Tomorrow we will reunite with our kids after their two-week stay at camp. A daily highlight when they are away is searching for those three precious faces among the sea of kids in the online photos posted each morning by the camps. Here are just a few that made me smile…
But don’t think for a minute that we’ve just been sitting around waiting for pictures to post. Nope. We have been making our own memories and decided to document it for our kids. What they will see and we needed to remember is:
1. WE ARE FUN (family joke!) In all seriousness, we need to have more fun. This recent Ann Voskamp tweet caught my attention:
“Seriousness is not a fruit of the Spirit. Joy is. We need to be about the serious business of joy.”
And you’ve heard quotes like:
“Families (or couples) who have fun together stay together.”
It is so easy to fall into our normal routines, being swept away by the busyness of life, that the spontaneity of activities we once enjoyed no longer happens. Obviously in the stage of life we are in now makes spontaneity hard anyway, so we must then be deliberate about planning fun things to do with each other or the laughter and joy will fade too.
2. With balancing full schedules, often forced to divide and conquer to get everything done, we don’t realize until the kids are gone (perhaps to camp or college or even just a weekend sleepover) that as spouses we may have become more like roommates. It is easy to lose touch with each other and not even know what to talk about. The reality is the longer you go without investing in one another by learning or relearning who each other is, the harder it is to undo bad patterns and to continue growing together instead of apart. That is why we wanted to capitalize on this time without kids to reconnect.
Plus, one of the greatest ways we can love our kids is to prioritize our communication and time together. Our life does not and should not always be centered on them. And when they see we are on the same page and enjoy being with one another they actually feel more secure.
The two weeks of our own “kamp” was invaluably necessary to our marriage and therefore to our kids. We tried new place, did some fun things and just hung out at home together. We enjoyed some time with friends and each of us had time to work uninterruptedly. I feel refreshed – and ready (I think) to put my mom hat back on!
Here’s the pictures to show…
Saturday brunch on the day the kids left.
Dinner out trying new places.
Afternoon at the lake biking the hidden trails.
Lots of painting grace needed for me while helping out friends!
Evenig spent at a downtown rooftop bar.
Now if we can just follow my own advice and not wait until next summer to keep this up!
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