You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. Psalm 4:7
I still do not have adequate words to share about the past 10 days. These photos tell some of the story. I've put them in order as we experienced things.
A little explanation for my continued speechlessness: this was a trip to celebrate our 10th anniversary. For 5 months, I've been allowed to believe we'd be visiting Chattanooga, TN for several nights. It's a city we love and where we have spent a lot of time over the years, though not in the past 5 years, since we moved west. I was really looking forward to the break, toward visiting old special spots, and having downtime in which to just talk and be.
A week ago Thursday, we drove 14 hours east to our hometown, where both our families live. Friday, there with our wonderful families, we celebrated our "baby's" 2nd birthday. The plan was to leave Saturday morning for Tennessee, with the children remaining behind with our parents.
And then it came: the shock and surprise of a lifetime. And this is where the words begin to fail...I can write what happened. I can record the facts. But so far, my little heart just hasn't even begun, I don't think, to fully comprehend the magnitude of all that I've experienced.
With all our family and some sweet friends surrounding us, BB announced to me (because everyone else knew already), that we were NOT going to Chattanooga, but rather to some surprise destination, by plane. Ummm...no words. Just shock and happiness and wonder. Just going somewhere by plane is a rare adventure to me, regardless of the destination.
Oh, the kindness of my God and of my husband. He's kept this a secret for 6 months...
Needless to say, I slept little that night, imagining what might happen the next day.
He told me that I'd probably learn where we were going at the airline check in desk, though he'd wanted to keep it quiet even longer than that! Oh, how do you do it, BB?!
When our turn came, the Delta employee spilled the beans, quite unknowingly, of course: CALGARY.
For quite some time, we had been kicking around some ideas about places to go to celebrate our anniversary. Due to some intense months of work travel over the past few years, my man had accumulated quite a stash of frequent flier miles and hotel points. So, many months ago, I found out about some beautiful spots in the Canadian Rockies as I watched a PBS documentary in the middle of the night with my sleepless baby. I scribbled down some locations, told BB about them the next day, researched them a little...and then it just kind of dropped. Or so I thought.
These are photos from the very beginning of our adventure. God is good beyond words - He has saved me from my sins through the blood of Jesus, made me at peace with Himself, given me the privilege of serving Him...then this amazing husband and children and parents, then eyes and ears to experience His world, then this huge, beautiful, breathtaking surprise...I've written a lot of words here, but they are just not enough...
More later!
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Photos:
1-Leaving (by plane, oh my!) for our trip. My dad dropped us off. This photo is the 2nd time he dropped us off, because our flight was cancelled, rebooked for 8 hours later than our original flight time!
2-Rolling hills outside Calgary, lots of cloud cover and fog
3-Dandelion (they were huge) at about the spot where the clouds burned off just enough for us to gasp at seeing our first peak
4-The further west one travels, the bigger and more breathtaking the mountains become. We were so thankful to the Lord that he blew those clouds away, so we could feast our eyes on the mountains for the first time.
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