And I'm back

I'm back home and today I took back my house.  Things got put away and I felt more in control.  Good stuff.

I just hugged and kissed and kissed again and reassured the ducks into bed, and I'm finally able to sit and blog.  I've thought about it multiple times, but things have been wonderfully busy here and I'm wonderfully tired.

I must confess that I took around 900 pictures.  In my defense, my brother took about 100 of them (giving the camera to Kevin is dangerous).  There are also about 50 family pictures, 50 individual shots of my kids (I'm trying to take my own school pictures) and my mom asked me to be the official photographer which I loved. . . but it also meant taking lots of pictures of my amazing family.  My dad would call me over to him and ask me to take a picture of something.  I just went through them all and wrote down which ones I wanted to share.  Ahem. . . I need to go through again and do a little weeding.

In addition to being busy reaquainting ourselves with real life, I had a divine appointment last night (eager to share that one with ya!) and we are launching our fundraising video this week.  You are excited now right?!?  :)

Vacation.  This is our seventh year of going to Fremont Lake as a Koeman family.  It is always amazing, and this year was no different. . . and yet it was extremely different.

It was no different in that we had campfires and laughed.  We skied and tubed.  We ate suppers together.  We chased after children and caught fish.  We slept in cozy cottages on terrible mattresses and tried to rinse off in showers with heads shooting six streams in many different directions.  Kevin and Tricia made the best coffee.  Mom took stuff for tonka pies on the first night.  Gary hauled out the five pound bag of shelled peanuts to eat around the campfire and hid them in Kevin's boat on the day that we left.  We used band-aids and anti-itch cream on a regular basis.  I forgot to pack some things.  Ryan was extremely funny.  Good stuff.  Always good stuff.

YET, things were a bit different this year.  From the outside looking in, you might say that things were bad.  I have to confess though. . . they weren't.  First, the weather. . . ahem. . . was less than stellar.  Four of the nights were in the 40's.  There was only one day that was what we would call a "beach day".  One of the days was so cold and windy that we couldn't even be close to the beach.  Instead, we set up camp behind the garage and had a dance party there complete with a snack buffet.  Weather can dampen things.  Yes it can.  Here is what I figured out--though we are at a lake, this family is not limited by using the lake.  We found other ways to have fun together.  We bundled up.  We played games.  We visited each other's cabins.  We figured out how to light the heaters.  We praised God that the heaters worked.  We decided to make it good. . . and it was.

Second, there was the flu.  Mr. Flu showed up without an invitation.  13 of the 20 of us got sick at some point during the week.  That stinks.  It really really stinks.  It isn't fun to be sick. . . but to be on vacation and not in your own bed and knowing what fun is happening outside. . . but we made it.  We helped families that had parents down.  We adjusted our supper schedule.  We prayed for each other.  We tagged teamed as parents.  (Noel, Gary, Penny, and me all had it in our cabin.)  At one point I must admit, I asked my brothers if it was time for us to take a one day "time-out".  I can't even believe that I suggested it--I'm the girl with the JOY tattoo!  Mom and Dad had gone home because they were both sick and dad got phantom pain on top of it.  Three of the cabins had illness at the time.  My brothers declared "Nope.  We are gonna stay."  I'm glad we did.  I find that increasingly, it is easy to just "opt-out" of hard stuff. . . to take the easy way.  We gutted it out and got better and celebrated health.  It was good for me to learn.

Third each family took a meal.  In the past, my mom has prepared EVERY SINGLE SUPPER FOR US during vacation.  She sees it as a way to give us a break from the usual cooking.  The time had come to share a bit more of the load.  She wasn't staying in a place where she could cook, so each family took one night to cook for everyone else.  I loved it!  I loved seeing new ideas from my sisters.  I loved being served by the other families.  I loved serving them burgers and cheesy potatoes.  It was great.

The final change for us this year is that we were in a different cottage.  It was hard to do since I'm so sentimental and I really liked our original cottage, but seeing as we are the biggest family (and only getting bigger!) it made sense for Sprick Nation to be in the largest cottage.  Know what?  It was awesome!  We loved it.  We loved the extra bedroom.  It helped so much with sleeping and just keeping more calm in the cottage.  It was a really good change.  Sometimes Shanda. . . it is good to just move on.

I kept thinking about Michael during the week.  I hope he likes the water.  I wonder where he will sleep?  I hope he fits in well with the other cousins.  I think next summer's cottage vacation will be different again with his presence.  If next year is anything like this year, it is going to be wonderful.