Roots and Wings

“I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich.” ~Dan Wilcox

One of our goals this year was to have some good quality and quantity time with family.  We are so grateful for the hugs, tears, dreams, disappointments, prayers and laughter we were able to share with family members the last six months. 

These last couple weeks have been the “grand finale”of family time as we’ve been able to be ALL together on both sides of our families. It has been awesome. Just in the last few weeks we’ve celebrated a . . .

1st birthday

40th Anniversary (my parents)

funeral (Jason's Grandma)

10th Anniversary (ours)

Memorial service

4th of July

I’ve heard it said that family should give you roots and wings. We certainly have experienced the blessing of both.

 'A happy family is but an earlier heaven. ' by George Bernard Shaw

This is probably the last post I’ll write here at Moving in the Moment as I will be switching back to In the Moment for our life in Hong Kong. We would love for you to keep following along. In closing this blog I want to end with a quote from the first entry that I wrote . . . 

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are made for…” - unknown

We are so thankful to our families, especially our parents, for giving us solid roots but allowing us to stretch our wings. We appreciate your understanding that for our family right now our “ship” is not meant to be in America. We love you all so much!  xoxo

9 More Days

I sat down to count up all of the places that our family has stayed from last July 1st when we moved out of our Monte Vista flat to mid July when we will settle back into our new (yet to be discovered) home.  I counted every transition- so a few houses were counted twice, like my parents, if we left and returned. 

Any guesses? 

Drum roll please. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

That averages out to moving every 5.6 days

We have lived in 7 countries 

in 4 continents 

taken 17 flights

driven through 18 states

and 12,000 miles

No wonder I need a nap (: 

As our time winds down and we prepare to enter into a season of more stability and predictability I feel mixed emotions. Without doubt we are ready to plant ourselves, yet we don’t want to loose our sense of dependence, desperation even, for God.

In Richard Foster’s book “Prayer” he references a term for dynamic change called conversatio morum.  Translated it means “death to status quo” or “constant change”.  Although I’d rather not change my bed every five nights, I do want to be ever changing and transformed into His image. 

So our ongoing challenge is to hold everything loosely. Even as I look at pinterest decorations for our new house and pick out the case for my eagerly awaited iphone God is reminding me to go “low and slow” into Hong Kong.  To not be too easily satisfied with the security this world has to offer and to truly have faith in his promises. . . for  provision, for power, for love that can change lives.

Only 9 more days of this journey. . . .thanks for reading.

Father's Day Marathon

Running has been a part of Jason's life for as long as I've known him, but he has mostly raced 5k distance or shorter. He decided this spring since he had "so much time" to finally train for a marathon. Traveling on the road for 2 1/2 months made running a little complicated, but I think he ran in practically every state we passed through.  The training was not without setbacks; getting mono for a month, throwing his back out, tight hamstrings etc. . . . But I so so proud of Jason for pushing through and accomplishing his goal. 

 The race was in Vancouver, Washington, just across the river from Portland. 

 At the starting line Josiah started crying and said "I'll miss you daddy". I love the emotion in this photo.

 We cheered for Jason at the 14 mile mark and he looked really fresh and strong. He was smiling and was probably in 12th place, running a pace that would finish him around 3:05, qualifying him for the Boston Marathon.

Daddy's #1 Fans!

 Jason kept his pace until mile 23 when his back tightened up in extreme pain.  The last three miles he really slowed down, one mile even took him 15 minutes. I could tell when Jason finished that he was really hurting. So his finish time was 3:23.  Still incredible for 26.2 miles!

It was a great way to celebrate Jason for the inspiring, dedicated, determined person that he is. The kids were so proud of their daddy and I am too.  Happy Father's Day Jason!!!

Best Buds

My heart is so happy after a wonderful visit with our friends Beth and Gilbert in Yakima, WA. We met Beth and Gil at Biola and Jason was the best man in Gil's wedding. We have not seen much of each other the last eight years, yet when we got together we felt such a unity of spirit.  Caleb and Josiah are a month apart are were best buds. I have never seen four year old boys play so well together. Watching them was like a miniature Jason and Gil- so sweet!

I recruited Beth to sell Mary Kay 10 years ago. I only sold it for a couple months but Beth has gone the distance and is a director and drives a Mary Kay car!! I got to visit her unit meeting and am so proud of what an confident, beautiful person she is! 

Beth and Gilbert have a dream of moving to Zambia (Gilbert's home country) to minister there.  And we have a dream of visiting them there, someday. . . .

Childlike Wonder

We took a family hike through the "Hall of Mosses" in Olympic National Park.  Josiah loved exploring all the treasures in the rainforest. He was so proud of himself for finding this slug climbing under the bench.

Driving Our House

We are still moving in the moment, in this case we are moving our whole house along with us.  My Dad's cousin was so generous to lend us the use of his motorhome.  To us it is a palace. After being in so many different places, most recently a tent, we are loving the little luxuries of motor homing. Everything is conveneintly where you need it thus eliminating all the set up and take down. I love looking at beautiful views as I cook in the kitchen and waking up the sound of rain on the roof as we are snuggled inside. We've been putting around the Pacific Northwest and exploring Olympic National Park  the last four days and will meet up with some old friends this weekend.

 Driving this beast is like sitting on your couch and steering your house. But Jason has been wanting to RV for a long time so he is happy to drive and does a great job.

 Moving to the forefront of our minds is Hong Kong and all of the details that lie ahead for us.  We are trying to use this time to process the past and prepare for the future (summer school, new classes, furniture, flats etc) We just have one more month on the "move".

 Just for your amusement- we stopped in the little town of Sequim, Washington and found the whole place decked out in knitting. We never got an explanation, but I thought it might just make you smile.

Wild Wild Wyoming

From Story City, IA we headed into the western frontier. We had quite a few long days of driving in the car, which I must say, our kids are doing great with.  To pass the time they fight over, I mean play with their toys, eat (a lot), sing, look out the window, play on the ipad, watch movies, read books and tell stories. I also sit in-between the kids  at times and we have back- seat preschool (everything but finger paint). 

I hit a bit of a slump this week in the trip and started to feel really “over it”. Honestly, I struggled to have a good attitude about exerting time and money when I really just wanted to be done. I had been to these places before (Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole) but Jason has always wanted to.  God reminded me to have his attitude and I couldn’t imagine him pouting, so I committed to finishing well. In the end we had a good time and the scenery was breath taking. 

 We were too cheap to pay to park, so we just took this photo from the road.

 We saw this black bear from the road.  The ranger told us that there was a Grizzly who liked to hang out near our camp, but just to make noise to scare him off.  Since we had Annette along we rested assure that we (and our neighbors) were quite safe. (:

Josiah circled all the wildlife we saw, just about everything but the big horn sheep. 

 Lower Yellowstone Falls- Josiah hiked all the way here and back!

 Jason is in the final training stages of his marathon so I rented a bike with a trailer to accompany and support him along his 20 mile run. It turned out I was the one who needed encouraged as I worked the bike (pulling kids) uphill at 7,000 feet in a thunder storm.  The second half of the ride was delightful as it was downhill and the sun came out. (:  Jason is seriously so amazing, just in case you didn’t know!

Memorial Day Family Reunion

I'll catch you up to speed really quick. . . The Power and Love Conference was excellent and we loved the amazing, challenging teaching (we also got to drive into Quebec to check out the French- Canadians). From there we visited some friends in Grand Rapids, MI and Cuba City, WI. It as so sweet to reconnect with friends and see their lives.

We are at the tail end of weekend long family reunion here in Story City, Iowa.  It had been 7 years since I'd seen some of my cousins. The weekend was such a great time of eating, hanging out, laughing, watching old photos and eating some more. We even managed to squeeze in a baby shower and birthday party.  

Here is the whole gang -just some California family missing, sad :(

We went canoeing down the Skunk River

and planted a Japanese Maple tree in honor of Nana

Three flavors of homemade ice cream!

 We beat the heat with the slip- in- slide, water balloons, and sprinkler

Today we celebrated Memorial Day with a town parade and service the the cemetery.  I love the expression on Josiah's face as he watched the soldiers do their 21 gun salute.

 Our time in Story City would not have been complete without a ride on the Antique Carousel.  This is Annette's face before she starting crying because it was going so fast!

We will be back in Hong Kong in a little over a month!  I am very ready to get settled back in, but at the same time think I will have some culture shock. Grassy yards and big blue skies in small town America have been dreamy.  I think I'll dream just a little longer . . .