will, me, and Grams in Chapel Hill.
Flora had never been to NC before, so of course we had to take her to the best
place on the map: UNC!

More wining and dining.

Will's first trip to the Old Well

Flora and Steve at Pops Restaurant (standing in front of a
very large door).

Happy.

See you all again soon! Happy 92, Grams!

Traditions on Blue Buck Road

Twelve adults, two kids, a mountain house out of the magazines on Blue Buck Road in the North Carolina mountains: Year two of a tradition of family togetherness over Memorial Day weekend.

Around the time of Mom's passing, we (the Hardisons) naturally spent lots of time with Aunt Susan and Aunt Melissa and her family. Determined to see each other more, even after the natural collision of togetherness during Mom's bedside vigil, Melissa and Ted invited the family to their mountain house over Memorial Day weekend last year.

And now we've had our second Blue Buck Road gathering.

After two years, I think we can call it a tradition.

For two years now, the Smyths have graciously given the beds in the house to the Hardisons (less seasoned mountaineers), Tim and Betsy have stocked the coolers with cool Asheville brews, Drew has stripped down to his skivvies when a spark from the campfire lit his shorts ablaze (okay, that only happened the first year, but we'd still like to call it a tradition), AR and co. have labored over SmythCream (de-li-cious homemade ice cream, slow churned in an old ice cream machine we put outside because otherwise the sound of the motor would wake the baby.... or a sleeping gorilla), Aunt Susan has enlightened and satisfied our taste buds with the tastiest lasagna this side of Italy, Meg has herded cats as Activities Director both years (bless her), and the entire family has enjoyed (endured?) the sights and sounds of a preschooler and a toddler, doing all they can to interrupt the serenity of our mountain backdrop.

The pictures below don't do the trip justice because most of the family members aren't pictured. It does, however, accurately portray the two little maniacs who hogged the attention all weekend. Go figure.

Second annual Blue Buck Road gathering: Complete!

 

 

 

  

Will ate nuts all weekend. His options were many, but he chose nuts.



 

Look at the birds

[I wrote this for my Women's group at church.]

"Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Matt 6:26

"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Genesis 8:22

I take my son for a walk every day the temperate is above 50 degrees. We see cars and trucks and flowers and birds. We always see birds. My son points his little, almost-two-year-old finger up in the sky at those soaring, chirping creatures and exclaims: "birr, birr!"

And I reply: "That's right, Will. Birds! Look at them! You know, if God cares for the birds, how much more does He care for us!?"

It rolls off my tongue, like the memory verse I recited in Sunday school growing up: "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them" (Matt. 6:26).

But it wasn't until recently that God's care for even the birds really reached my heart.

When I'm not pointing out trucks or acknowledging the dog that Will and I just strolled past on our walk, I use the time to think: I think about the godly woman I know with breast cancer who just can't seem to catch a break. I think about our dear friends whose son has undergone several surgeries and hospital procedures and he's not even two. I think about my own mother, whose 16-year battle with brain cancer ended just over a year ago.

I think, and I grapple. I somehow feel the need to make myself okay with these situations, to see them and see God and not feel a conflict in my soul. God, are you really faithful? Are your promises really true?

And then a bird flies overhead.

"Look at the birds," He whispers.

Looking at the birds brings me back to the basics, those things I too often take for granted that signify God's unchanging faithfulness: the dawning of the sun each day, the turning of the seasons, the birds that my son and I will undoubtedly see every time we go for a walk.

I may not "come to terms" with every difficult situation my loved ones and I face here in the flesh. 

But my gracious God has given me some marvelous assurances of His steadfast faithfulness, even when my situation at hand is hard to understand.

He is faithful.

If my soul is ever tempted to doubt it, may He graciously lift my eyes toward the sky, to see the sun by morning and the moon by night and to consider for a moment those soaring, worryless creatures that He lovingly sustains.

Whether enjoying an afternoon walk with my two year old, or grappling with the sickness, pain, and death of this life, may I never forget to look up and do as Christ said.

May I always remember to look at the birds.

Lemon happy

 

 

 

Nothing so sour has ever been so sweet!

World's hardest job

When I used to hear people say that stay-at-home moms had the hardest job in the world, I thought it was a nice and polite thing to say about those lucky people who set their own schedules, had no real responsibilities, and could be found at Chick-fil-a, Homegoods, or Target at 2pm on a Tuesday. I used to think stay-at-home moms needed the confidence boost, and therefore people had learned to tell them their job was the hardest in the world.

If I could slap myself for the way I used to think, believe me, I would.

Let's just say my thoughts have changed since joining the ranks of stay-at-home mom-dom.

I can say with experience that being a stay-at-home mom is the hardest job in the world. A demanding, unpredictable (albeit cute) boss sets your schedule, you bear the enormous responsibility of another life, and if you go to Target at 2pm on a Tuesday it is because you've exhausted your bag of 1001 tricks at home and the walls are truly about to cave in.

I don't write this post because I need the confidence boost of someone else thinking I work hard. In fact, this post is not headed where you probably think.

I can explain my absence from this blog over the past several weeks: I've just been super busy at work.

Add to that my usual cycle of insomnia that comes and goes as it chooses, and you've got a girl who's been focused on one thing lately: surviving.

This is an honest post, coming from an honest place. And I'll go ahead and share the moral of the story: The Lord shows up when we're weak.

Wait for Him.

Several weeks ago, lifting the toothbrush in the morning felt like more responsibility than I could bear. The days dragged, and the black hole just kept getting deeper and blacker.

Rescue me, Lord. Get me out of this cycle. Give me peace. Give me something! Just rescue me!

Several weeks ago, a friend from church moved into the apartments across the street from my house while she and her husband (and one-year-old twin girls) search for a house.

Let me say that again: Several weeks ago, a friend.

I've thought of a lot of ways the Lord could answer my prayers, but sending a friend to live on my same street didn't cross my mind.

"Will just woke up. Can you walk?"
"Want to bring lunch over to my house today?"
"How about the playground this afternoon?"
"We've got to get out of the house. Can we come over?"

I've learned that black holes dry up in the presence of friendship.

Some of my friendships are 30 years old and others are just in their infancy, but the Lord has provided burden-carriers for me my whole life. And in my most recent trip down Black Hole Lane, He used other stay-at-home-mom friends to redirect me, even if they thought we were just taking our babies for a stroll.

You all know who you are.

The Lord says "weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

Who knew my joy in the morning would be in the form of a friend down the street?

I am humbled and thankful for His provision in my weakness.

When we traverse this road together, the world's hardest job certainly feels a little less hard.

Will and his twin girlfriends (he's the one not looking at the camera, of course!)

Will meets his match

Will's California Grandpa came to visit for a few days, and let's just say Will finally met his match. From the moment Will woke up in the morning to the moment he went back down at night, they played. And they played and played. Outside, of course (because North Carolina decided to act like California a couple of weekends ago and gave us the most beautiful weather we've had all year).

I'm starting to think I know from what side of the gene pool Will got all of his energy and enthusiasm. The Steve Thomsen side, no doubt.

Come again soon, Grandpa Steve!

When Steve wasn't playing with Will, he was helping Ryan
clear brush at the property. We put that man to work!



Riding Grandpa Rick's "tractor"

This is pretty much what Will looked like the whole time Steve was here =
Outside. Smiling.

A braille playground. How cool!

Pushing his stroller... Who knew that could be so fun?!

And this is what Will looked like at the end of Steve's trip. Grandpa Steve
wore him slam out! (And that's hard to do!)

While the boys played, Mommy got to shop! Here's Will
sporting his new duds.