Summer '09 Camping Adventure

Little Wall Lake resembles a small puddle compared to Lake Superior, but the boys had a lot of fun anyway. Corey's friend, Dave, let us borrow his canoe (that he built!). I think it took at least five trips out on the lake, including one trip across the lake for a picnic lunch!!

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The nightly campfire is a highlight of every camping trip we have taken. We all had our share of s'mores, and lucky for the boys, their mom likes her marshmallows slightly burned. I ate a lot of their marshmallow rejects. Notice how Lewis is relaxing in his chair. He makes me smile.

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Our trip was not injury free. Owen took a spill on his bike, Lewis cut his foot and Daddy got a bit of a sunburn. But everyone survived.

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Nothing like chillin' out on the spiderman sheets, watching some Scooby-Doo on the laptop before bed.
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Camping is an exhausting activity. Especially when you are two years old.

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The Taste of Summer

Alas, All My Problems are Solved

I have a two-year-old who struggles terribly with excema. He looks polka-dotted since his tan legs are spotted with little breakouts. I have an arsenal of remedies, none of which seem to do the trick. After reading the above advertisement I have found the answer. This ad says - Real genuine relief from excema...cannot be expected until you free your blood from the germs which cause these disorders. I never knew. All I need to do is find a druggist who sells S.S.S. Though that may be difficult since this advertisement is from a newspaper dated 1920, that my mom found while working on cleaning out my great-aunts house.

Guess What This Is!!!!

Yey! This is the footboard of my new bed!! Corey bought the beautiful walnut wood a few days ago, and is moving right along on building me a bed. It is his design, but is very similiar to the 100-year-old full-sized bed in our spare room that used to belong to his great(?)-grandparents. We got that bed in pieces several years ago, and Corey spent much time fixing it and making it look like new. I fell in love with the look of the bed and the walnut it was made out of. I'm so excited that he's building one for me!!!!

Grocery Shopping with Children

I have decided that grocery shopping with three boys is like getting a cavity filled. A painful, but sometimes necessary experience.

Swim Lessons

There was a swimming pool in my elementary school, so I had swimming lessons all year round when I was growing up. I took for granted being able to be in the water all the time. Our boys are doing the 2-week red cross lessons at the Slater pool. We try to get them in the water as much as possible in the summer, since swimming season is so short. Their teachers have been doing a great job, and Corey has been working with them in the evenings. They both need quite a bit of work on their back stroke, but they are getting pretty good at the crawl. They even passed the deep water test, so they can go off the diving board. In the picture above, Carter is the brown one and Owen is two people to the left.

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The God of the Mountains and the Ocean Waves

This is my column for last week's newspaper.

As I stood singing a worship song in church not long ago, I suddenly had tears in my eyes and goosebumps on my arms.

We often sing worship songs that tell of the remarkable power of God which can be seen through his creation, but that week a particular song struck a chord with me that it hadn’t in the past, and I suddenly felt a renewed sense of awe and reverence for this God who is the creator of the world and who still loves me.

The song was “Not To Us” by Chris Tomlin, and the lyrics go like this;

“The earth is shaking The mountains shouting It's all for You
The waves are crashing The sun is raging It's all for You…
Not to us, but to your name be the glory…”

My reaction was caused by a recent adventure I was able to experience.

In January, I had the opportunity to trek the challenging 11-mile Kalalau Trail on the island of Kauai. It is a strenuous enough trail that the Sierra Club ranks it 9 out of 10 in difficulty. And it is notorious enough to have inspired many blogs and youtube videos whose intent I believe is to scare people out of their wits before they even try it.

This is the kind of experience my husband relishes in. Challenging wilderness types of adventure that necessitate carrying all of your supplies on your back, sleeping on the ground and filtering drinking water out of streams and rivers – all miles and miles from the nearest modern potty.

Early on in our marriage, I dubbed these excursions his “man trips.” Why? Because no woman in her right mind would consider going. In fact, I have questioned my husband’s sanity more than once as he has sat on our living room floor carefully filling his ultra-lightweight backpack with his ultra-lightweight sleeping bag, his ultra-lightweight tent and his ultra-small camping stove that boils water ultra-fast.

But he decided last year that we should go on one of these trips together for our tenth anniversary. And after several months of chiseling away at my resolve to never do such a thing, he finally convinced me not only that I could do it, but also that I really wanted to. So, we took a practice trip on the Superior Hiking Trail last summer (which is a story in itself), and recently returned from our Kalalau Trail hike.

The trail jogged in and out of valleys and up and down the mountainside. Switchback after switchback would take us deep into jungly areas with almost no direct sunlight, and more switchbacks would take us back up and out onto daunting cliffs with what I believe are quite possibly the most spectacular views on earth. Down in the valley we saw a lot of interesting vegetation, but I would find myself just wanting to get back up and out to the views that made me feel as if I was standing somewhere near the top of the world. Not once did I fear falling off the edge of the cliff (in fact, we had an agreement before we started, that if I got too freaked out we would turn back), but I did stand in fear of the God who created it along with the mountains towering behind me and the giant waves crashing hundreds of feet below me.

When we completed the 11 miles, we were rewarded with our own private paradise (save a handful of others who had also hiked the trail) complete with a mile-long beach, beautiful enormous Pacific Ocean waves, and green mountains standing menacingly high behind us.

The beauty was incomparable. And the awe that consumed me was like none I have ever experienced.

Which brings me back to the worship at church. As I sang the words of the song I have sung many times before, I was taken back to those cliffs and back to that beach. Previously, I had sung of what I had not seen. Now I sang of a place I had experienced. I had sunk my feet into the sand. I had seen and heard the waves crash so loudly that I was forced to raise my voice to be heard over them. I had camped in the shade of great mountain peaks. I had stood beneath a crystal clear waterfall.

And that is where the goosebumps and the tears come in.

When I think that this God, who created all of these things, also created me and loves me so much that he sent his son to earth to die for me, I am humbled and amazed. And it just makes me want to worship him even more.

And don’t tell my husband, but it kind of makes me want to trek back into the wilderness to see what other hidden treasures in creation I can add to the new collection of memories etched in my mind.

Five Words No Mom Wants to Hear

"We can't find the snake."

Nakey the snake has gone missing. Who knows how he got out of his home in our garage, but I hope he slipped out into the great outdoors. If you hear a blood-curdling scream, you will know I found him.

A New Pet?

"Mom, what should we do with a snake?" said Carter as he came in the front door today.

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A snake. I'll tell you what to do with a snake. Get it as far away from me as humanly possible. That's what I was thinking, but what I did was quite the opposite. I actually gave up one of my large plastic storage bins for the boys to turn into a snake habitat. If they were set on keeping the slithery thing, I sure didn't want it in the ice-cream pail that it could easily get out of. I wanted it in something deep, with a lid. Corey cut out of hole in the lid and replaced it with a screen, and the snake is now living in my garage. Yuck! It makes my toes tingle just thinking about it. But the boys are pretty excited (Owen loves to let it crawl around on him) and he's been eating toads, so I guess if I look at the bright side, at least it's cutting down on the toad population in my garage.

The Case of the Missing Diaper

Here is a bit of my conversation with Corey the other night

Corey - "Should I change him before I put him to bed?"
Me - "I just changed him not too long ago. Check to see if he's wet."
Corey - after checking Lewis "I think you should check him."
This seemed weird to me, but I did it anyway. What I found was he had no diaper on under his shorts!! He has been known to take his diaper off, but that is only when a diaper is all he is wearing. So somehow he got his diaper off with his shorts on. Thankfully, his shorts were dry!

Me - "Lewis, did you take your diaper off?"
Lewis - "uh- huh."
Me- "Where did you put it?"
Him - "Down."

Well that was two days ago, and we haven't found it yet!

Fireworks

All the kids agree that picking out your own fireworks and lighting them in the street is way more fun than sitting and watching a fireworks display. I think the big boys, Corey and Jon, had just as much fun or more fun than the kids. There's something about boys and playing with fire and loud noises - I don't get it.

Owen and Ian

Lewis is checking out the smoke bombs.

Carter lighting some smoke bombs.

Harms Fourth of July Tradition

It is has become one of the Harms' boys favorite times of the year. The Fourth of July in Fremont with Grandma and Grandpa and cousins whom they adore. The pool was a hit the first day, but it was a little too chilly the rest of the weekend. Here are 5 kids trying to dump Corey out of his floaty. I think they succeeded, but Corey doesn't let the kids get away without a payback!

Headstands.

Corey's younger sister, Erica, and her boyfriend, Dustin, took the kids tubing. My boys didn't like the tubing so much, but loved riding on the boat. I stayed on shore with Lewis. It was a cool drizzly day, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

A game of Life. We also played some nerts one evening; a game I am not good at, but I actually got to call Nerts once- my first time ever.

Lewis and Shaan playing with a marble machine that I think Corey's grandpa built for Erica when she was little. Lewis and Shaan had much fun with it. Aside from Lewis' throwing a few toys at Shaan, (that kid is always throwing things!) they had a great time together.

A Lesson from the Professional

My brother took some time yesterday morning to give Owen a drawing lesson. It is something Owen loves to do, and I think there is probably no better way for him to learn than to work with someone who makes his living as an artist. And he's is probably one of the most talented artists on the planet. I'm sure I'm a little biased, but take a look at my link to his website if you want to see what I'm talking about.