It's late and I have at least two dozen other things I could be doing right now (including sleeping). But tonight while canning peaches, saving up some of summer's glory it felt chilly on the deck. And too many leaves crunched under mine and Haven's feet while we picked in the garden so I must write down a bit more of summer. The seasons are turning.

I don't want to forget to mention that my baby turned three, that I now have the most precious goddaughter to my two godsons. That watching my older two play soccer brings me much happiness. I don't want to forget swimming with friends and park days with deep conversation and reading books with my toes in mountain streams.

I don't want to forget the goodness of the hard work of summer or the way some days are just hot and sweaty and grumpy but they can still end with all of us piled into one bed with Barbara Reid's book of Mother's Goose and it's one more summer where no one is too old for it just yet.

I don't want to forget Raine's first triathlon or my own or how Haven had her first ever all clear dentist appointment. And how we went on a date for a cupcake in the city. Or how the girls tried tubing for the first time and how all my babies hair smells after long days in the sun. How Liam turned into a vicarious reader over night and devoured chapter book after chapter book.

I don't want to forget the family photos in the rain (not the best year but I still look at them with love) and my watching the way my kids are growing into such good friends and how they can play imagination games for hours. There was dinning under the big tree on our garden harvest everyone helped grow with some black keys on the side. We stayed up to watch the stars.

I don't want to forget the tenderness of celebrating fifteen years.

I don't want to forget that we loved and we laughed. How I rediscovered something about being beloved.

We have been camping on the west coast of Canada these past days. I grew up camping and for me still there is nothing quite like it. Having nothing else to do but just be and marvel at the masterpiece of creation. Eating simple food and taking naps. Lingering and making eye contact. Surrounded with the ones I love the most. Being still.

I read my oldest two the last few chapters of The House at Pooh Corner on the beach at bedtime. I cry at the end and struggle to get the words out. Liam asks me why I’m crying and I say ‘because Christopher Robin has to grow up but he doesn’t really want to, not quite yet.’ Even though he just turned eight he nods and says ‘Oh I see’ and I think he really does.

And we take a hike to a mountain lake and I carry my three year old on my back, hard uphill the whole way. Then we hit a flatter spot and she meanders all by herself, full of determination. There are tons of irritating little black flies in everyone’s eyes and ears and nose that threaten to suck the joy from it. But instead I know I will remember swimming in the cold lake at the top so clean and clear that the trees are perfectly reflected with my baby hanging onto my neck and the rest of my loves splashing around.

Towards the end I sit with Aaron at the picnic table overlooking the ocean eating the last of our supper. The kids have all finished and ran off to play with the other kids on the beach. (There is an epic pirate adventure being lived out with sticks and rocks and sunshine and time.) So we toast to our pizza grilled cheese and laugh about our fancy date. I tell you that you are looking healthy and you are, a tan on your face and the sparkle back in those blue eyes the colour of the ocean I fell in love with.

We watch the most beautiful sunset I think I have ever seen. I think about glory spilling over that the heavens cannot hold, onto earth. A broken belief in me is changed to one of abundance and something is healed.