So Long Ordinary

About a week and a half ago, we should have been on a jet plane, headed back to our home, life, and ministry in Indonesia.  Um.  We didn't go. No visas. Visa purgatory. At the same time, this delay has been just what we needed.  It has given us a few days to rest, to recover from all the craziness of our furlough travels.  It has provided us with extra time to deal with a medical issue (more on that later).  It has freed up a weekend for camping with my family and for being able to see my niece off to college. It provided us a chance to see our friends and mentors whose influence brought us to MAF as they prepare to head back out on a new assignment themselves.  It has given us a little more time so we could go visit Sean's cousin, finally visit the Denver museum of Natural History, and see Sean's sister and our brother-in-law again.  It gave us a weekend to drive out to eastern Kansas to see my Grandma Jean (a precious weekend with her, by the way) an...

I don't think I've ever had this long of a hiatus from blogging.  This furlough has been all about doing and living and stealing moments of rest.  As a result, you've probably noticed that Sean and I have both been very quiet on our blogs.  We're coming up for air, finally, and we'll hopefully get you all caught up on the past few months as we reflect on it all ourselves.  Sean is catching up with TONS of really great pictures from our furlough time, so be sure to check into his blog regularly.   This has been one heck of a furlough.  There has been lots of travel, training, memorable trips, unforgettable experiences, blessed times with supporters and supporting churches, and so much more.  We probably didn't get as much rest as we may have liked but that's hard to do when you have so many people you want to see and so much you want to do with them.  So, we've been living it up!  We've been " Carpe-ing the Diem " as Sean and I like to say...

Sean's been gone to Spokane for training in the Kodiak for almost two weeks and we're missing him something terrible!  Praise the Lord, we are DONE with our homeschool year and the girls and I are hitting the road this weekend to head up to Nampa where we'll meet up with Sean at MAF headquarters.  It'll be fun to hang out at the MAF apartments until Sean finishes up some more training and then as a family we will drive back to Colorado by way of Yellowstone, the Tetons, and maybe a few more National Parks if we can. More nature, more camping!  Hooray! These are the last of my favorite family pictures from our camping trip in Moab.  Ahhh...such great memories to treasure.  Sean also has some awesome scenery shots but I'll let him share them on his own blog.   Landscape Arch Pine Tree Arch Love thems.... Her joy is pretty contagious! Running down a steep hill of sand...can you think of anything more fun for kids?   See?  Contagious Joy.

We did a little more exploring this time in Moab.  Our girls are able to do a lot more climbing and they were far more excited about things like petroglyphs and dinosaur footprints than they were last time we camped in Moab.  Family trips keep getting more and more fun with these three! Okay, so we found these petroglyphs because we accidently veered off the trail to see the dino prints.  But, look what we got to see up close!  Awesome! They really are as tough as they look.  ;-) Strong in pink. Aha!  There are the dino prints! We also found Onion Creek - this was off the beaten path, outside of Arches and by far our favorite place.  We followed this creek for quite a ways through the rocks.  Stunningly beautiful. I told you these girls are tough.  Look at them holding this rock up!

Found these older photos from about a month ago of the girls riding horses.  This is getting to be a fairly regular occurrence around here and the girls are loving it.  Especially Brooklyn, who is a down-home country cowgirl of the first order.  She's in her element here....though, with a lot yet to learn!  She may or may not have fallen off a mule the other day.  At first she was really upset that it happened (no physical hurt other than a little stiffness the next day) but when I informed her of the fact that ALL cowgirls have to have their first rodeo at some point...and also related several of my own experiences on horses when I was a child, she was just plain proud of her (mis)adventure.  I'm just proud of her tenacity and cowgirl-ness.   I'm proud of all my little cowgirls!  And thankful for a Daddy/Grandpa so willing to share this incredible family legacy.

After Easter, we took off on a camping trip to celebrate Sean's birthday...and just to enjoy some real nature and fun outdoors as a family for pretty much the first time in 4 years.   We've been re-discovering our love of nature and outdoor activity on this furlough and it has been so rejuvenating.  Ironically, we don't get to enjoy much nature in Borneo, other than the occasional boat ride to see orangutans or taking a dip in the swamp or river.  We just can't spend this kind of time outdoors in Indonesia because a)it's Asia, there are people everywhere, b) most "National Parks" in Indonesia are pretty inaccessible to a family like ours, c) it's too hot and humid to really enjoy ourselves camping, and d) we couldn't get the ingredients for s'mores anyway, so what's the point? All joking aside, we really have been LOVING America's National Parks and wildlife areas.  Our time at Arches National Park in Moab, Utah was just what we needed....

Thanks for the sweet comments on my last blog post.  Yes, if there is one thing this overseas life has taught me (but there are waaaaaayyy more than one) it is that "home" is not here on this earth.  And I am so glad! I came across this article full of quotes for third culture kids ...but it applies to all of us living overseas so well. There are many good quotes that struck a chord with me, but this one from C.S. Lewis hits the nail on the head: Image by RachelPiehJones {link to http://www.babble.com/contributor/rachelpiehjones} We had an awesome week last week and I'm still just trying to crawl out from under the laundry pile.  We took a family trip to Moab, Utah....but more on that later!  First, some pictures from our Easter!  We had a great Easter with my family and even got to go to our home church - an awesome treat.  The girls enjoyed having an Easter egg hunt with their cousin, Audrey.  We may or may not have enjoyed a tasty ham. Pork Pro...