Thomas and Camping.

Walker's belated birthday present was a trip to see Thomas the train. Someone came up with the genius idea of building a Thomas look-a-like and taking him across the country.

Walker didn't know what to do with himself because there was some sort of Thomas paraphanelia everywhere he looked. He was so excited to see the conductor but then something else caught his eye while I tried to get a picture.

They had little activities to do so you could make a whole morning of it.

The bounce house was train shaped, of course. 
You could take your pic with Thomas but Walker just wanted to stare at him.

By far Walker's favorite thing was handing his ticket to the conductor. He probably handed it to someone 10 times and this VERY nice man would always play along with him. Here he is gearing up to hand his ticket.

Checking out the new whole punches.

I'm pretty sure this was the best day of his life. The actual train ride was pretty funny. You just went backwards for about 10 minutes, then forward to the starting point. They didn't care and I'm not sure they even noticed. They were both glued to the window the entire time.

I'm glad we went to the trouble to do it, because both boys loved it.

My fun friends had an idea to take the older kids camping. This was SO FUN!!! I don't know if the moms or kids had  more fun! We ate and ate and ate while the kids played with sticks
 and ran around. It's just so fun to be out in nature away from any responsibiliies and just relax.

That was our setup. The tent directly above looks like it would be easy to set up. It's not.

We did it up right and roasted marshmallows and even had story time and craft time. Big props to Retta for setting up the tents AND starting the fire AND providing 99% of the vital equipment. It was so fun, can't wait to do it again!

I heard something recently that I think is really applicable to me right now. The speaker was saying that you're going to talk to someone about your unresolved issues, you better talk to the RIGHT someone. You need to take it to God and get it off your chest and if you feel it's appropriate, take it to whoever you think needs to hear, but make a decision. Be intentional. Don't just let the emotions sit idle because they're going to surface. I'm a woman, OF COURSE we want to talk it out. As obvious as it sounds, it really never occurred to me to sit down and think "Who do I need to talk to about this to be done with it?" After I  heard the speaker say that, it still didn't click with me until I found myself in a situation talking to people I shouldn't have been, purely because I had the need to talk it out.  I think I had been content to ignore certain things because there's no action needed by anyone. I'm not angry, nor do I have reason to be. No one owes me an apology or needs to make something right. I just want to be heard, simple as that. Considering I overshare on the internet regularly, I'm sure it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that I would want to be heard. What was such a shift in thinking for me was that wanting to be heard was valid. That it's ok to just need to have a discussion without any expectation or need of a particular outcome. The discussion IS the desired outcome. That was my relevation for this week and in the spirit of continued oversharing, I wanted to blog about it.

That's all I have. If anyone wants to go camping, please invite me. And be prepared to provide equipment and survival skills.

And I love this scripture beacuse I can't even count the ways I fall short, daily and repeatedly. What good news this is for people like me.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:23-24