Pearl’s birthday falls at such a perfect time to celebrate
summer, that we really need an itemized list to remember everything we did to
make her birthday special. We had
celebrated with Grammy and Poppop early, so the parties really lasted nearly
three weeks. The night before her birthday we said goodbye to seven (which is
our little ritual).
On the day she turned eight, we tried to complete everything
on a list she made up, which included a family cherry picking party—this just
means picking cherries at the local orchard, but she loves it--lunch with the
whole family, and tea party with her stuffed animals.
We spent two days at Cape Henlopen, a State Park in
Delaware. The girls instantly turn into beach girls when we go, and Ruby and
Sapphire were especially delighted with the beach. Sapphire made friends with
all our sand neighbors, especially the ones with good toys. Nana came down too and distributed birthday Frozen towels, which were a huge hit. Sadly,
Nana took sick and had to abandon the beach on our second day.
The birthday bliss ended with a low key pirate party with
two little friends, ice cream sandwich-pirate ships for dessert, and some
pirate hats. It turns out it doesn’t take much! They made a plank bridge into a
deadly plank that everyone loved to walk.
In the midst of this week, we had over sixty people over to
our new home, and some of them came multiple times for lunch during the youth
retreat. This is exactly how we wanted to be using our larger space. The youth spent their mornings painting a
Rescue Mission property before stopping by our home for lunch and devotions. The
girls loved hanging out with them in the afternoons and around the inescapable
campfire. We slept at a home kindly
opened to us for the retreat, and Ruby asked if that was now our new house,
poor confused little thing. The youth stayed up late goofing off and asking
questions about the Bible.
Hours after the retreat ended, Daniel’s black belt test
candidates were rolling up our driveway. About twelve of his students spent the
night here, showing their skills at forms, breaking, and stamina. They were amazing guests. While I am not part
of the karate world, I do admire the deeply respectful, helpful attitude it
engenders. They went for a run in the middle of the night and were up before
me, working out on mats under our carport. The little girls were very
entertained by everything they did, and I was able to rest while an exhausting fever
laid me low. I'm now on the mend.
