Catching Up…

Catching Up…

I’m alive. I really am. Just in case any­one was wondering.

Life has been insanely hec­tic lately. You too?

I was invited to go out to the Men’s Advance in Troy, MO, with Covenant Fam­ily Church to spend some time speak­ing with the wives and daugh­ters who accom­pa­nied their husbands/fathers/brothers to the week­end of teach­ing. It was such a blessed time for me. I brought my old­est daugh­ter, Pey­ton, with me. It was our first mother/daughter get­away. To a Men’s Advance. Haha… A tad bit ironic. She’s too young to be look­ing for a hus­band, and I already have one. Thank­fully, we had lots of women and girls to meet and spend time with. We both felt so wel­comed and loved.

Flying to Missouri

Fly­ing to Missouri

 

Then, we came home, and Mike took the fam­ily ski­ing. I tagged along, although I don’t ski. I have a bum leg, and can’t do dan­ger­ous, high risk things. And, if you know me at all, you know that any­thing that takes grace and skill is high-risk for me. I stayed in the lodge and worked while watch­ing the chil­dren careen down the moun­tain. Even Faith gave it a try this year. One so short shouldn’t be doing such crazy things. But, she loved it. She told me she has a new favorite sport. Ski­ing. Funny. I don’t have a favorite sport. The idea never crossed my mind.

We came home, and then my hus­band whisked me away to a cas­tle. We spent the week­end away for our church’s annual mar­riage retreat, which my hus­band orga­nizes every year. So roman­tic. We arrived to a snowy win­ter won­der­land {The photo above the post title is the view from the win­dow in our cas­tle room the night we arrived.}. Absolutely loved it. The next day, it was warm, much of the snow melted, and we were able to spend a cou­ple of hours walk­ing out­side, sit­ting on a bench talk­ing, hold­ing hands, learn­ing, grow­ing together. Such a great invest­ment! One of the assign­ments he gave the group was that we were to talk together and each make a list: some­thing we want the other to stop doing, some­thing we want them to start doing, and some­thing we want them to con­tinue doing. I really strug­gled to come up with my list, but once I got going, it seemed to flow. He also encour­aged that the con­tinue doing list can be 4–5 things to add to the encour­age­ment. We both learned a lot about the other, and what was on our hearts. Things we might not have known before. We laughed, cried, and grew stronger. I highly rec­om­mend this exer­cise. Be open, be hon­est, and don’t be afraid. Start. Stop. Continue.

marriage retreat small

Oh! And Faith was invited to par­tic­i­pate in a com­mer­cial for a local SEO com­pany. She had so much fun. She got to wear a tiara and blow pixie dust. What 7 year old lit­tle girl wouldn’t love that? It was right up her alley.

faith commercial smallSo, that’s been our life around here lately. Busy, full, good. I’d love to hear what you have been up to! Any­thing fun?

 

 

Strike!

Strike!

We are still trav­el­ing, but I wanted to share a quick video of Faith bowl­ing. This is how she bowls every. sin­gle. frame. She is just a happy lit­tle girl.

Wouldn’t you love to approach life with such joy­ful aban­don? She inspires me to bub­ble over with thank­ful­ness and joy. Which reminds me: through­out our trip I believe she has uttered the words, “Thank you, Mommy” no less than 10 times a day, every­day. Where does she get it from? I fear that I am not thank­ful nearly enough in my life.

Thank You, Lord, for the gift of this silly, won­der­ful, thought­ful girl!

Ain’t It Grand?

Ain’t It Grand?

On the sec­ond day of our annual field trip, we ven­tured to the Grand Canyon. Admit­tedly, I was a lit­tle ner­vous. Last time I was at the Grand Canyon, I had three lit­tle boys, aged 4, 6, and 8. Plus a sweet lit­tle six month old daugh­ter who was strapped to my body. Boys and canyons that are opened wide for falling just aren’t a great mix.

I was pleased to see that some mother was able to influ­ence the pow­ers that be in the deci­sion mak­ing and money spend­ing realm of the National Park Ser­vice because this time, they had rail­ings and fenc­ing every­where I looked. A boy would have to work hard to hurl him­self down that canyon to cer­tain death.

And I know it was a mother because a father doesn’t tend to notice such things. In my experience.

Have I ever men­tioned my insane fear of heights?

Seri­ously. I have often con­tem­plated just dri­ving off of a high bridge that I am dri­ving over, just to get it over with. I KNOW I am going to end up falling off any­way. So far, I’ve made it across all bridges unscathed.

Mike rec­om­mends just stay­ing put when I have the option. We were vis­it­ing in San Diego once. He had meet­ings. I had the day to explore with the kids. Huge bridge to get to the beach. Me freak­ing out as we drove over. It was a wild ride. He sug­gested an alter­na­tive plan for the next day…

Any­way. Back to the Grand Canyon.

grand-canyon

It was spec­tac­u­lar. The rail­ings were helpful.

But I think that going with lit­tle girls and an older son made it much more peace­ful for me.

image

 

We made it safely out of the park. Not even a close call this time. We con­tin­ued our drive to King­man.
And we even got a sur­prise for din­ner:
image

I feel like a hero.
It’s been a good day.

Old Route 66 and Drive Up Motels

Old Route 66 and Drive Up Motels

We left Col­orado in the early hours of the morn­ing on Mon­day, dri­ving through New Mex­ico and on to Ari­zona. My hus­band had pre-planned our trip and made hotel reser­va­tions for me. He takes such good care of me that way.

I remem­ber him men­tion­ing that in Hol­brook the pickin’s were slim, but that the hotel he chose was rated the best in town, and it had great reviews. He said some­thing about me not freak­ing out when I got there. I was only sort of pay­ing atten­tion. I guess I thought he meant some­thing along the lines that it was prob­a­bly more of a Hol­i­day Inn rather than a Mar­riott or something.

Um. Not quite.

We glee­fully made our exit off of I-40, arriv­ing into Hol­brook, AZ, after a long day of dri­ving. As we drove the 1/2 mile into town, real­iza­tion set in. Um…

Wait? What? The reser­va­tions say Glo­be­trot­ter Inn. Does that sign say… Oh. Wow. Well…

We ten­ta­tively entered the park­ing lot. I snapped this picture:

image

I fran­ti­cally called Mike.

No answer.

Google… I looked at the reviews. All four and five stars. 186 of them. One 3 star rat­ing. Noth­ing below that. Gulp.

I grabbed my strap­ping son to go into the lobby with me. Jes­sica, the adult daugh­ter of my dear friend who hap­pens to be my trav­el­ing part­ner, waited in the car with the girls.

I braced myself, put on a brave face, and told the kids that we were going to be adven­tur­ous. It was all a farce. I was shak­ing in my boots.

Oh! The lobby was adorable. And clean. I think we can do this.

We were greeted with smiles and sweet hos­pi­tal­ity. We were shown our room, which actu­ally had two rooms in it. Per­fectly clean and retro. Adorable.

We moved in for the night. Jes­sica went out­side to call her mom. She ven­tured to the pool area, which I had told the kids was not on the agenda for the night. I could only imag­ine what that was like. Old, dated motel with one of those old pools. If you lived in the 70s, you know what I’m talk­ing about. Right?

Well, Jes­sica came run­ning in excit­edly. “You’ve got to come see this pool!” Really?

I’m a bit slow on the uptake. It was adorable like the rest of the place. We all moved out­side to pool­side. We lounged on chaise lounges: beau­ti­ful, wood chaises. We dipped our feet in the pool. We swung on the swing. We chilled. It was glo­ri­ous.
image

Even­tu­ally, we had to tuck the girls into bed and turn in ourselves.

Morn­ing greeted us with a lit­tle con­ti­nen­tal break­fast. The fam­ily who owns the motel is from Aus­tria, it turns out. Break­fast was delightful.

Thus ended our stay in a motel I would have never slowed down for had I made the call for the night. I have to admit, it gave me the courage to even con­sider the other option we could have had, just across the street:

image

Ok, who am I fool­ing? I could never stay there…

By the way, those old cars in the first photo…they are just for show. They are there to give the feel of vis­it­ing the old Route 66 motel. Clever. Even if it did make me ner­vous when we arrived!

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