Life as a Lewis

*My appointment at Vanderbilt is at 3:00 this afternoon. I appreciate your prayers. On our way back from Burgess Falls, we stopped at this bus graveyard along the road. It would have been a really cool place for a photo shoot! As it was, my kids were very hot (and I wasn't really willing to wade through the weeds) so I snapped just a few and we moved on.

On our way to East Tennessee Rory informed us that her sugar pressure was very low. I picked up these Born lime-green wedges on clearance last week. Pretty sure wearing lime-green shoes are a first for me. We might have hit up both the La Casa Taqueria restaurant and food truck last week. We did not, however, take even one selfie. At my previous job, hose were a requirement. Total bane of my existence. That probably explains the uniform of yoga pants for the last 6.5 years. I'm still a little unsure as to how nice a wardrobe I need for this new job, but since all the men were in jeans, I'm thinking my dress code will be more casual than previous jobs. It would be like a dream come true to wear jeans to work. (Clearly I like to dream big.) Lunch with friends after church Sunday. Brian says he can't get a word in when Lindsey and I are together. Not only has Camden outgrown Gymboree, but he's now too old for the kid's menu at ...

Camden and Rory arrived home safe and sound Saturday afternoon. Safe, sound, tired, and more than a tad sassy. I hear their week involved 4 nights of camping, hikes, lots of games around the campfire, some candle making and weaving with the park rangers and alot of eating junk food! I wish I had pictures of their week, but we'll have to just go with the good memories. What I had pictured of that week without kids was quite different than the reality. The dream was of quiet days spent drinking iced coffee and getting caught up on my scrapping and photography. The reality was no scrapping and a very, very busy week. I will say, however, that my house actually stayed clean without kids to dirty it up. And this completely makes me laugh: we took out a grand total of 1 bag of trash and I did 1 load of laundry for the whole week. That changed immediately after the kids walked in the door, of course. So part of the reason last week was so busy was that I spent a day in Nashville ...

We ran away to East Tennessee for a very busy weekend. It was both personal and business. We were able to visit with both sets of Brian's grandparents, as well as his brother, nieces, parents, aunt and uncle. We were there less than 72 hours but managed to fit in alot of catching up, 1 presentation of 180 Church, 2 sermons, a trip to Lake Holston, and 17 hours of driving. Just a few pictures - it was so busy that I did not pull out the camera nearly often enough. Kids piled on Uncle Jon to watch some late-night TV. We spent about 6 hours Saturday at Lake Holston. It rained the first couple of hours, but then turned into a beautiful cool day. East Tennessee is just breathtakingly beautiful (although I do miss some signs of civilization occasionally - like driving for several hours one way with no Starbucks or anything other than the occasional fast food restaurant). Brian trying to grill hotdogs in the cold rain. Kids played soccer for hours af...

Camden turned 11 years old today. Let's go ahead and get the required "how did he grow up so fast?" out of the way.  This kid is starting to get legitimately funny. Not the funny where it's humorous because he's still learning or little and cute. No, he's got his own sense of humor and sarcasm these days. He's one of those kids that succeeds at whatever he does (which is probably to his detriment at times since it makes him not have to try hard at anything). I can't wait to see what he settles on and gets really great at as he grows. His 3 favorite pastimes are reading, playing Legos, and singing. In no particular order. He's the kid that never seems like he's paying attention, but then can recite back word for word what was just said. Annoying, right? :) And don't even get me started on how he can recite movie lyrics or book paragraphs. He comes through with a deep thought at the best times. He still is a cuddler (a.k....

Our weekend was full of all kinds of good things starting with shopping for a new kitchen table. I'm happy to report that we found exactly what we were looking for at our very first stop, and some nice Amish man somewhere in Kentucky is currently building us one as I type. Okay, I don't know if he's started yet, but we ordered one anyway. :) Friday night the kids went to a school event (kind of like a parent's night out), and if their sweat level when we picked them up was any indication of how much fun they had, then it was a good time. Meanwhile, Brian and I decided last minute to throw a movie into out date night. The only thing we remotely wanted to see was Edge of Tomorrow, and I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Definitely sci-fi, but not cheesy and an entertaining way to pass 2 hours. We did a little browsing at Anthropologie, ran into a fellow blogger (who happens to see the same oncologist as I do), then supper at Th...

around here . . .  more cucumbers than I know what to do with. My vote is to only keep the perfect ones, but Brian has a very hard time throwing away veggies (even the not-so-good ones) from his precious garden. around here . . .  late nights leading to sleeping in. For the kids anyway. I am having the hardest time sleeping this summer. Almost to the point where I want to call my doctor and ask if we can change out my sleeping meds. around here . . .  overflowing library basket. around here . . .  lots of piano playing. From me and not Camden, surprisingly enough. While he hasn't been nearly as thrilled (or consistent with his practice as I thought he would be), I've been playing for nearly an hour every day for the last 3 weeks. around here . . .  fruit faces. around here . . .  Rory quoting Ruth 1:16 to Camden, "where you go, I will go." He finds it a little creepy. around here . . .  reading thi...