Here are a few photos to start the summer.

Jack and Lucy and I in Wells, Maine- we drove down to see my niece Grace Tate (Joel and Christine's second) graduate from high school.  Bowden was too cool to look at the ocean and Miles is the pokiest puppy.  I think Charlie was asleep in his carseat.

Squishing my boy in the airport before he left for California. Bowden turned 15 the day before this picture.

Lucy on Rock Dundar, on the shores of Lake Champlain.  Living in Maine means that we are a short 81/2 hours away from Josh's family- much better than the 22 from Florida.

On the way home from Vermont, I picked up Ruslan- in green- and two brothers that a friend of mine is hosting.  Ruslan is near fluent in English, and acted asa translator for Ivan and Illia.

Miles gave up his room for Ruslan (pronounce roos-lawn.). This is a picture of him settling into his new room.

The view from our parking lot.  This is Salmon Brook.

Enjoying the indoor pool at the University of Maine in Presque Isle.  The nearest public pool doesn't open up until June 27th.

Soft serve in a million different flavors from Houlton Farms Dairy Bar.

The Ukrainian boys opted for cokes.

Tilly watching a cat, and wanting me to be aware.

The boys spending happy moments making their own board games.

Another summer, and the days swim by...

I'm typing this from my table on the second story of my strange house in Northern Maine- I look out over a lovely, long brook and a public playground, and Jack walking in circles with one of his zip-ties, face scrunched up, making noises for whatever the zip-tie is meant to be at this moment, in this game.  He's walking in our parking lot- maybe the biggest parking lot in the small town of Washburn, Maine.  Our house used to sit on top of Sperrey's Superette, one of two grocery stores in the town, and now sits over 2,400 square feet of unfinished something.  We like the possibility of it, the potential, but potential unused becomes something less appealing, so it is our giant living room/ playroom.  The house/store was built in 1901 on the site of the old Mill, but it lacks all the charm of an older house.  Instead, it is strange.  Three staircases, one of them a metal spiral staircase, and all of them at least a little scary.  A three-person tub with whirlpool jets on the third floor!  Two handicap accessible showers downstairs 90 percent installed.  A cluster of small rooms on the first floor for my oldest.  A few spots are normal- the rest is just a little off.  Maybe this is the house that suits us best.  Awkward, a little uncomfortable, and with a lot of things unfinished?  Maybe.

Josh took a new job as the pastor of a church up here- State Road Advent Christian Church.  We left our people in Lulu with enormous amounts of regret, but, for me, very little sorrow at leaving the hot, humid south.  Our Lulu Church weighs heavily on our hearts- they still have no pastor, and some of them saw our leaving as an end for the church as a whole.  

God called us on, and we went.  

We were met up here, in Presque Isle, with generosity and love, two things that have seemed to pour from every church we have called home.  Friendships seemed to open up in a shockingly fast way, and because of some heartache and trouble with friendships in Florida, I'm determined to enjoy these relationships for as long as they last, and expect nothing more than they give.  It is a supernatural gift, friendship, and I am thankful for the miracle it is.  

We need it this summer, especially.  I have four boys downstair, but one of them is just mine on loan. Bowden is at Camp Maranatha woking for the summer on summer staff, the same place that he grew up in, that Josh and I met and were married in, the camp that held so much of my childhood magic as a camper.  Lucy is in Vermont and traveling in Washington D.C. for the month with her cousins, getting in her girl time, and we are hosting a boy from Ukraine this summer, Ruslan.  My two older helpers are gone and I've added on another 15 year old boy.  It isn't the most relaxing summer. 

I would say more about hosting Ruslan right now, but its been a week and a half, and its so hard right now that I don't want to say anything about it, because it isn't all I want to remember.