Learning to Leap

A few weeks ago we went on our annual Smith family vacation to Watercolor, located 30 minutes from Destin, Florida. We LOVE it there. It’s basically a great neighborhood with bike rides, several community pools to choose from, Camp Watercolor where the kids can make crafts, and of course, the glorious, white sandy beaches of the Gulf. We’ve been making the trip for years, even before the grandkids came along. These days, the sounds of excited kids can be heard for miles around as you approach our beach house. With eight grandkids ages 11 years to 16 months, it’s a little chaotic, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the first year in a LONG time the little Webber crew didn’t lug all the baby gear with us. No more pack ‘n plays, swim diapers, baby food, bottles, pacifiers, or naptimes to deal with. It was fantastic. The ride down to the beach was peaceful and quiet as we played some games or watched DVDs. Everyone slept all night. Nobody ate sand. ...

This week was VBS at our church. For those of you who don’t know, VBS stands for ‘vacation Bible school’. Next to Christmas, this is one of the most anticipated four days of the year to a lot of kiddos. Not to brag, but our church pretty much blows it out when it comes to fun, and I hope they learn a little about Jesus while we’re at it. Anyway, this year I taught the Bible lesson to four groups of kids ages 1 st -4 th grades each day. Because I didn’t want to be the schmuck who totally blows it and makes the kids dread Bible time each day (and consequently be eaten alive by 4 th grade boys who are bored), it took a little time to study and prepare. And this is generally how it went each evening… First item to understand about my week: my husband was out of town for most of it. He was hard at work visiting agents and handling the details of his job. This left me solely responsible for everything regarding the children and the dog and the home. Second it...