Cottage Week '13

Cottage Week is one of the most highly anticipated weeks of the year.

Months ahead of time, we scour vacation rental websites for a cottage that is just right.

Weeks before, we plot and plan activities, outings, and meals.

When the big day finally arrives, we pile our vehicles high with snacks, sleeping bags, and tackle boxes, coolers, duffle bags, boats, and bikes.

We drive straight north in search of our beloved time away, until the road beneath us turns to gravel, and a cool lake breeze blows through the air.

And then we all pile out, arms full, hearts full. We race from room to room. We run to the end of the dock. We sink into the sofa.

We smile. We relax. We exhale.

Because we have arrived.

Because Cottage Week is like no other week of the year.

Check your troubles at the door.

Pile on in.

Lose control.

Live, play, eat, rest -- all in community.

Hold close the ones you love.

Hit the open road.

Take it all in.

Crack open a cold one.

Grab a towel -- and a friend.

Hunt for treasure.

Leave no stone unturned.

Stay up way past your bedtime.

Embark on an adventure.

Find out what's behind the curtain.

Enjoy the ride.

Create a ripple.

Make a SPLASH.

Embrace your bedhead.

Chart a new course.

Feel the wind in your hair.

Cross something off your bucket list.

Head home (when you must), 

but carry a piece of this week in your heart until you meet again.

Cooking Club.

Cooking club. Let me tell you: I'm a fan.

A night to try something new, to put on "real" clothes, to leave bedtime to the dads.

Mistakes, miscalculations, mishaps. Forgotten shallots (what is a shallot, by the way?!). Way too many peppercorns in the pan.

Minor victories. Great successes. Risatta, the food of heaven. Wait, or is it risotto?

A salad much too fancy for everyday life, we decided, but oh so delicious. What would life look like if we treated ourselves to food like this everyday, even on ordinary days?

Teamwork. A group effort. Reading directions. Ignoring suggestions. Community.

These girls. Gifts given and received recently, in my thirties. My council. My people.

Pretty sparkly glasses. Filled and refilled. Misplaced. Discovered again.

The details. A setting begging for a late night dinner party for five.

Finally. We sit, we exhale. We work out the problems of the week. We leave some for next time.

Food for the body. Food for the soul.

A beautiful, messy life, best lived around the table, glasses raised, forks in hand. For a few hours, the world seems to stand still.

"That's what this is about. This isn't about recipes. This is about a family, a tribe, a little band of people who walk through it all together, up close and in the mess, real time and unvarnished." 

--Shauna Niequist, "What The Table Is For", Bread & Wine

Cooking Club Menu, Part I:
Mini Mac & Cheese
Green Well Salad
Basic Risotto
Goat Cheese Biscuits
Steak au Poivre with Cognac Pan Sauce
Nigella's Flourless Chocolate Brownies
Blueberry Crisp

Finally Finley.

You can rest a little easier, friends: Finley Grace is finally home.

I've shared so much of her story here on this blog, that I wanted to make sure I didn't leave out the best part. After years of hoping, waiting, and dreaming, our dear friends are now adjusting to a new normal, to life as a family of five.

We couldn't be happier for them.

Photo Credit: Lindsay at Love is {in Pictures}

Welcome home, Finley Grace! 
We're so glad you're here!

Come to the table.

"This is what I want you do to: I want you to tell someone you love them, and dinner's at six. I want you to throw open your front door and welcome the people you love into the inevitable mess with hugs and laughter. I want you to light a burner on the stove, to chop and stir and season with love and abandon. Begin with an onion and a drizzle of olive oil, and go from there, any one of a million different places, any one of a million different meals."  --Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine 

I've never considered myself to be at home in the kitchen. I'm a rule-follower, I'm afraid of failure, I don't like messes, I have a million other things to do, a million other places I'd rather be. It's never made my heart sing.

Lately, I'm finding myself surprised by my time in the kitchen. I'm embracing the mess and taking my time and breathing deep and slowing down. I'm realizing the Other Things can wait. I'm finding that it's a great place to connect with my kids, that they love to help. I'm discovering that I am capable of creating things to nourish not just bodies, but hearts as well.

I'm learning that when I fill others up, it fills me up too. I'm seeing that the kitchen can be a good place to start, a good place to love, a good place to be.

Lately, I'm beginning to see the sacred value of the table. I'm starting to view it as a sacred place, to understand that the simple act of inviting others in to share a meal creates a safe, sacred space in an uncertain, harried world.

I took Shauna's advice today and invited some friends over. I didn't spend days planning or hours shopping or minutes fretting. I called, I invited, I used what I already had on hand, and we shared a simple meal on a regular old week day night around an ordinary table.

Pizza casserole, green salad {+goat cheese, pecans, Craisins}, homemade bread maker bread, fresh fruit, fresh squeezed lemonade.

From someone who is just beginning to embrace the kitchen, I can tell you none of these things were hard. Simple ingredients turned extraordinary because of the nine people, big and little, gathered around the table.

I love how Shauna writes, near the beginning of her book, that when she first started entertaining she served frozen California Pizza Kitchen pizzas to nearly all her dinner guests. Her advice: start where you are.

Let's not get hung up on the fancy or the perfect or the just so. Let's do as Shauna suggest and simply come to the table.

Here's an easy peasey sort of a meal. A staple in the early years of our marriage which is now making a comeback because the kids love it. It's also one of my favorites to bring to a new mom (throw in a salad and some garlic bread) or to stick in the freezer for busier times ahead.

Pizza Casserole

12 oz. spaghetti
2 eggs
1/4 C Parmesan cheese + extra for top
1 1/2 pounds ground beef (or other ground meat)
1/2 chopped onion
2 jars pizza sauce
1 C mozzarella cheese
pepperoni + other favorite pizza toppings

Boil noodles; brown beef with onion, salt & pepper. Mix cooked noodles with egg and Parmesan. Layer in a 9x13 pan (or two 8x8's): noodles, meat, sauce, mozzarella cheese, noodles, meat, sauce, pepperoni + pizza toppings, mozzarella cheese, Parmesan.

Put foil on top to keep cheese from getting brown. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes. Take foil off for last few minutes.
 

"I want you to stop running from thing to thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we can go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I'm coming to believe it's in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there."       --Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine

Celebrating Finley Grace.

We threw Theresa a little shower the other night. Nothing big and fancy -- no cute little sandwiches or exploding diaper games or polite conversation -- after all, those are the types of showers you reserve for regular, beautiful, according-to-plan, 9-month-long sort of pregnancy.

And if you are familiar with Finley's story at all, you know this has been no ordinary pregnancy. It has been a four+ year long, brutiful, roller coaster sort of experience. The good news: it is coming to an end very soon. Steve and Theresa received their second travel call this week (!!!), and they will be traveling back to South Korea to pick up Finley Grace at the end of June. Gotcha Day is June 25, and their plane will touch down back home on July 3!

In light of their adoption story, we decided a slightly non-traditional gathering featuring a big SURPRISE!, appetizers, martinis, and lots of girly (toddler) goods might be more fitting.

The surprise went off without a hitch. Theresa seemed a little shocked that she had no idea, until I kindly reminded her it's not hard to pull one over on her jet-lagged, Traumatic Adoption Disorder-ed self these days.

Theresa opened each girly gift with a good mix of terror and excitement, slight confusion and joy, shock and awe. One little girl coming soon to a very boy-filled home near you! Theresa is the last of this group of friends to have a baby girl, so we all had fun picking out those must-haves (and the frivolous stuff too!)

And in traditional girls' night style, we solved a few of life's pressing issues, such as which side of your face is your "good" side. (Real Simple says to cover half you face, look in the mirror, and then cover the other side. Whichever side has more upturned features is your "good" side, and thus, the side you want to angle towards the camera. You're welcome.)

One of the last items on the adoption check-list is now complete. Celebrating Finley Grace. Check, check. We are so excited to meet you, Finley Girl! Come home soon!

South Korea + latte love.

My friend Theresa is in Korea right now. Two days ago, she got to hold her little girl for the very first time. My heart is so happy for her, for Steve, for Finley, who has a wonderful family who can hardly wait to bring her home. They still have some more waiting ahead of them - prayers, please, for a court date happening next week - and another trip to finally bring her home sometime in the {hopefully} near future. I know I have shared some of their story on my blog before, so for more updates, you can head over to Theresa's blog here.

They are 13 hours ahead of us, over in South Korea, but we are able to get a little Facebook chatting in during the evening hours and the morning hours. Last night I had one of those nights... Matt was working late, one kid was giving me attitude, one was being less than truthful, and one had had a potty accident... again. And the house was a mess and the kitchen sink wasn't working properly... and so on.

This morning, there was a knock on the door. It was Theresa's mom, holding a vanilla latte... for me... from Theresa. Even thousands of miles away, she's still My Person. Even in the midst of her own joy and sadness, she's still thinking of ways to bless others.

Thank you, T. You are the embodiment of what it means to love others well. Come home soon! We can't wait to meet your precious little girl!

Walk for Water {2013}

Clean water is something that comes up in our house a lot. When Dylan and Ella were young, our church started a clean water initiative to help the people of Masaka, Rwanda, and it seemed like a good way to get the kids involved in something bigger than our little life in the American suburbs. One of the ways we do this is by walking with our church community (and others) each spring.

Our little fundraisers filled out the postcards themselves this year, sending them out to their Nana's, Papa's, and Pa's, and their aunts and uncles too. Mommy helped out by sharing the cause on her Facebook page. Together, our family was able to raise over $500. ($20 creates access to clean water for one person for up to 10 years; $100 buys a SAM 3 filter which can serve up to 5 people.)

The day we walked was blissfully warm and sunny (which is not in the tradition of Michigan springs and past Walk for Water's which are usually cold and wet).

And we're off!

Mady and her BFF Abby are quite inseparable these days, even in their quest for social justice.

I love everything about this day - a church community, old and young, big and little, human and canine - joining together for something larger than ourselves.

I walked hand in hand most of the way with our sweet Ella. She's been praying for the kids who need clean water since she was old enough to talk.

At the halfway point of the walk, we stop to fill up our containers with dirty water to symbolize the walk many women and children make daily in parts of the world. Imagining drinking this muddy water, floaties and all, really drives the point home.

We then carry our heavy jugs back to the park where we started and run some through a filtration system -- the technology is amazing.

Until next year!

{The Dirty Truth: 1 in 8 people lack access to clean water. Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. Dirty water kills more people than all forms of violence including war. Want to help? Give here.}