We're at church camp this week.  Tim is the dean of a junior high week, and I am normally in a dorm room with girls.  This year, however, since Simon is still little, I'm staying in the Joshua Lodge, a fairly new dorm for deans' families.  The Joshua Lodge is basically the old chapel (with all the garage doors, for you Camp Illiana alumni) made into a really nice lodge.  Ezra and Simon are staying with me, and Isaac who pretty much thinks he's 13, is staying in the dorm with dad.

 

Last night, as I was just about to drift off to sleep, it hit me that I was literally lying in the exact spot where, 17 years ago, I felt like the biggest loser in the world.  Of course, I've had other moments in my life when I've felt like a loser, but this one stands out to me.  I had come to high school camp alone.  My youth minister brought me and was staying the week, but I didn't know any other kids.  I was already homesick after about an hour, and I really didn't want to be here.  I got put in a family group, and our group was sitting in exactly the spot where my bed is this week.  One of the questions we had to answer was, "when was your first kiss?".  Well, I hadn't ever been kissed (and, little did I know, I wouldn't be kissed until the night Tim proposed to me), so I had to say, "I've never been kissed."  One of the girls in the group looked at me like I was an alien and said, "Are you serious?", and the rest of the group looked at me in a way that made me feel so unloved, unwanted, stupid.   I wanted to fall in a hole or die.  I know they didn't mean it, but, in that moment, I felt as if no one would ever choose me or see me as beautiful.

 

Now, here I am, married to the hot guy in charge of the week and sleeping in the very spot where I felt such pain.  He really does...He takes our "ugly" and makes it beautiful.  I love Him...I sooooo love Him.

Ezra is potty training.  It's a blast.  Tonight he told me that his pull-up was not net wet because he peed in it, but, rather, because a bear licked it.  Ok.  I would be concerned about this if I didn't know that many of the things that come out of Ezra's mouth are things he makes up!  Earlier this week, we were going swimming and we were out of swim diapers.  Tim put a thick pair of training underpants on Ezra and told him, "you can wear these underneath your swim trunks."  A couple of days later, we were going swimming again and I said, "oh, shoot, I forgot to get swim diapers."  Ezra quickly replied, "That's ok.  I can wear my neath.  Daddy told me that swimmers wear a neath."  After a few minutes of confusion, I figured out that the training underpants which Tim described as going "underneath the swim trunks" now have a new name--a neath!!!

 

Meanwhile, Isaac is spending his summer working through his "learn to draw" book and begging to swim every day.  He leaves for an overnighter at church camp bright and early tomorrow morning.  He's totally excited about it, but mom and dad can't believe he's old enough to go.  One of Tim's college classmates is the dean of the overnighter which is really fun.  Isaac and Daddy sang the song "Watching You" (look it up on You Tube if you've never heard it!) on Sunday for Father's Day.  They did a super job, and Isaac wasn't even nervous!!

 

Simon is happy to just eat, sleep, and poop.