What a month

Just had the most fantastic time(s) with my side of the family - all my three brothers and their entire families as well as my parents. I am so blessed with my family, and I feel more than ever how much thought and care and prayer and love my parents put into our lives and how it is paying back now. As an aside, nothing says summer at our place like a good mud fight. However, there wasn't exactly informed consent in this case. Our boys asked if they could roll in the mud and we said yes. What they did not realize was that they were not under any circumstances going to make it into the nice hot showers like that. Nope, it was the ice cold hose for them. Poor little guys. Connor was the bravest. I think that Levi was close to tears but he manfully resisted. It had shades of Guantanamo Bay as it was not one of the few truly hot days we have experienced . . . anyway, it was fun when the picture was taken!

All this was tempered by the sudden and unexpected "stumbling into heaven" of my brother Dave's father in law - Art Budd. He fell 20 feet from a ladder and just like that, an incredible person went to be with God. My first impression when I got the call was wow, I forgot that people die. It shouldn't be allowed. You're going along trying to keep up with the laundry and the toilet paper and planning for a camping trip and irritated at gas prices and your spouse for forgetting to get toilet paper, and then all of a sudden, you remember that we are mortal - so dangerously so. It was a shock that is going to reverberate for a long time as Art was intricately bound up in many projects, not the least being Dave and Deb's log house that needs to be weatherproofed at least by this fall. Of course the projects did not define Art - but his incredible presence was most felt in hard work for his family - at least that was my impression looking in. Dan was more in tune with Art and his Budd work ethic as it is remarkably similar to the Lundell work ethic and expectations for a reasonable day's achievements. Very practical in their expressions of love and so every practical job will cause his family to miss him in a painfully tactile way for a very long time.

This tragedy happened just before our semi-annual Waskesiu Block (and Lundell) gathering and so we were able to all be with Dave and Deb and their kids first for the Memorial Service in Saskatoon, and then for a day later on at the lake. Lots of emotions.

Meanwhile, when we got the news we were waiting for Tim and Cheryl and their four kids, the youngest whom we had never met! to arrive at our place for a few precious days after two years of being 2 provinces away. So that was a wonderful time up to and including the service and going to meet everyone at Beaver Glen in Waskesiu. I can't really describe my feelings about all my brothers and their wives and kids - there is so much big sister in me still that I get choked up every time I see them which is so seldom as we are all so far apart and truly in the busiest seasons of our lives. I am proud and protective and bossy and mother-hennish and also just drinking in all the wonder of the little lives growing up around our knees and waists and shoulders and now head heights! So marvelous! I am so lucky in the sisters in law that my brothers chose and have committed to. They are all such incredible women and I admire, like, enjoy and also can just relax around them. Sisters that I never had to share my room with. :) They are all also doing really hard things and taking on challenges of spirit and muscle in ways that inspire me and encourage me to keep going in my own life, feeling a lot less isolated. Again, so much of what we are enjoying now comes back to the parenting we and the in laws received a generation ago. It is encouraging to stay the course so as to do this all again with our kids as grown-ups.

Now we as a small little family are slowly getting back to normal. We went to a second sort of gathering comprised of house churches - our own, Tim and Cheryl and their kids, and my parents with a few other families from Saskatoon at Smoothstone Lake Lodge. This was a little less like camping as the meals were provided and we slept under roofs but we spent the days outside on the beach with excellent weather. Apparently just south (at least in Saskatoon) it rained all weekend but we had almost hot weather. The point of this weekend was mutual encouragement I think but I must admit I was just selfishly trying to get as much time in with Tim and Cheryl and co. before the inevitable parting for who knows how long.

So, now that the laundry is caught up and the kids have baked another batch of cookies I will have to get back into gear for the rest of the summer where I will be working probably quite a bit. I haven't done anything with the horses for at least 3 weeks and the garden will start to need some attention (especially with the buckets and torrents of rain we got in the last 24 hours). I need to start up an exercise regime again - I never seem to stay in routine for longer than a month if that. Tomorrow is my last day of designated "holidays" and I will have to probably expect to not sleep til 9 every morning. Sigh. It's been a wonderful interval of outdoorsy socializing with great people, and now I need to use the encouragement to get back to work - good work with more great people, but definitely starting earlier than 10 am. Keeping in mind our mortality - amazing our capacity for denial of that. Life is thick like an Oh Henry chocolate bar. Parts of it keep getting stuck in our teeth and we forget what we're doing . . .