Our trip to the Smoky Mountains

First entering Dollywood, this was the year of the roller coaster for all my kids.  Luke rode everything and loved it, Dania rode most things, but was terrified and laughing all at once, and Evan rode a coaster as well as some other things that tested him.  Nate and I rode about everything and had splitting headaches both days.  We paid $2 for 2 ibuprofen, and it felt like our heads were 80 yrs old.

Luke Squirting an innocent bystander.

Austin being his cool self of course.

We previously got the kids to play dead, this time Luke joined Dania in the coffin.

The girl can not keep a straight face for anything.

Riding the old fashioned train.

Evan with the help of the whole family rode his very first roller coaster.  This was his year to overcome his fear of them, and I was very proud of him.  He only did it once, but he was pumped about it. Unfortunately we have no pictures of he or Dania doing it, because we have no camera at this time, only the IPhone.

This is the very first roller coaster Dania ever rode, and she did it 15 minutes after we got to the park. This is probably the biggest and fastest there. She never did ride this one again. Evan said he could hear her moaning from his vantage point.

Evan on the thing that makes his mother feel like hurling.

She was having nothing to do with the stinky pigs in front of her.

This is not the stinky pig.

And these are not the stinky pigs either, the pigs are behind them. I didn't smell a thing.

Rose colored glasses

"Try these glasses on, everything is so bright and alive," he says to me on the way out of town.

"No, I like mine," I don't like rose colored glasses, it's not realistic, it feels unnatural."  Always the realist, sometimes the idealist, and once in a while I venture into the closet to be the optimist.

"Just wear them for a while, trust me, you'll love them."

So we trade glasses, he puts on my dark glasses with the metallic hot pink frames and I his rose amber framed glasses with the rose lens.

"I don't like them they are too bright."

"Just leave them on for a while."

I ride in silence and get used to the world through the rose glasses.  I ride along happily in my own thoughts trying to count the blessings of the moment as I listen to kids conversations and watch the world fly by. I feel happy, I see my blessings and they are many.  We stop to get gas and I quickly hand him back his glasses so that he doesn't have to be the big man pumping gas with girly hot pink glasses.

The air escapes from me as I put on my own glasses, "ugh!"

"I told you, you'd like em."

We ride in silence again listening to the kids chatter and the news radio, but this time I struggle to see what was so clear a moment ago.  I once again get used to my glasses, I ride content, but I forget to keep counting my gifts, I forget what the world looked like through the rose colored glasses.  The daft are so easily distracted.  I would have to do battle to see again, the boys snippy to the girl, the boys snippy to a mama, the mama wanting to plug her ears from the barrage of questions from the girl. I would see the gifts, but I wouldn't cover everything with thankfulness and the flesh would struggle and I would strangle on guilt.

Days later I would ask HIM why? Why all the struggle? When would I learn to see and believe. I would remember the glasses, the rose ones that changed the way I saw the world, and HE would say "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. "He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

He would take the ordinary and with the blanket of thankfulness transform it to extraordinary. Just like when he said, "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  Simple, always so simple in context, harder to implement in a life that feels comfortable in her own glasses.  It doesn't seem possible to really live like that, the realist once again confronts me.  Who can really live like that with rose glasses on all the time? I hear myself say that maybe the only ones that have ever really lived are those with glasses and that HE made a way for all to really see and live.

I know that waves will toss me. I will lose rose glasses, I will prefer the old ones but only for a time, a short time.  What was once a hazy image in my mind of true joy is coming into focus.  I am beginning to see.  Thank God for eyes of the soul!  I know what to do when I lose my way and I know where there are a limitless supply of rose colored glasses.

My birthday

was yesterday.  I awoke to my husband banging around in the kitchen cooking me breakfast.  You have no idea how sweet a sound it was to hear the banging of pots, and dropping of things.  Since Amanda left no body ever cooks for me anymore.  (Awww! that is so sad) It was a non momentous day, which at my age of 41 is a blessing.  We ended the evening with a beautiful sunset motorcycle ride through farm country.

Last year for my birthday I got glasses from the Lord, this year I told him I would like to keep everything I got going for me, but I guess that may have been crossing the line, cause when I sneezed 3 times in a row something happened that shouldn't of happened, ahem! That motivated me to exercise, you remember the exercise they told you to do after having a baby, yea that one.

Ashley is visiting from Brazil, and we are both using up our words for the year.  We talk and talk and I still have things I want to talk about.  It is nice to have her perspective on raising girls and parenting in general, because she is so much of a nicer person than I.  She is even blond and fair skinned (angel), where as I am dark and carry a little pitched fork.

My gratefulness list is coming along a lot better than before, and I have actually found that looking for the gifts of the days has made my days so much better, even when something unpleasant happens. I feel like I have such a better handle on my emotions as well.