Summertime!

August here and I have not posted since June! This points to nothing other than a full summer of activity, family, friends, and visitors. Since my last post we have survived the highest  heat for any July on record; began eating from our CSA box (never a dull week); found a new farmers’ market with better prices than our previous (thank you Iryna!); welcomed a nephew (hi, Luther); and introduced a new tooth into the Pelletier household! Phew. In the cracks we have had three visitors, just as many trips to the dentist (…grrrr), and a couple trips to the city.

Despite all this, we still feel we are enjoying the slower pace of summertime sun. I have begun to write a lot more. Words unposted, but good for the soul. Jeff has begun to exercise(!), Elsa has begun to crawl (!!), and God, well, God remains ever-present. Emmanuel. The God with us. Oh, what a great truth, dwarfing all other realities we may try to construct. So, as I have been seeking to ever bring together the pieces of a life lived full and present… I seek to remember daily, sometimes hourly or more, Emmanuel: God with us. With me. With you.

To be fully present to all my summertime moments I must be fully present to the Maker of all such moments. Though I may sometimes coerce moments to make them more comfortable, pleasurable, easy experiences for me,  I then become un-present to them…seeking only to use the moments of my life, not be in them. So, this summer I have been trying to take-them-as-they-are. All moments. Being present to Emmanuel. So that life is not only God with us. As unendingly powerful and important as that is. But that my life can by Kimberly with God. Attentive and thankful.

I am most certainly a work-in-progress! Envy slithers into my soul without invitation, the god of easy takes me away from my daughter, the lust for emotional-satisfaction drives me and I extinguish intimacy with my husband. But Emmanuel. Emmanuel turns me back and sets soul right. So I turn toward Emmanuel and build and altar of thanks…becoming Kimberly with God in the heat of summer, being ever-refined, ever in need of refinement.

Thanks be to God for all the good things. Grieving the difficult along the way. And offering it all back up to Him for redemption.

Blessings to you all as this summer moves on. Seek Emmanuel. Because He is. God with us. 

And now for the picture collage...of course :)

First up:  A few CSA creations (Community Supported Agriculture, basically we pay a farmer in the winter months so he can grow food for us all summer/fall. We get a box of whatever he is growing every week from June-November. And we get no say in what is grown...that is the adventure part!)

Rice Noodly, peanut buttery, Bok Choy Creation (not our favorite)

Chicken salad with all things from the box. Walla walla onions are my new favorite onion.

Chicken stir fry with kolrabi

Homemade and canned dill pickles, cucumbers and dill from the CSA box :) Can't wait to try 'em out!

Bread 'n butter pickles made with local honey. Cucumbers from the CSA box and honey from our honey guy, Roger. 

Fresh lemonade on one of those grueling days, made with honey from Roger and a touch of stevia. 

Second up: cousins! So happy Elsa has great cousins to grow up with. That was one of the greatest parts of my childhood. Cousins.

Jeff pushing Elsa and cousin Ben during their visit in July. So much fun!

Elsa meeting Luther. She loves him, no surprise...we all do!

Luther Roland Birky fresh from the hand of God. Born July 26, 2012. 7lbs. 2 oz. 20 inches.  

             And Lastly, but need we say? Not least! Elsa Jenae. And need I remind you...her name means "joyful"?!

Out to lunch after church. She enjoyed her first lemon right after this...her face didn't look like this once she ate it. 

Early morning bath in the sink. Gotta have pictures like this for the wedding montage. 

And..pick-a-boo with papa while sitting in the highchair.
Life certainly is joyful.