The lake was frozen. The sun was shining. The kids were slipping and sliding and grinning from ear to ear. 

With three young ones, the days can be long. Their needs are great and at every moment some little face is relying on you for something.  But the days are also fun.  We play, and no one can tell us not to.  We laugh, because we don't always have to use library voices.  We blow off naps because mom is the boss and she says the sun won't always be out in the middle of winter like this.  And these three young kids, well, they won't always be young.  So while they are, I'm doing my best not to miss it. 

Winter, you're winning me over just a little bit.    

This list has been our summer.  Sure, we’ve had to work and grade papers and enforce timeouts along the way.  But I know I won’t remember those things as much as I remember all of the reasons why summer is the greatest, a little gift from God to remind me that seasons are a beautiful part of life…

Cold brew.  The last thing I do before bed is make my cold brew.  One cup of your favorite ground coffee, two cups of water, let it sit overnight then strain in over a coffee filter in the morning.  Fill a big mason jar with ice and mix with water and creamer.  Y’all, I absolutely cannot get enough of this.  Good iced coffee just makes it feel like it’s going to be a really sweet day.

Early mornings.  One of the things I love so much about the northwest is the long summer days God gives us.  The sun is up before 5:00am, and it makes it so much easier to crawl out of bed (cold brew waiting) and meet Jesus in the quiet.  Alex and I often sleep with our window open, and maybe it’s a sign of me getting older and more sentimental, but waking up to the birds talking to one another could be my new favorite way to wake up.

Open back doors.  Nine months out of the year it is much too cold in this neck of the woods to open any doors.  But summer, oh beautiful summer, your mornings are as close to perfection as it gets. 

Lake days. I’ve told you this before, but in the PNW, we summer.  We go out on the water before work, we come home and go swimming after work, we take days off to spend the whole week near boats, paddle boards, and fishing poles- we simply do this season big.  And our summer so far can be summed up with two words: lake days.  Harper thinks she is queen of the world with her little puddle jumper on, and anyone within five feet of her may have a tiny hand reach out and beg you to stand in the water and catch her seven hundred times.  But we have had the sweetest memories already with friends and family, getting sun-kissed and covered with sand, soaking in the gift of each other.  Because our people truly are a gift.

Hamburgers.  Truth be told, I spent my entire life not liking hamburgers.  Honestly, I have probably eaten three in my whole life.  Well, that was until this summer and this little baby bean in my belly, who cannot get enough.  I have easily eaten five times the amount of hamburgers this month as I have my whole life, and I wish I was making that up.  But you know, something about this warm weather and a big deck just make it feel so right.  (PSA- locals, get yo'self over to Crafted in Couer D'Alene for one.  My friend Kelly and I had a date night there when we meant to get salads and accidentally ordered hamburgers.  Not even sorry).

Hats.  Because I cannot pull them off any other time of the year, and no one looks silly protecting their face from the sun, right?  My straw hat from Target has gotten wet and dried right on my head so many times it really only fits me now, just how I like it.

Little girls in bathing suits.  Chubby legs in a bikini never looked so dang good.

My son’s curly hair.  When Cannon gets a little bit sweaty, or is drying off from a dunk underwater, the hair around the edge of his face curls up around his ears and neck just perfectly.  I cannot stop running my fingers through it.  Mama, Daddy, and big sister all have totally straight hair, so this little guy and his sweaty ringlets are the best.

Fire pits and s’mores.  The smell, the people, the melted chocolate.  I don’t think I need to say anything more about this.

Late nights.  Just to complement our early mornings, we also enjoy a subtly lit sky until about 9:30pm.  I think it could be God’s way of reminding me that enduring the winter is worth it, because once we put the littles down for bed we still have a few hours of fleece blankets, lawn chairs and shared words.  Just a few more of my favorite things.

Here’s to hoping your summer months are filled with tan lines and cannonballs and fresh cherries from a tree in your yard (that would have been number 11 on my list).  Viva el verano!

P.s. The Giving Shop is giving another $75 to Christ Kitchen/Christ Clinic this month-   Thank you for still coming back and spreading a little bit of brave around!

typical Blackburn family picture- but Harper is smiling, so that's a win

I love everything about a new year.  I think it is the same quirk that makes me buy new journals and new pens every third trip to Target that also gives me a giddy feeling over a blank calendar.  Just the idea of fresh starts carries with it some sort of magic that makes my dreams bigger.  But, before I jump in to all the things I hope the new year has in store, I want to remember this year and the grace weaved through every piece of it. 

I have always loved the Israelite practice in the old testament of building an altar of remembrance when God showed up for them.  It strengthened their faith and left reminders for the generation following behind that God has been there before, he will be there again.  In some ways, a look back at this sweet year is my altar, an offering of gratitude for the things only He can do.

winter

We spent Christmas at my parents’ home in California and had just found out a baby boy would be joining our crew in May.  Then right after the new year, we went to the ocean, to my favorite spot on earth, a little pocket of soft white sand and steep cliffs.  We threw Harper in their air and took a million pictures and remembered that there is nothing too broken for God to fix.

In February I flew to Santa Barbara for the IF: Gathering at my best friend, Kristin’s, house.  We prayed on the beach, had omelets at Jeannine’s, went home and ate hummus and pita chips, then curled up with warm blankets and journals and listened to life-changing words.  And I spent at least half of the free minutes of the weekend talking to Leah, a sweet connection of a friend through Kristin.  Leah is hands down one of the most gentle souls on earth, and she is crazy brave.  Her stories of bringing light to the dark, dark world of the sex industry inspired me as much as any Christine Caine or Jen Hatmaker talk, and I came home changed, inspired, so ready to do something in large part because of conversations with her.

spring

I met Kelly and Ashlee, two women who had their own IF: Gathering experiences here in Spokane and wanted to bring the event to our home church.  A team of seven of us grew out of that, and these women became mentors, sisters, and friends for a lifetime.

Cannon Lee joined our family on May 9th, and it was the sweetest labor and delivery I could have hoped for.  But what might have been the best memory for me is when I called Emily at 11:00 in the morning and told her I was heading to the hospital.  She hung up the phone, called back ten minutes later and said, “the kids and I are on our way, you tell Cannon he better wait for me!”  Emily walked in to the delivery room at 5:00pm, a four hour road trip with three kids under five behind her.  Sometimes- all the time, really- I can’t even believe God gave me the friends that he did.

Summer

This past summer will forever be remembered as the summer at the lake.  My college mentor, Fro, spent four days with us at Em’s parents’ home on Newman Lake, something he does every year.  These days are always some of my favorites.  We eat and laugh, eat and laugh some more.  And my parents moved in to their home on Liberty Lake, where Harper quickly got over her fear of the water and we spent lots of hours on the paddle boards getting sun kissed shoulders.  The lavish blessing of being in homes on the lake is not lost on me.

Alex and I celebrated our third anniversary in August, and I think somewhere around the time the mornings got cool enough to welcome the fall, I started to get a hang of this two-kid gig.  Not that I have it down, but I stopped feeling like I couldn’t function without another pair of hands around (i.e. Daddy).

Fall

Kristin and I both felt like God was bringing our love of writing in new directions, so she is living in to her gift of teaching the bible at alive + active, and I started putting my words here, on just enough brave.  And because of the way my best friends modeled the need for Jesus every single day, a new morning routine was born in the Blackburn house: 5:15 alarm, coffee, bible.  Every day.  Three months of this has been the difference between me loving the word brave and me believing in the word brave.

We traveled to Arizona for my brother’s wedding and decided to not bring Harper on another airplane until she is seven.  Cannon and I went to Santa Barbara in October and got to meet Ryen Kate, the sweetest, cutest little blue-eyed girl in the world.  Alex plugged away at his last semester of nursing school and I taught two night classes, something I love doing with all of my heart. 

Thanksgiving, graduation, and Christmas have come and gone now, and like many moms at this time of the year, I am purging our home because I absolutely cannot feel ready for a new year unless my house is de-cluttered.  Alex and I are dreaming and setting goals for 2015 now, and we are beyond excited for what is on the horizon. 

Of course along with all of days that marked our calendar, this last year brought with it so many lessons, dozens of sweet coffee dates, lots of great dinners with friends, many beautiful books read, the most humbling of parenting moments, and no shortage of need for forgiveness, too.  This year has been a faith-changing one for me, something I want more than anything to live in step with in the days to come.  And one other big thing happened this year: my friends told me I should keep writing.  You will never know how much of an impact your encouragement has been.

I sit here with so much gratitude today, because our lives have been filled with goodness more than we deserve.  Looking back is so good for the soul.  There is no way to make sense of our stories except to believe that they are part of a bigger one, and that is the most comforting thing to take with us into a new year.