For the next week-and-a-half, we are traveling up the California coastline. Praise God for frequent flyer miles that only allowed us to fly in and out of certain cities! Our original plan was to fly in and out of San Francisco for a three-day family reunion; boy, am I glad that didn’t work out. We are here for 10 days, Dad’s on vacation which means we can spend time as a family rather than just the four of us, and we get to see yet another marvelous work of God’s hands. Sequoia National Park is gorgeous! I can’t wait until the pics come out!
I had no room to pack my scrapbooking supplies, so the evenings in the hotel have been somewhat anti-climatic. However, I’ve been able to check out some great blogs. Many, many thanks to TwaddleMeNot for the great posts on obedience. I’ve been stewing on the idea of deeds done with cheerfulness. We’ve traveled full circle from the “I know!!” and blatant cutting me off when I ask the kids to get something done. Now we’re back to “Yes, ma’am”, but it is expressed in the surliest, most cynical tone until I could almost “pull an Estelle“ (my very old school mom) and “get my switch”. You can say what you want about those old methods of discipline, but they worked and none of us died from a good old-fashioned whipping, as my folks would call it. Though I still use those when appropriate, I'm glad to say that I've found that taking away privileges can be almost equally effective.
I totally screwed up the notebook idea (see my post on July 19th). First, I brought the wrong notebook pages. I thought these were the lined ones (important for the 8 yr. old) that the kids could scribe freely on; instead, I brought the notebook pages that are organized to be completed with pictures, poems, etc. during a calendar year. So, not enough pages for August, and no pages with lines. I'll get them to cover up the titles with pictures. I am determined to make this work, and I think their posts on yesterday made it all worthwhile:
(from my 8-yr.old):
When we started up the mountain my sister started to pray. I don’t blame her. There were no rails. We went 6000 feet high. We found these stairs. They led down the mountain. I almost slipped. After mountains, trees, and waterfalls it’s time to go.
(from my 11-yr. old):
Mountain Trip
We went up a mountain and saw a cow,
How it got there I don’t know how
We saw lots of trees both big and small,
Some even seemed a thousand feet tall.
We had a good trip but it’s time to go,
We saw the mountain both high and low.
Finally, wisdom for Dad from the 3-yr.old on how not to kill yourself while fanning away bumblebees:
“Dad, you have to be careful, and then you not get bo-bos, okay?”
Walking together, out of breath, but hand-in-hand through 3000-yr. old redwood forests: PRICELESS.
