Spring Break and a Birthday

BB had his birthday almost three weeks ago now. Spring break was also nearly three weeks past. There are times when life gets whirly. Not bad, just whirly, and I don't write much or write well when it's like that. We are in the thick of packing for our move and the girls each have had big end-of-schoolyear projects and then there's the drama production upcoming. AH and MK are both in a big show with their drama club in about two weeks.

But BB's birthday and spring break were so good that we'll go back in time to document it...

I decided to surprise him with a special day, and he was fortunate enough to be able to take the day off from work. The three youngest stayed with a babysitter while the rest of us toured the Bodies Exhibit, something BB and I have been wanting to see for years. We all enjoyed that. I'd done some research to find a place that makes good Texas barbeque around here. After touring Bodies, we grabbed BBQ takeout and went back home to the little ones, where all of us devoured the good meal. His treat of choice was banana splits. A good time was had by all. I'm so grateful to God for BB and for the good day He gave us as a family on his birthday!

The next day we packed up our things and headed up north a bit, to spend a few days in the mountains. It had been a long time since we'd spent time in/near the Smokies and a long time since our whole family enjoyed a hard stop to all typical activity (including technology!).

The three-night stay away proved to be so restful and simple and rejuvenating - another mercy from God. We drove there mid-afternoon, unloaded our things, ran back out for a few groceries, returned to the cabin, then never left again till it was time to go home!

Here are some images from that sweet, good break the Lord gave us....

Moraine Memoir

I finished my 6 week online writing course recently. It was great to be stretched just a bit and to try working on writing! My favorite piece from the course was this one that fell under the creative non-fiction sub-genre of travel writing. I chose a travel memoir format, describing part of our 2009 trip to Moraine Lake, in the Canadian Rockies.

I praise God for His creative genius, and for the fact that He gives us all things to enjoy!

God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Genesis 1:31

...put [your] hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. I Timothy 6:17

My teacher gave me some ideas for improving the piece, so that's my personal challenge in the coming weeks, but here's the original I turned in for the assignment:

***

A documentary had alerted us to the existence of the technicolor lakes of the Canadian Rockies. We traveled nearly 2,500 miles to see if it was true

We chose one lake in particular to explore: tiny, well-hidden Moraine Lake. And we got as close to it as we possibly could, entering the lake in a canoe that cold September day.

It was almost painfully beautiful as we floated in the milky turquoise water, the reflection of the ice and snow capped mountains jutting down into the lake. The placid surface was silvery, graceful.

The whole scene was a wonder – the big picture: us in our little canoe in this tiny blue lake with the Rockies towering about us, all streaked with white from ice and snow; the grand, great sky above reflecting more blue down on the water, intensifying its color. If we sat very still, not paddling the canoe, we could see the clear and perfect mirror image of craggy mountains.

We paddled about quietly, taking in both the big and small pictures. The rocks and plant life around the lake were all so different from anything we’d ever seen. There was the strange way the water was ever so clear, but then not clear at all, really – its opacity obscuring the end of our canoe paddles if we held them down a few feet below the surface.

Rich green and golden moss caked the rocks and downed trees here and there along the shore in places, and conical evergreens of all sizes created mysterious shade just beyond the water’s edge.

At many points along the lake’s perimeter, the feet of the mountains themselves met the water. In some places, the meeting was the crunchy, tiny gravel produced as glaciers not-too-distant scraped through the mountains. When a little thawing occurs, the pulverized mountain bits are whooshed down the sides of the peaks, resulting in what looks like a flow of mountain-dust that stops there at the water’s edge. But it doesn’t stop – it’s the tiniest of these glacier-ground particles that lend the water its breathtaking blue hue.

Further along the shore, there are rockier spots, where avalanches and weather and time have dislodged and crumbled boulders and what’s left are sharp, randomly sized and shaped heaps of rocks. We ran our hands over both the silt piles and the larger rock heaps, picking out a few to handle, cold like glass and sometimes as sharp.

The beauty was in both the majestic and the miniscule everywhere we looked, but I’ll never forget the simple, unparalleled, breathtaking experience that was us, floating on turquoise perfection.

 

Las Vegas, Part Two

When I posted about Las Vegas, I kept feeling frustrated that I could not find certain photos I knew I'd taken and wanted to include. I was pulling from BB's cell pictures, my phone photos and all the ones that we took with the actual camera. I couldn't figure out why these images were missing. Finally, I realized I had not pulled all the photos off my phone.

Without further ado...

Leaving on the plane: I love the things that make us unique from each other. I brought along old books - like a couple of actual, old copies of really old works. BB brought his iPad version of The Hobbit. I 'm all about hard copy, paper, pages, low-tech. He's all about technology.

 Another photo from the High Roller Ferris wheel ride

 As I mentioned, we walked so much. After a lot of exploring, I walked halfway across the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge with the others, and then I was done. BB walked back to this spot with me, where I had to take a seat and put my feet up!

 The fun little diner where we stopped for lunch and that tasty pie!

 Can you see the footprint in the rock?

 There it is! It was probably about five feet long there vertically on the rock.

 We pulled over to the side to investigate a sign pointing to a petrified log. It was slightly underwhelming and rather humorous to see it lying there, surrounded by chain link fencing - to prevent its escape, I suppose?

 At this site, we all climbed out of the car and began examining the gorgeous holey rock formations. Then, all of a sudden, one off BB's coworkers told me to Look! And there was BB, at the top of one of the high rocks. Love his spirit of adventure.

 What I spend a lot of time doing when I have quiet space: I have papers and a good pen and a book or two and my computer - I communicate. This time I wrote postcards and caught up on my emails. I read part of a book of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories - all dark and 1800's terrifying and such a good workout for my brain, a fun change of pace.

 We got to have breakfast together most days. That was a real treat!

A flower bed, of course.

You never know what you'll see in Las Vegas - here's proof that there's wild, beautiful (and appropriate!) creative genius going on there!

More writing. Letters to Compassion kids we sponsor. Was nice to sit down and concentrate and write them without stopping.

Today, I was thinking about God's tender mercies, and about His grace and kindness, and how these are not dependent upon my goodness or my awesome prayer life or any of that.

Thinking back to the snapshots comments I made in the last post, about how different life is now compared to when I traveled with BB three years ago, I was flooded with gratitude and amazement at God's Hand and faithfulness to me and my family.

I've been frank about the dark days and the dysfunction and how we passed through a season that did feel like drowning...and believe me, in those days, I am sure I prayed, but I am also sure I didn't even know what to say or what to ask for, or even what I/we needed. Much is a blur to me now.

But I look back and see how He has led us by the hand to where we are now, in this place of stability and health and I praise Him, Giver of all Wisdom and Healing and Help. He helped - not because we prayed great prayers or had big faith, but because He is faithful and compassionate and good.

And I know that in our overwhelmed survival mode, there were many who were praying faithfully and with hearts of great faith, who sought God's favor and blessing on our behalf. I thank Him for these saints, who have been our support, who listened, and shared burdens, and prayed and loved us through the crazy.
*

Las Vegas

We are back from our trip to Las Vegas.

All nine of us are here at home together after a week apart!

Here are some photographic highlights of the time out west:

 We had the treat of tagging along with some of BB's coworkers, as they rented a van and explored the not-so-neon-and-plastic scenes to be found near Las Vegas. BB took the above photo while we were exploring Valley of Fire State Park. 

 We perfected our selfie while on this trip. This was one of many times I had to find a place to sit for a minute - we walked a lot in all our field-tripping that day!

 Here's another amazing photo by BB of the dry, rugged beauty in the State Park.

 Loved the layers of color here

Some rocks in the park had graceful, circular places worn out of their surfaces. The information we read said they believe the carved out spots are where the desert wind has blown away the softer, sandier parts of the sandstone.

I would have loved to have climbed these rocks. And the kids would've had a blast clambering over them - so many hand-holds and hiding spots!

Our time away that day also included lunch together at a fun mom-and-pop diner where BB and I shared a very satisfying piece of pie with ice cream.

We also got to visit Hoover Dam and the fairly-recently finished highway that now spans the space above the river. Both the dam and the new bridge are just staggering in their enormity.

 I got to add a state to my Been There list: Arizona. The state line runs up the middle of the river, so you get to walk out of Nevada and into Arizona while you check out the dam.

The Dam was completed in 1936. There's a lot of beautiful art deco style to be seen all around, including this statue, one of a pair at a monument dedicated to those who lost their lives building the dam.

It was a long, fun, exhausting day in the sun. One of BB's coworkers had an app that was tracking our number of steps - I think it was near 20,000 steps we'd taken once the day was done. It was worth it!

Meanwhile, back in Vegas, we did take a spin on a new-ish attraction, their 550-foot tall High Roller, aka Ferris Wheel. That was a lot of fun, too. It was cool to see the strip and outskirts of town from so high up! Each pod can carry up to 40 people, they say. I was glad ours only had about 10 riders.

 There was a little seating in each of the pods. The ride lasts about 30 minutes, so it was nice to have the option of sitting or walking around.

 Looking down at Las Vegas

Check out the ceiling inside parts of our hotel. Very convincing fake cloudy skies. Beautiful!

And I almost forgot: we took a walk to the Bellagio on our last night, so that we could see their famous water-fountain-light-and-music show. We were not disappointed! It is free - people just gather around the perimeter of the large pond in front of the hotel, and every 15 minutes or so, a new show starts. It was startlingly beautiful - graceful, powerful, poetry. We stood for an hour there. My body complained about this later, but again, very worth it.

The time away together was restful and quiet. We were able to have some great, needed conversations and do some thinking together.

And I did some thinking alone, of course, during the hours BB was at the conference in the daytime. I've been thinking about what I can or should do in order to become more disciplined and skilled in my writing.

One big, lingering impression on my heart before, during, and since this getaway has to do with "snapshots," which was a word we used in therapy to mark moments that ought to be noted. I've not been able to get away from the vast difference between life as it was three years ago when I got to travel to this same conference with BB, and my life today.

Snapshot of three-years-ago me was of a very overwhelmed, stretched, stressed mom of six. I cried for a lot of the time away in Las Vegas that year. I needed to. It was good to have the space for that, and I'm so grateful to the Lord He provided that restful break at just the right time. I was really about to snap and just did not understand how to live day-to-day or how to parent my transitioning, adjusting family.

Of course, it's not that I don't feel overwhelmed, stretched and stressed at times these days, as mom of nearly-eight, but as we prepared for this trip and enjoyed the time away, I had such a sense of confidence and ease and peace, because the Lord has brought me, brought our family through so many struggles and hard times and it's wonderful to say that in this season, we are enjoying some of the strength and fruit that have resulted from wrestling through and having our hearts enlarged, made stronger, and made wiser, more capable by the Lord.

I thank Him and praise Him for the dark days, the painful struggles, and the hard work He chose for us; and I am delighting in the other side, thanking Him for this contrast, this journey, this progress.

I hope and pray it has informed and grown my faith, as inevitable dark days and struggles undoubtedly lie before us down the road. Maybe it can encourage you in your path, especially if you are facing circumstances that you can't make sense of, or situations that you feel are going to take you down...

God's purpose is good. He makes no mistake. There is fruit and light coming. There is the more Christ-like you, who will glorify Him more and more. And nothing ever will separate me or you from His love.

A couple more pictures, last but not least:

We got to see ancient Indian petroglyphs while at Valley of Fire State Park. It was fascinating to see the different symbols and pictures they carved into the orange rock.

And look, there's a a happy couple, holding hands!

(and perhaps some of their children, too? Made me smile.)