A week of thankful and extraordinary women…

This is a birthday week in my life.  And the birthdays belong to no one in my “family.”  No one who lives with me celebrates their life this week…oh, but it is a birthday week for me!

God has been generous to me.  He has placed wise and beautiful women in my life who encourage me, make me laugh, convict me, inspire me, share life with me, and mostly point me back to our Lord who is the giver of every good gift.

I really love this week.

All of these women were brought into the world in different years, but I think that God has done an extra special work in the world during the week of ‘August teens.’

*How fun is it to visit archives and find old pictures that bring back great memories?!

August 16th: Dear Caroline

This woman will always be referred to as my faithful friend.  While we have not “done life” together in almost 18 years (gasp!), Caroline will always be close to my heart.   Caroline is faithful and is true.  She is passionate, yet grounded.  She is intensely talented and creative.  I just love her.

August 18th: Wonderful Jess.

*sidenote – I barely have any pics of Jess & I – but that is life.  Time spent with her is also time spent with our delightful kiddos…and they don’t take pictures very well.  When we are with our hubbies – I never remember my camera.

God gave me a special gift in Jess during this stage of my life.  Our eldest kiddos are months apart (I met Jess because our daughters were in the same playgroup as baby-babies), and therefore our lives look so similar right now.  Jess loves Jesus – my most favorite thing about her.  She is generous with her time and models hospitality in such wonderful ways.  I love to talk practical with her.  I love to talk spiritual with her.  I love to laugh with her.

August 19th: Amazing Katy.

Katy is a blessing of marriage.  She has known my husband for a decade longer than I have, and her husband is Donald’s best friend.  I received a friend for life in her when I married my wonderful hubby.  I loved getting to know Katy as teenagers in college…and here we are 4 kiddos later.  Katy is amazing.  Her life is such a beautiful encouragement and yet it gently convicts as well.  She loves her husband and family with a lovely and fierce grace.  Our hearts are often moved by similar things, and bouncing ideas off of her is always a treat.  Katy is wise and humbly offers beautiful perspectives on things.  I always anticipate with great joy spending time with her.  If I could have a weekly date of drinking coffee and eating a brownie with her…oh, goodness.

 

The August teens – what a week of wonderful women.  I am so grateful to celebrate their lives.

One morning in our summer…

I can’t remember…have I ever mentioned how we love the lake?

Well, just to reiterate…we really really love the lake.  After our friends and our house, it is the thing we are most thankful for regarding where we live.

However, our lake time is severely limited.  I mean it barely makes it into the 80’s at night!  So, we load up the car when the daddy-o leaves and head down the road for some morning lake time.  And hop back in the car so we’re home by 9.  Seriously.  But, we gotta get outside!  We Wallaces weren’t made for Texas summers!

First stop: Dog Park.  We talk about our future puppy.  How Abi will politely ask him/her if she can ride on them (yep, that is what she is most excited about with our hopeful new puppy semi-soon) – what color they should be – what their name should be – etc.  Here she is mid-statement “daddy, please can we get a puppy NOW?!”  Well, that may be what I’d be saying…

Then we have our breakfast and chit-chat.  I love just hearing what she thinks about.  ‘Tis great.

And brother here is along for the ride.  We hope it’s a good one!

Charity:Water – Abi:Party

First things first…check this out:

Oh wow, right?  Like break your heart, make your mind spin wow.  I know that we’re all pretty aware of the water crisis that is happening in the world – but at times it can feel frustrating not knowing how to help.  I think this is where Americans are recipients of a strange grace: money helps!  Donating money helps build wells, and that helps communities get the clean water that they need to live.  Not thrive, not have successful lives…simply live.

So, where does Miss Abi fit in?  God gave a special gift in her.  She has a compassionate heart at such a young age and a wise little heart.  We started talking about how Abi has been given much in life and while God loves all sweet children and so do their mommy’s and daddy’s (we shield her from the reality that not every parent is loving for right now) – not every child has access to the many things that she does.  Even water.  And her little mind remembered that.  And she wanted to help others get clean water.  And she thought the idea that her birthday could help with that was VERY cool.  Which we thought was VERY cool.

So, we hoped on Charity:Water and set up Abi’s Birthday Page.  We asked for our friends and family to give differently…and gracious and beautiful families helped!  And we’re on our way to raising money for other three year olds and their families to have clean water and enjoy the goodness that we have so lovingly and graciously been given.  Here’s her party…

Friends and Family: THANK YOU.  Our hearts are encouraged.

13 people have been given clean water in honor of Abi’s birth.  We are so grateful and excited!

In her sweet words:

What to do?

When you’re stuck in the consecutive 35+ days of over 100 degrees?

You grab the hose…

and chase your daddy…

and remember to be thankful and smile…

for that joy that even ridiculous heat can’t take away.

Bevo

That word alone sends chills down a good Ag’s spine.

But…here he is…on our street

He really is a cool looking animal…but according to Abi “he smells”  Gig ‘em Abi, Gig ‘em

Hsssssss…(we aggies really are delightfully strange)

 

We weren’t sad to see him go :)  Oh goodness, just kidding, my love for animals may trump…it was pretty cool to have a HUGE longhorn on our street!

 

The Roadtrip {Week 3}

Well, this mini novella is coming to end – week 3, the conclusion of our journey!

We savored and treasured this week a bit more.  We recognized that this time was coming to an end and we clung to each precious moment.  We were talking with some friends the other night (who also recently graduated SMU’s program and had the time to head to Africa and then Greece!) about the feelings of ending something that you know was just so unique.  Closing something that probably won’t ever be repeated in life.  It’s kind of anti my personality.  I naturally want to seek/recreate something out again and again if I really enjoy it/find it fulfilling (perhaps we all do?) – but in this experience, my option was to relax, savor, and soak up.  And move on to the next chapter of life with peace and hopefulness.

Week 3 Itinerary: Drive Highway 1 – End in San Francisco

Highway 1

Driving Highway 1 was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.  I had thought about doing this drive for such a long time (not knowing how it would really ever work in our stage of life!) and so I feel like being able to do this was an extra special gift.  We took about 5 days to drive from San Diego to San Francisco – camping and hotel’in it – along the way.  The CA weather was amazing – but it really was chilly in the evening.  And because of this, camping wasn’t totally the experience that we had hoped for.  Donald & I slept extremely poor (rained hard during one night…thankfully the rain fly worked great except for one area…right above my head.  Think Chinese water torture.)  Nate got the best sleep out of all of us – I think that was a gracious recipient of the “best sleeper award.”  But, our first night to camp – we could hear the ocean roaring.  So fantastic.  A beautiful way to sleep and an equally delightful way to wake up.

We then climbed these awesome dunes right on the coast – probably one of my favorite ‘3 hour’ segments of the trip.  Those moments will be engrained in my mind for a good long time.

Monterey

What a great little resort town.  Famous for its beautiful bay and fantastic aquarium – we knew that we’d be making a stop here.  Would love to come back and spend more time in Monterey.

Big Sur

I think this is Highway 1 at its finest.  Beautiful stretches of coast, cars pulling off EVERYWHERE to grab pics, but you still feel alone in the beauty of it.  Very cool camping site – some great hiking – no threats of bears.  All good things!

Random Awesome

Along the drive – just snippets of what made this part of the trip so fantastic:

San Francisco

We love this city.  Definitely a place we would move to in a heartbeat.  Donald & I spent our first anniversary here, so it was pretty much an identical trip for us.  HAH!  We did absolutely NOTHING the same way, except visit Ghirardelli way too many times and stop by the sea lions more than once…because really, don’t forget who you’re traveling with!

All those years ago…

 

This was a great place for us to end our trip.  We were familiar with the city, and just enjoyed our final four days hanging out in parks – eating some delicious food – grabbing ice cream at least 5 times once or twice – and walking everywhere.  Love that.  Our stroller got some serious mileage here.

 

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.                  Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Summer {Delight of a Weekend}

It was just a good one.  Do you know what I mean?  When you lay in bed on Sunday night, reflecting over the past few days, and a smile just easily finds your face.  I found my face smiling last night.

Friday night was spent at Doons’ parents house prepping for Abi’s little party – having family close by is such a blessing.  It is evenings like these that I am especially reminded to be thankful!

(picture from earlier in the summer)

Saturday: the joy of watching Abi with her buddies, amazing feeling of community, and just enjoying spending time with dear people in our life.  May I have a second serving, please?!

(more to come on kiddo’s blog soon)

Saturday night: coolest baby shower.  Some awesome friends getting ready to welcome some little ones into their home.  Visit their blog and be encouraged. 

Sunday: I just love back-to-school.  Our church organized a backpack stuffing shindig (with some help from World Vision) to distribute backpacks to some local communities that our church loves on.  Helping Abi stuff her bag (she picked the green pack - that’s my girl!) was such a treat, and writing her note of encouragement (I just loved this, after the bag was stuffed, we asked that the family stuffing write a note to encourage the kiddo who would be receiving it!) made me smile.  Children have such a capacity to love – honestly and with no strings attached – it’s a good, good thing.

Boxes…and boxes…and boxes stuffed with loaded backpacks…yes!

Sunday night: Enjoying and saying goodbye to some dear friends as they head on out to the wild wild west of Colorado…(boo, forgot my camera…the kids earlier in the weekend)

It was a good one…we are grateful.