"Have an affair with your wife"

I bet this title got your attention, interesting concept isn't it? Today I am dedicating this blog to my husband, my friend, and lover of 13 years today.

A book that I enjoyed reading this past Spring was From This Day Forward by Cokie and Steve Roberts. It journals the path of their marriage and how they handled their relationship, family relationships, and their careers. Early in their marriage they lived in California for a few years. One day Cokie was at the park pushing her children on the swings when the person next to her began talking about her affairs. Cokie found it very shocking and frightening, and wondered, could it happen to our marriage? This is when she instituted what she called a "have an affair with your wife" program, where every so often just the two of them would go off together for a night or two and not call each other "Mommy" or "Daddy" the whole time.

I have been mulling over this concept of having an affair with your spouse. I can not think of a better way to keep the home fires burning then to keep the passion alive in a marriage by having an affair with your spouse. Let's think about it, how does an affair happen? I believe one way is that, let's say the husband is being shown respect and admiration outside the home that he might not be getting at home. This respect may be somewhat superficial; nevertheless, a need is being fulfilled. The wife may be just taking him for granted at home. The wife may genuinely love her husband but if she is not physically and verbally expressing it, he is going to begin to look else where to meet his need. I for one, do not want this to happen to my marriage. So after thirteen years I intend to continue to keep our marriage pure by being the one having an affair with my husband.

More blogs to come on my ponderings about marriage :)

Vacation in Your Own Backyard Part Two

Wednesday dawned cool and sunny with a brilliant blue sky and puffy white clouds. In the morning the girls and I did some errands and picked up some treats at Trader Joes for our picnic concert at Millennium Park. Eric enjoyed the morning by putting the finishing touches on his work bench that his dad helped him get started in February for his birthday.

In the afternoon we headed to the pool for swimming lessons for Hannah and Abby. We have been blessed by Christine Kirshner, a student at Wheaton home for the summer. She is a lifeguard with the Park Ridge Park District. She and her family attend South Park Church. She volunteered to give the girls swim lessons for no charge. The girls have really improved and gained confidence since beginning lessons a few weeks ago.

One of the highlights of our week took place Wednesday evening. We packed a picnic and headed into Chicago to Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park to listen to Tchaikovsky's 6th presented by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. Again, another free event, except for the parking. We enjoyed our turkey croissant sandwiches, salt & pepper potato chips, sparkling lemonade and chunky chocolate chip cookies sitting on our wedding quilt while enjoying the beautiful music. That is until the Chorus began to sing in Polish. Hannah enjoys classical music, just has not acquired a taste for opera music yet. When the chorus began to sing, she said, "that just ruins it." Abby discovered that she reads better and faster while listening to music.

After the concert we walked around Millennium Park looking at the Cloud Gate and letting the girls wade in the Crown Fountain. Around 9 we walked out to the lake to watch the fireworks shoot off the end of Navy Pier. The bugs were a little bothersome but worth it to watch the fireworks go off over Lake Michigan.

Thursday morning Eric took Abby to Skokie on a date to Putt-putt. They stopped at Dairy Queen on their way home to share a Root Beer Float. While they were gone Hannah and I rode our bikes to Uptown Park Ridge to check out the sidewalk days. No major purchase made, but it was fun to look around. We relaxed in the afternoon before driving into Chicago to the Art Institute, free on Thursday evenings :) It was raining on the way in so the drive took quite a while. Thankfully, eating some pb and j sandwiches and listening to The Mysterious Benedict Society help us endure the ride. We planned to walk to Garrett Popcorn after our visit to the Institute, but since it was raining, we decided we better get it before we went to the Institute. So Eric dropped me off and drove around the block while I picked up some Carmel Crisp and Cheese Popcorn mix to enjoy on our drive home.

We enjoyed our visit to the Institute. In one of the galleries each of us girls drew our interpretation of a Five Story Budhist Pagoda and Eric drew A Pair of Buddhist Monks. After this, Eric and Hannah headed to the Egyptian section while Abby and I spent some time in the Children's Section. Hannah's favorite painting was entitled Interrupted Reading by Camille Corot. Thankfully, the drive home went much quicker. Another day enjoying each other's company.

Friday promised to be a sunny and hot day, perfect to visit Mystic Waters, a water park in nearby Des Plaines. We spent the afternoon here enjoying the slides and lazy river. Abby even braved the long water slides. Way to go Abby, made her dad proud!

As the week began to wind down, Saturday was a relaxing day. After lunch we went to Half Price Books and exchanged some books which enabled us to each pick out a book to take back home. Eric picked out Portraits in Courage by JFK, I picked out an early American craft book, Hannah picked Falling Up by Shel Silverstein, and Abby picked out Molly Takes Flight . The girls had finished the reading program through Barnes and Noble so we went there next to pick out their free books. In the afternoon, Eric took the girls to the youth house to enjoy the Wii. I spent some relaxing moments in a comfy chair in the sunroom reading 1776.

Sunday we visited The Chapel in Libertyville. Since we were on vacation we decided to visit another church so Eric would officially be "off duty" for the morning. After attending the 11'oclock service we looked for a place to eat lunch and found An Egg Harbor Cafe in Lincolnshire. Eric and I have enjoyed going to the Egg Harbor in Arlington Heights so we decided to eat here. Eric and I had our usual Egg Harbor Chicken Salad sandwich, delicious. Abby got a rainbow pancake with m & m's and Hannah got a breakfast sandwich. We spent the remainder of the afternoon enjoying the pool. We ended the evening by eating pizza and finishing The Mysterious Benedict Society, 13 hours of story on 11 CD's. There were some surprises at the end.

All-in-all we experienced a great vacation in our own backyard.

Vacation in Your Own Back Yard

Because of some unexpected expenses this past spring we became creative in how we spent one of Eric's vacation weeks this year. Eric used some vacation days July 7th - 13th. This summer's weather has been simply beautiful in the Chicagoland area. God blessed us with some beautiful days to enjoy Eric's vacation.

We began with swimming at Centennial Pool on Sunday afternoon followed with a meal at Wendy's for supper. Side note: Wendy's on Harlem will give 15% of all sales to Montrose Baptist Church on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month. We have some friends that minister there. We came home in time for Eric to catch some of the Olympic track trials on tv. Then we spent some time listening to The Mysterious Benedict Society on CD. A great story geared toward 8-12 year olds that Eric and I also enjoyed very much! It tells the story of four gifted children and the grand adventure they go on and how they learn to work as a team. We are looking forward to the next book in this series by Trenton Lee Stewart.

After the girls went to bed Eric and I finished the first DVD of the John Adams story that HBO put out this past Spring. We are drawn to John and Abigail Adams and their commitment to each other and the formation of our great country. Their family paid the price for John's time away though. That part was sad to see.

Monday brought rainy weather perfect for visiting the Chicago History Museum, free on Mondays :) Just had to pay for parking. They have a great kid's section, however small so Abby was hungry and bored by the time we left. What could be better following a trip to a museum but a trip to an used bookstore. We visited Powell's used bookstore a couple of miles from the museum only to realize once we arrived that Abby had left her wallet in the Museum gift shop :( We called and they still had it so we made a quick trip back to the museum. Eric cheered Abby by telling her he has forgotten things as well. Hannah had to list a few off; glasses in Atlanta and suitcase left in Robbie's car in a recent trip to Rockford. I think it made Abby feel better, not sure about Eric :) Since we are tourists this week we had to make a trip to Superdawg on Millwaukee Avenue for supper. The place with giant hotdogs on top of the stand.

Tuesday morning we did a little housework. I was feeling a little blue about being home this week and still having to do some meal preparation and housework even though we were technically on vacation. This is when I remembered the words of a wise friend who spends some time at their lake cottage during the summer. She reminds herself that even though she still needs to prepare meals and do the daily chores, the important thing is that her husband is able to spend some interrupted time with the family. I also realized with the help of Eric that this is a trade off for being a stay-at-home mom. Our vacation in our own backyard enables me to be home with the family throughout the year. Which is what I would most prefer. The time invested in my family on a daily basis is not worth working full-time to take grand vacations. And what is the definition of a grand vacation? I will let you define that for yourself :)

In the afternoon we visited The Grove in Glenview, IL. This included a tour of the historic Kennicott House and a walk through the interpretive center where we saw a very old turtle (150+ years). We also took a walk on a trail through some beautiful wild flowers. Reminded me of my girlhood home in northeast Indiana and spending a lot of time in the woods playing. We had a little time before heading to Muvico to see Kit, the American Girl movie so we stopped at Pesche's garden supply center. One of those spontaneous fun vacation things to do. We walked around picking out all of the flowers that we would like to have in our yard.

Eric was able to find a great movie time at the Muvico in Rosemont that only charges $5 per person, the 5:00 showing. We also had coupons to get a free small popcorn and drink and two hot dogs and a large drink. We were able to make the small popcorn a large for only an additional $1. What a treat, a God thing :) I think we shared the theatre with only five other people. It was interesting watching Kit and comparing her life to life today. A lot of homes are being foreclosed around us in our communities. We also know some families that are experiencing some financial troubles as well.

Well, it is getting late, I will need to conclude our vacation in our own back yard later :) Good night.

The Life You've Always Wanted

The ladies at church are doing a six week summer Bible study entitled "The Life You've Always Wanted" by John Ortberg. Last night in session two we were talking about slowing down and celebrating. We need to avoid getting caught in the trap of "hurry sickness." Hurry sickness can be caused by filling our day so full that we do not take (make) the time to experience what John calls "Dee dah day" moments. "Dee dah day" moments are simply being present at the current moment and experiencing the joy God has given you. Our greatest joy comes from knowing that Jesus has provided us with eternal life through his death on the cross. But "dee dah day" moments can simply be taking the time to enjoy the simple joys of life.

Our study begins with a DVD portion of John teaching and then we break into smaller groups for discussion. In the teaching segment John is in a park with a group of people. They are walking through a fitness circuit talking about some different spiritual disciplines. The importance of practicing spiritual disciplines is to become more like Jesus and experience life to the fullest as Jesus intended. The emphasis last night was the command to slow down and express joy. Philippians 4:4 and I Thessalonians 5:16-18. It is hard to express joy if we don't slow down and be present in the moment.

One thing that stood out to me last night is that God has given us the gift of His creation to enjoy. Summer is a wonderful time to experience His creation. Summer is also a good time to slow down and get outside to notice all the precious details of our environment with all of our senses. The shapes in the big fluffy clouds and the green grass being watered by the sprinklers. The joy that comes from riding bikes through the sprinklers showering over the sidewalk. The smell of neighbors getting ready to grill supper or of newly mown grass or hay. Slow down and breath deeply this summer and experience God's joy!