The View from Here

I walked through town early this morning, and it’s quiet for the first time since we arrived. You can tell that the big holiday week is over, and that the weekly renters who came for the Fourth are gone, houses empty, coolers and umbrellas packed up for another year. 

We had our own houseful for a really fun long weekend. Aaron’s family came up, and we packed a whole lot of playing and sun and beach and laughter and ice cream into those days. This is the 6th year, I think, that they’ve come up for a long weekend in July, and we’ve got some Niequist family traditions: boat ride to Saugatuck for lunch and sweets from Kilwin’s, salmon or perch fishing early one morning, beach day at South Beach, ice cream after every meal. 

There’s a new restaurant in town: Brix Corner Oven is right by the Sea Glass Cottage shop, and it’s an all outdoor set-up with really, really good wood-fired flatbread pizzas made to order. On our way out the door our neighbors told us we had to get the South Haven lemonade—lemonade with basil and blueberry-infused vodka. And they were right. I had the pesto pizza with arugula and it was fantastic, and they have gluten free pizzas as well. 

The family left last night, and our little family fell into bed, tired and happy and thankful for the family and for memories we’ve made in this sweet little town.

Remember one million years ago, how we went to London and Paris? I spoke at a conference at a really wonderful church near Windsor, and then we spent two days in London and three in Paris. Lovely, crazy, busy, fun, once-in-a-lifetime memories with our kids in such amazing places. 

One of my projects for this week is to write all about it, and even just a few weeks later I’m anxious that my memories of it are fading, receding behind the fullness of our days since then. Hoping I can grasp it for a little while longer and wrestle it into words.

While we were in Paris, I got a message that a dear friend’s mother passed away completely unexpectedly. We returned on Friday, moved up to the lake on Sunday, and I flew out Monday night for Sacramento, and then met a friend for an early morning drive down into central California for the service. I arrived very late to the hotel and we left at dawn, driving down the 5 through pastures of black and white cows and orchards and bright golden hills.

My friend’s mother was an extraordinarily kind person, and at the service her friends and family told story after story about her thoughtfulness, her commitment to prayer, the little things she did to make people feel special and loved. Remembering her that morning made me want to be a better mom, a better friend, a more prayerful person. After the long flights back to the lake, I was practically aching to hug Henry and snuggle Mac, reminded again that parenting is a privilege and that some things—like love and faith and family—matter more than anything else.

Speaking of family, my lovely mother-in-law is staying with us this week to help with the boys so that I can get some work on the book done. Oh, yeah, remember how I have a book due? Yeah, me neither. Yikes. My editors are coming at the end of the month for the next round of work on it, so I have my work cut out for me this month, especially because the book has been pretty far from my mind these last weeks. Back at it, starting today. 

I’ll write here from time to time this month, but Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are much better bets these days for keeping up with the day to day, and for a list of all my South Haven favorites, here’s a post from last summer.  XO