We came home from vacation yesterday. Aaron and I spent yesterday doing all the just got home after a few weeks away camping type things. Seven loads of laundry, mowing the lawn, unloading the leftover odds and ends of groceries. Cleaning all the beach sand and keep kids occupied while driving obscene amounts of both distance and time items out of the van. Those types of things. Life type of things. Today we were right back at it. All the kids had VBS this morning (I'm volunteering) and Liam went back to soccer skills training. Aaron was at the office for 13 hours trying to get a little caught up there.

I picked our raspberries and our beans - the tomatoes are starting to ripen and the peas were a bust this year. We sorted and distributed 500 or so pounds of fruit from my parents no spray orchard to my food coop friends out of our kitchen. We hit up the library to return read books and pick up some new items on hold. We needed milk and a few other basics so we went to the grocery store too.

Moving from camping holidays where the pace is so slow and steady (even monotonous at times) to the first few filled overflowing days at home leaves me off kilter. I'm happy to be home: to sleep on sheets with no sand in them and to have a longer shower where I'm not wearing flip flops because the campsite shower floors are always dirty. But I'm also dizzy at all there is to do.

Those first few days I'm always wondering what to do next until the catch up is done and things are back to our normal home rhythms. Where we are moving from the wonder and beauty of being all together outdoors by the sea to the wonder that is our everyday life.

This weeks chalkboard wisdom. Art by Haven.

I am sitting on our deck in Hawaii only because it is raining today, otherwise we would be at the ocean which is my favourite place in the world to be. Later we will head to the pool rain or not because my kids are Canadian and a little rain is not going to stop them from swimming. Haven-Kate who is our baby but isn't a baby because we've already soaked up three and a half years of her would spend all day there, were it solely up to her. I'm thinking about how she's learning how to swim, but frankly, she's already swimming. Two days ago Aaron posted an instagram of her in the pool swimming about half its width stopping to tread water part way through and now with forty-eight hours more experience she's clearing the width of the pool all by herself.

She has always loved the water, she was the baby who at the beach while still crawling would crawl into the water with zero regard for her personal safety, fall under the water and laugh as you brought her up to the surface. During a summer camping trip we were at an outdoor pool, swimming several days in a row. This pool had a small outdoor slide and each time she went to the top Haven would seek clarity. 'Okay mom (or dad) don't catch me. Don't catch me mom. Don't catch me I can to do it by myself.' She wouldn't leave the top till we'd agreed that we wouldn't catch her. We'd watch her slip down the slide and splash under the water (heaven forbid we caught her). She would kick herself back up to the surface, a giant smile on her face, at which point we would catch her least she drown herself. Again we'd be told, 'No don't help me' and she'd half dogpaddle, half have us 'not help' her to the edge of the pool. Determination and joy.

Yesterday morning she jumped from the edge over and over and over, swam as far as she was able. One of us would hold her for a few seconds and she'd flip around and swim back to the edge. She was interspersing her jumps with calls of 'yahoo' or 'cannonball' and I couldn't help be inspired.

Not on her swimming ability (although that is pretty fun too!) but at her joy and zest and drive. Her confidence and her (from my perspective) calculated risk taking. Her fearlessness and the security that must be there to buoy that up. Her effortless ability to be present to the feel of the air rushing around her and the water washing over her and the work of moving her body in a new medium. Her repeated work over and over on something that could be seen as challenging but she only sees as pleasure. Her momentary freedom from anything else going on anywhere.

Thanks for teaching me Haven-Kate.