Summer Happenings & Family Thoughts

Hi, remember me?   5th-wheel-dweller?  Squatter on a beautiful mountain property with a musical husband and four home-schooling children? Lover of gardens and coffee and food?  Used-to-be avid blogger who disappeared for two years? Slight exaggerator because it's been more like three weeks?  Hello, my name is Katie.  It's good to be back.

I might have overwhelmed myself with all the thoughts, activities, and pictures I thought I needed to post over the past few weeks.  Instead of breaking everything up into cute little bite-sized pieces, I vacationed from beloved blogland in self-imposed exasperation.  Really, I'm only hoping to remember the art of forming complete sentences.

Do you want to see something Amish?  I knew you did.

and

and

Oh, and a little souvenir for myself:

But what I really wanted to take home was

and

That house up there?  That's where we stayed for the week.  You can rent it, too, if you want (click here). :)  We stayed there with Jer's brother and his sweet family, aka some of our best friends.  And that yarn? It was hand-woven and dyed right there in Lancaster, PA.  It's time for me to learn how to knit, I guess.

In case you didn't hear (you can if you want here), we were gifted six plane tickets to Lancaster County, PA to meet up with a lot of Riddles for a family reunion and to celebrate Jeremy's grandparents' 60th anniversary.  60 years or marriage, folks!  There's just too much to talk about when 43 Riddles gather, but I will tell you there were lots of stories shared, sweet moments, and 500 water balloons filled and deployed in less than an hour.  It was an unforgettable 5 days, and I am so thankful we were able to be apart of it.

Being in Amish country was an added treat.  We even had an Amish-served dinner one night.  It was eye-opening in two ways.  First, this old-order Amish family served us delicious food.  We tasted the best peanut butter we've ever experienced, and the woman of the house told us she added marshmallow cream and pancake syrup to make it so irresistible.  I was thankful for the tip, but I must admit the ingredients didn't seem very... Amishy.  And then,  on top of the apple pie... Plop, plop. Cool Whip.  I got a little woozy.  I must admit some personal assumptions of Amish eating were crushed.  But when Eli (who couldn't have been older than five) dragged a bench seat to the kitchen sink and started washing dishes,  my heart was refilled with sweet affection for this culture.  I also realized my kids have been holding out on me.

Family reunions and Amish families and (currently) visiting my amazing parents has got me thinking about, well, family.  Because I've just overwhelmed myself with what I've already written, I'm a'goin' bullet point my thoughts on family.

• I love it when families share life together.
• There's a lot to learn from the Amish about being interdependent on family and community.
• Working and playing together as a family just needs to happen more for us.

Also, I think I discovered a major mental block that has kept me from incorporating my children in more of my daily life: my goal is to impart to my kids what I've learned and not to get my to-do list completed as quickly as possible.  You know?  I could do all the daily chores as fast as I can and never have time to enjoy my kids (short-term thinking that I've been stuck in), or I could take extra time to teach and incorporate my kids in more daily chores so we can all get the work done and have time to play (happy, long-term thinking).  I'm taking this new concept to more than just chores.  It's finding it's way in our spiritual and educational growth as a family.

This is all so simple but so new.  All I have left to say is I'm excited about our future as a family.  New vision and good examples go a long way.  Thank you, Amish folks.  You've always been my heroes in so many aspects of life.