Something new for the backyard

So yesterday Ashley Brown, who coordinates all our morning biblestudies at the church, challenged us to fast from something from sun-up to sun-down in order to prepare our hearts for our fall study, Shepherding a Child's Heart. I have never fasted from food, and I don't watch any TV. Ding ding - in comes the internet. So I decided to fast from the internet from the moment I woke up until 9pm last night. And here's the irony - except for going to my 6am kickboxing class, I never left the house yesterday until 7pm. So I walked back and forth past my computer all day, and my hands were twitching. I was wondering what I was missing, thinking of websites I needed to look at, and on and on it went. Here's the flip side - I have never been more productive. I turned into a homeschool teacher for one day. Justin and I did two different sets of flashcards, played Bible Memory and a new Memory game, which on a side note is very different visually than my old Memory game that we have been playing with. We went on nature walks, cleaned the house (Justin loves to vacuum), tried on his new roller skates, played Gater Golf and the new Lite Bright, bowled to our hearts content, organized some drawers, read stories from new books, watched a Veggie Tales story about Esther and talked about the real story in the Bible, and the list goes on. It's crazy how I was foaming at the mouth when I got home from his parent conference at school last night to turn on the computer. And look at all I got done yesterday, instead of being on my computer. All the while praying during the day for the ladies and the study this fall. Definitely lessons on balance in my life.

But that's not what this post if is all about. After two months of deliberations, we decided to have a new addition to our small backyard.

We didn't want it to dwarf our backyard, which made us get a space saver model. That's code for not the cheapest on the market, which is why Derek and I mulled over it for so long. And Derek wants me to reiterate that this is not Justin's birthday present, just happened to come around his birthday. Although we decided that the three of us would not get any gifts for the rest of the year, Christmas and anniversary included. It's prefect - one swing, with the tire swing being everyone's fave.

When Justin first saw it, he could only mutter a soft, "Wow!" He played with it for a few minutes, and then was begging for his buddy Lukie to come over. They did everything together and at the same time (climbed the rock wall, sat on the tire swing, etc). We love having a friend that lives just right across the street from us!

And though I would have loved for Justin's face to be more in focus (but that was not the intent), pictures like this remind me why I got my favorite lens in the first place.

Happy Labor Day Weekend!