Photos compliments of Go RVing
Every family goes through seasons, and ours is no different.
There are moments when it feels like everything’s moving like clockwork. Schedules run smoothly, everyone’s needs are met, and we all flop into bed at night feeling exhausted, but satisfied.
And then there are the other times.
Confession: right now our family is going through one of those ‘other times’.
Nothing seems easy. The days feel like sprints and the weeks feel like marathons. Schedules clash, and simple activity drop offs and pick ups lead to extended negotiations. To-do lists don’t get shorter no matter how many tasks we accomplish.
And at the end of the day, I feel like I can count more complaints than compliments.
To top it all off, it’s the season of peace, love, and joy. For the record, I’m still waiting for the UPS man to drop ours off.
Jeremy is a big picture type of guy, and most of the time that drives me crazy.
Like, I don’t need to look at the big picture…I just need the people I live with to pick their dirty clothes up off the bathroom floor.
But I’m trying to take a page from Jeremy’s handbook this week. I want to look past the daily schedule and see a life full of joy; I want to look past the piles of laundry and feel the peace of having our daily needs met; I want to look past the heap of wrestling boys and see a family that is completely bonded in love.
I’m trying.
This past week, Go RVing published a couple of videos that they made of our family this past fall. We took the camera crew to our most special place in the whole wide world, Acadia National Park. Over the course of a couple of days, we hiked, cooked lobster, and sat around the campfire. It was basically everything that we love captured on film. They did an amazing job, and we adore the movies more than we could ever have imagined.
So when I saw the film for the first time, I thought two things:
- I’m the luckiest mom alive to have these home movies that I will cherish for years to come.
- Nothing about our family life right now looks like that.
Right now, we’re not in a season of stunning views and lobster dinners. We are grinding it out as our boys test boundaries and find how far they can push us before we snap.
They are trying to get out the door without wearing a coat and get away without making their beds. They’re buying too many snacks at school and not studying hard enough for their spelling tests.
They are trying to wear us down. The jury’s out on whether they will succeed.
So what’s the big picture?
The big picture is that even though every night isn’t a picture-perfect campfire experience, those moments do carry us through these other seasons of our life. Having a treasure trove of these family memories gives us a bond that can’t be broken even though things feel so very out of synch right now.
As a family, we are truly acquainted with peace, love, and joy…even when we aren’t feeling it in the moment.
If any of you are feeling overwhelmed by the holiday season, I want you to know that I’m right there with you. And we don’t share these beautiful images of RV travel in order to say that our life is so much different or so much more amazing than yours.
We share these images to say that you can have these moments, also.
Acadia National Park and the Gorham Mountain Trail are there for each and every one of you to visit, climb, and capture that awesome family selfie.
And that selfie might help you recapture peace, love, and joy later on, even in the midst of piles of laundry.
I’m wishing you the most wonderful holiday season with your loved ones.
And now I need to go get stuff done.
Peace, Love, and Joy,
Stephanie
