When Life Gives You a Felled Tree...

.....burn it.

We had planned all along to camp out in the backyard Friday. We have some friends who are moving that gave us their fire pit, because they'll need a much bigger one where they are going. We were so excited about roasting hot dogs and marshmallows (separately) over flame, that we did not consider how to get the flame started. Thankfully, God is always a few steps ahead and used a micro-burst to topple a 40 foot pine in our backyard, which left us with an abundance of limbs and kindling for our roast.

The pine tree, resting on branches of other trees in the yard. I've always wanted this one taken out, because it's right in the middle of our "garden".

Our campsite. 

Lightening Bugs

Roasting marshmallows. The ginormous ones. 

Ginormous. The s'more, not the girl.

A ginormous mess. 

See the logs? Perfect for sitting around a campfire. 

More lightening bugs. 

Two out of 5 of us ended up sleeping in the tent. We had some kicking of the face, so I ended up staying inside with the littles while Ryan and Kate slept outside. We kept telling ourselves "quantity not quality", because there was lots of craziness, borderline yelling, distraction, not listening...to which we began to question "why are we doing this? this is not fun!" But to the kids, it was. If I just thought of it like practicing for real camping, I was able to keep my cool. So we powered through and did make some great memories. 

As for the tree, we had Todd from Upstate Arborists (who I cannot say enough good things about) come and finish cutting it down, and Ryan is slowly trimming and bundling. He did 17 bundles of limbs Saturday, and is about halfway finished. I am very proud and inspired by the way he did it so happily. Does it sound like I took the felled tree in stride? Think again. It was one of many things last week that just about sent me over the edge. It was Father's Day weekend, and I think I felt more anger and entitlement than he did. I was complaining for him: "I mean, you should be relaxing, doing something fun!" In turn, he says to me, "yeah, but this is my favorite place to be, whether it's relaxing or working." That kind of contentment in the sovereignty of God and his "lot" in life gives me the peace to know that with God, there isn't anything we can't handle, big or small. I am thankful for a loving, patient and fun loving man to endure the trials with!