A God Given Late Summer Holiday

August 30, 2009

I am sitting here in the serenity of a quiet late August morning. It is an unexpected reprieve from the humdrum days of the end of summer. I thought our holidays were done for the season, but then out of the blue we ended up taking a spontaneous trip to the beach.

Three weeks ago, I came home from two weeks of heavy duty camping: no power, water, or sewer! I was ready for some hometime, but at the same time, I was really wanting to get into a campsite that had beachfront. The one I had been at was wonderful, but I had to walk about 5 minutes to get to the beach. As I drove by the place we are at now, on my way home from our two week holiday, I could see it was chock-o-block full! There was no getting in.

I could come back on the Monday at 8:00 am and see who was leaving and grab their spot before the crowds came from other campgrounds, but I didn’t really have the umph to get up early and be here vying for a spot. It would mean asking people if they were leaving and then asking if they minded me dropping my gear at the end of their site to ‘claim’ my spot on their site. I wasn’t really in the mood to do this, so I went home.

While at home, I knew the summer was slipping by and I kept thinking, “I should go back and try to get in the site,” but I knew it was going to be near impossible. In my head, I also got this little message running through it, “When do you *want* to go?”

Honestly, I didn’t want to go right away. I wanted about 1-2 weeks at home before I went out again. Well, time went by and I figured camping was done. Then as I was lazily lounging on the deck in the hot, hot late August sun, a friend called and asked if I wanted to go to the lake for an afternoon break?

It was hard to get my butt up and do it. It meant packing up six kids, life jackets, rubber toys, boxes of beach toys, towels, snacks and on and on. I told her I would let her know. I walked into the house and lethargically made my way down to the tv room, where I lay down on the couch. I called Cassidy to me and told him that if he could pull the gear together in 15 minutes, we would head to the lake for the afternoon.

I then called my friend back from my couch and told her we were on. She had some friends of her children over and she made six kids, plus our six, and so it was going to be a party. I had to take one of her children, as she didn’t have enough room in her truck and off we headed.

I wish I had brought my camera! It was wonderful. We headed to the campsite where I had originally wanted to go camping and lo and behold, it was nearly empty!! There was just two campers. We spent the next three hours at the empty beach with the preteens and teens hanging on the large foam block, the big and little ones burying each other in the sand, and lots of chasing each other through the sand and water.

When I went home I told Ray about the site being open and asked if he would be willing to drive me down the next day. Of course, being the nice guy that he is, he was more than willing to take half a day to wait for me to get organized and then set me up.

So here I am in the late morning enjoying the peace and quiet of the lake. And here I will be able to catch up on all my last three months of blogs that I haven’t written.

I feel so grateful because as we were saying the blessing over a breakfast at a picnic table overlooking a beautiful serene lake, I was awoken to the fact that I feel that God blessed us. That little voice in my head that said, “When do you *want* to go?” rather than listening to my reason that said I have to go *now*, or I won’t get in.

Well, I put it off and off, but I think God blessed us, as He knew I wanted to get in and just in time for the last hot week of summer my friend spontaneously calls me and asks if I want to go to the very lake I wanted to camp at. We never go this far from home for a day trip! If I hadn’t been here for the afternoon I would never have known it was vacant for camping. Thank you Lord for knowing the little things in life that mean so much to us!!

.