Camp

We just got back from an awesome few days at Nicole Foster's favorite place, Village Creek Bible Camp. Seriously, all of you friends in the midwest with kids who like the outdoors should go. A little about the week here and you can see a video mashup of our adventures at the end.

First of all, VCBC is located in Northeast Iowa. As I am only familiar with the parts of Iowa to be seen from the I-80, I did not have great expectations for the area we were going. I was wrong, it was beautiful. There are a lot of ridges and valleys and streams, just a pretty, peaceful spot.

We arrived on Sunday evening after driving most of the day -- road trips with toddlers not nearly as fun as road trips alone :) When we got there, the Fosters met us and we all had dinner together. Joshua was glad to see Charlotte after being promised her company all day. The rest of that evening we got settled in and had an opening chapel.

Monday morning, we met are awesome family helper, Tristy, and spent time over the next several days doing camp things, trying to get Joshua to take a pony ride (a no-go), strapping Joshua into the harness on the trampoline, a kayak ride for Andy and me, hiking, paintball for Andy, and a night zipline for the two of us again. It was a great time of hanging with friends and each other. We are looking forward to returning!

Thoughts on leaving work

I have been having a lot of thoughts about leaving work lately. Sometimes I am super excited, sometimes I am terrified, but mostly I am bewildered. I know I will have a lot to DO every day (Joshua is pretty good at keeping me busy), but what of greater significance will I be acomplishing. I am beginning to doubt my abilty to be a good role model for Joshua -- he can make me angry somedays I am afraid of losing my temper. I also worry about not spending my time well, wasting it. At work, I always had a list of projects to do, at home I have a list of projects, but they are not nearly as fun (I prefer designing databases and doing stat analysis to taking care of my house anyday). Also, at this point I think I will be returning to a job someday and what the heck will that be?
I think I am also having a hard time because I am leaving this job feeling like I failed. I failed as a working mom and it is hard to deal with. I didn't have the chops to do a job and be a mom. This is where my comparing myself to others always comes back to bite me. So and so does it. I know I could do it if I pushed myself and made myself and my family miserable, but I have determined that cost is too high, but still the question remains, why can't I do it all? Anyway, so that is where I am, in a place of really needing words of encouragement because YIKES! IN three days I will be a stay-at-home mom. Good friends (you know who you are), keep me accountable to not trying to find another career path or job for the 1st month I am home. I need to really seek God on what I should do, and not start working on something else right away.

Reading

I took this a few weeks back, and am finally getting around to putting new things up. Enjoy!

Big boy bed

More proof that Joshua is no longer my baby, we moved him to a big boy bed a few weeks ago. He loves it, as you can see from the picture, although sometimes he ends up sleeping on the floor. That is better for your back anyway, right? :)

The benefits to this change for us are: no more worrying about his habit of climbing out of the crib and ending up on the floor, head first; a happier kid at naptime and bedtime (he still gets upset, but then just goes and plays if he doesn't feel like sleeping); and the biggie is he is content to be in his room most mornings until 6:30 or 7! Hallelujah!

The disadvantage is a huge mess of a room some mornings and afternoons after naps (we quickly realized the markers had to be moved to another room--I got him up one morning and he was covered in marker, he had even colored some of his hair!).

All in all, we are all happy with the change. Thanks Grammy Barb for getting us the new bed!