Unexpected blessings

Yesterday as I was cleaning up the few dishes after dinner I realized that even though I had started the day with plans for a simple lunch and simple dinner (sure to draw complaints from the kiddos), we ended up eating quite well!  First, Mor-Mor surprised us by treating us to lunch at her place -- for all of us!  The kids cheered when they heard this news, because they think that lunch room is about the best thing going.  (They get to circle their choices on a menu, and they always get dessert, so it's a blast!)  We had a wonderful time visiting with her.

Then, Pete brought home leftover sandwiches from work -- which makes me think that his new job definitely has some pretty great perks.  We had them for dinner -- no cooking for me!

Plus, we had fun time with cousins during the day.

So, it was a day of unexpected blessings, and as I started thinking about it, I realized this whole summer has been like that.  I think this has been the best summer I've had in a very long time... maybe ever?

We've had plenty of TIME.  The last few years have started to feel like things are spinning way too fast, and even the summers were full of trips (or moving home from overseas in 2012) so that I could barely catch my breath before the next school year started.

This summer, since our original plans to be out West for 4 weeks were canceled, we've found ourselves with extra days at home, which has been nice, too.

We've had time to do some cooking together.... This meal was mainly made by these kids:

We've had time to play some new games, read some new books (I recommend this one for kids, written by a college friend), institute a new "ticket" system around here, and just generally get organized.

And we've had a lot more time to play with friends and cousins:

 ...Speaking of surprises -- here's Strider trying to photo-bomb:

I've also had some head-space to just THINK a little, too.  (Of course it's all in 5-minute increments still... I've been interrupted about 36 times since I started this blog post.) Now we're all working on finding the connection between what we say and what we think... Here's our new banner in the sun room:

So, thank you, Lord, for a good summer, full of unexpected blessings!