Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
Isabelle and her daddy are sleeping in a tent right now. Outside, where it’s muggy. Meanwhile Mommy and Corban are in the cool air-conditioned basement of our bed-and-breakfast, lunch and dinner (aka Nana’s house).
Today packed a double-punch of summer fun — date day and camping in the backyard.
Phil and I dropped the kids off with their grandparents and headed to 
Sterling to eat at The Candlelight Inn. The Candlelight isn’t on our usual tour of food when we come home. Typically, we take a date night to Salamandra’s, but that restaurant is closed right now for kitchen renovation. So, we moved to plan B. Chicken George. 
It’s been years since I’ve eaten Chicken George. And for those of you who don’t know what it is, I don’t know how to describe it, except to say it’s the best chicken strips I’ve ever eaten, and the Jan sauce is simply delicious and hard to duplicate. We’ve tried and it never tastes quite like the original. It was a lovely sit-down lunch for us.
After lunch, we had some time to kill before the movie started, so we went to the mall to walk around. Little did we know it was Senior Showcase day, so the mall was filled with vendors and senior citizens. We ran into some friends and former co-workers. Unexpected, but fun.
Finally, it was on to the movie theater to see “Dinner For Schmucks.” A bonus, besides paying the matinée price, was the $1 popcorn and drinks. Rarely can I watch a movie without popcorn. I had high hopes for laughter during the movie. After watching two hilarious previews, I wondered if those would be the only laughs of the next couple of hours, but “Dinner” didn’t disappoint. My husband and I are sort of Steve Carell junkies in withdrawal this summer without new episodes of “The Office.”
We ended the day having a picnic/fire/campout in the backyard of my parents’ house. Brats, chips and dip, chips and salsa for supper. Pool time for the children. S’mores and campfire pies cooked on the open flame. Mmm, mmm, good. We’ll see how long the sleeping outside lasts for the 2-year-old and her daddy. If this experiment is successful, our next campout might actually be at a park instead of a backyard.
It’s August now. What happened to summer? We had all these plans to make this summer memorable, and while we were able to make a few of those 
memories in June, July with its oppressive heat confined us to the comforts of air conditioning with our new best friend, Dora.
It’s August, but it’s not too late. Still plenty of time to squeeze the life out of summer. We’re making the next 30 or so days count. So begins our quest to save summer.
We start in Illinois. As you can see, the kids have wasted no time jumping in to summer activities.
Though neither of them are wearing swim pants in this picture, I’m confident we’re going to run through the stash we brought with us. Swimming is almost all Isabelle can talk about right now.
Not to be outdone by summer fun, my husband, his sister, our brother-in-law and I stole away while the kids were napping to the Amboy Pharmacy with its old-fashioned soda fountain to have an array of Green River treats — two Green River floats and a Green River milkshake. No bottled Green River, though. Not even the friendly staff at the Pharmacy could tell us where to find it.
Such a pity. It was a favorite drink of ours when my husband and I were dating. I can’t really explain what it tastes like, only that I like it and so far, Amboy is the only place I know to get it. May have to add it to our tour of food when we come home for visits.
To further our spontaneity and memory making, we decided to indulge in the penny candy (well, most of it cost 5 or 10 cents, but still …). The Pharmacy has this fantastic selection of loose candy you can hand select and purchase individually. We were all a litte giddy, like kids in a candy store (har, har, har), filling our little brown bags with our sugary selections, counting out our change like we were 10 and spending all the money we had. My husband and his sister recalled the many times their grandma would send them to the Pharmacy with a handful of change to buy whatever they wanted. The only restriction, they said, was candy cigarettes. They weren’t allowed to come home with those.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m pretty excited about this week in Illinois and a few fun things we have planned when we get back to Pennsylvania. Stay tuned.