The Climb, Our Climb, Faith

I love the lyrics to Miley Cyrus's song "The Climb". I realize I haven't posted in a while but the lyrics to that song summarize the challenges that we have shared lately. We have had such wonderful and fun things happen this summer but over the past couple of weeks we have had our share of sadness and challenges.

The sudden death of our friend and neighbor has shaken hubby and I to the core. We are heart broken for our friend and her son and ask the question everyday, why? Why would a God want our dear friend to live her life without her soul mate, her best friend, her husband. Why would he want their precious little boy to grow up without his Dad here to guide him. To love him. Their are no answers. Just silence. I have always considered myself a woman of faith. However, I will not lie. My faith is shaken. I have been questioning everything lately. It has taken me a week and a half to find the words to type. I want to believe that there is the same God that I have believed in my whole life. Believe that our friend was needed as a young angel. It is just unimaginable. So in many ways...it is The Climb of right now.

In many ways, the lyrics to Miley Cyrus's song acknowledges the challenges that we struggled with; mourning and helping our friend, saving face in front of our cherubs, explaining death to our cherubs, keeping our faith. The lyrics give me my faith back for my friend. They give me hope that she will be able to overcome this. I know that her life will never be the same. Never be what she thought it would be. Somehow, this song makes me want to believe that there is a higher power out there to help her keep CLIMBING. I guess that I would like to share the lyrics with our cherubs so that someday they can remember and use them as a stepping stone to overcome any challenge. Use them to encourage them to get them "to the other side" of their challenge.

The Climb
I can almost see it
That dream I'm dreaming but
There's a voice inside my head sayin,
You'll never reach it,
Every step I'm taking,
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking but I
Got to keep trying
Got to keep my head held high

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes they knock me down but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm going to remember most yeah
Just got to keep going
And I,
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on, cause

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

Keep on moving
Keep climbing
Keep the faith baby
It's all about
It's all about
The climb
Keep the faith
Keep your faith

Whoa a oh oh
[ Miley Cyrus Lyrics are found on www.songlyrics.com ]

Opening Day

No, not for baseball, opening day of summer! To me, summer doesn't start until the first day I hit the beach. Today was the day. After almost a month of mostly rain, the cherubs & I packed up and headed toward RLF B's beach. All "my girls" (college roomies) & I met with our heard of 10 cherubs/combined for the PERFECT opening day. Soooo good to catch up with the girls. Here are a few pics for fun!

Cherub 1's first attempt at "laying out" and reading on the beach. Hmmm. Pre-teen? Yikes!! (Notice the bottle of suntan lotion. When we used to lay out it, we were slathered with baby oil! No skin cancer there.)


Cherub 2's moment of zen!


Surfer Dudes!


Strike a pose!


RLF, J & I were giggling as her daughter "Sporty Spice" was spending some pre-conjugal time chatting it up with "Mr. Ripped" (cherub 3). Yup, we are marrying these two off~our little Irish babies.


The "Crab Hunters"~ collecting hermit crabs to place in their man-made sand pool:


Cherub 3, dubbed the "watcher of the crabs", he kept the 50 or so crabs in the 'pool' safe while the rest of the cherubs hunted for more.

Nana Day (Wed)

With the cherubs finally feeling better we picked up Nana and headed to our favorite breakfast diner! (Hey, when everyone has been sick for days, no one shopped for food. Diner or go hungry. We chose Mickey Mouse pancakes.) The cherubs ate up a storm after their basic three day diet of Popsicles and soup. Cherub 2 exclaimed as he was finishing his FIFTH pancake, "I am ALMOST full mom!" So funny.

We headed to a shoe store (THE FIRST TIME) for new sneakers. Cherub 3 has been begging for his long awaited "skate-board" sneakers (Hubby gave in, not me). You know the ones that the kids leave untied. Blech. They are groas looking but whatever. He LOVES them! According to hubby, "he is a good kid, he never does anything wrong and NEVER asks for anything. Just buy them." Ok. Cherub 2 got new "fast" sneakers and Nana treated cherub 1 to her first pair of coveted Skecher hi-tops. However, we got them home and they seemed too big for her so we headed back to the store. After trying on what seemed like 750 (thousand) pairs of sneakers, for an HOUR, cherub 1 was ecstatic to have found the PERFECT pair! How can they be described? Well...no words can, here is the best way:

I think the picture speaks volumes-LOUD and clear. She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES them. Thank you Nana! (I am waiting for the circus tent to go up so they can worn in their natural habitat.)

So happy to have the cherubs feeling better. Great "Nana Day". :o)

Triple the Fun (Sun-Tue)

Three cherubs, three strep throats. Odds of that? Maybe we should have played the lottery with the number 3! No excitement here on the scale as the cherubs tried to recover from strep, high fevers and basically feeling like junk. At least we didn't mind the rain so much these couple of days...we weren't missing much.

Independence Day (July 4th)

Happy 4th of July! Here are our little runners all geared up for our annual 2 mile road race in town. Short of losing one of the race trackers and one little tumble off a curb (cherub 1) we all had a blast and ran, ran, ran! Had a blast at the annual parade and party at BigSis and BILs house! Thanks for hosting!!

The cherubs brought their RED SOX stuff to the race...still jazzed up about their first game last night!


Our little runners!


Cherubs, babycousin and their COOL friend at the starting line. Check out the red, white and blue spiked hair! So awesome!!

First Time at Fenway! (July 3rd)

Go Sox!!




Cherub 1 was totally into the game!

Cherub 2 loved Fenway Franks and his Flag!


Cherub 3 turned the inning around with his Rally Cap and loved The Wave & Sweet Caroline!

Hubby & I? Well, we couldn't stop smiling. Not because the Sox won (they lost in overtime), but we just love the cherubs and were grateful for the experience and the fun! Thank you hubbies work for 4 tickets. Stubhub rocks for the 5th.

We tried to get a couple of 'hellos' onto tv. One to the Sox's biggest fans in our family, Nana & Pops and the other to Grammy & Grampy! Happy Birthday Grammy!!

Antiquing

Must I remind everyone that it has been raining for what feels like a repeat of the original 40 days and 40 nights in the Bible. When raining this many days in a row (in reality about 2 weeks or so), moms must get creative. While cherub 3 had a birthday party to attend today, I decided to take the older cherubs on a new adventure. Antiquing.

We have been looking for a book shelf for cherub 1's room for a while. Her existing one is tiny and broken beyond repair. So, off we went with new goals. 1) Find a book case. 2) Teach the cherubs words such as unique, vintage, antique. 3) Have fun! Not showing my true feelings, I was a tad uneasy because cherub 2 is by far a TOTAL MAN SHOPPER. In other words, he hates shopping. Hates being in stores. Hates behaving in stores. Hates keeping his hands off breakables in stores. However, today, cherub 2 rose to the occasion. He thoroughly enjoyed checking out all the vintage items, including vintage toys.

Cherub 2 fell in love with a vintage pull toy with clowns that played the drums and symphony. He is coveting his new toy & being very careful of it's fragility. Cherub 1 just loved the experience and in the end, even though we did not find the perfect bookcase, we did have the perfect adventure.

P.S. I found Wizard of Oz mini-dolls for my future classroom! Yipee! (RLFs K&J~ how awesome is that?)

P.P.S. Here's a (blurry-whoops) pic of our 'tents' made tonight! Rainy day adventures!