Adorable Memories

(One year overdue! All these are from October 2012)

Westminister,CO

Happy to be near rocks he can throw

Wearing Ethan's helmet

Neat play area in the Denver Mall

Hudson - 1 1/2

Wyoming

All week long, we threw rocks into the river (not pictured)

First we had to dig the rocks out of the ground

A little boy's paradise

Ethan could throw farther than his pregnant mommy (although, I don't know if
my pregnancy had anything to do with it. Ethan has an arm!)

Silly faces

Love my boys!

7 months pregnant

Loves to put things on his head

Up on the mountain

(One year overdue...this all happened September 2012)

After traveling for three weeks in Alabama, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, we had a "week off" with no meetings scheduled. Last year when this happened we were able to assist a ministry in Colorado Springs, CO and we truly enjoyed it. We were surrounded by the Garden of the God's park, and we were able to see Pike's Peak from a distance.

Since we needed to stay out west for up coming meetings, Jonathan tried to see if we could help the same ministry. They told him that the main ministry location didn't need our help, but they had a camp that had been damaged by the summer forest fires that could really use some man power. 

The camp was only about 20 to 30 minutes from Colorado Springs...on paper or as the crow flys...but when you add in the mountain roads...it was pretty far away. Little did we know we would be up IN Pikes Peak National Park.

As we were climbing up the mountain, my husband turned on the gps feature that told our altitude. 8000 ft...8500 ft...I finally told him to keep it to himself. I didn't want to know. I was about 25 weeks pregnant and altitudes always do weird things to me when pregnant. I just wanted to be ignorant about the fact that we were really 9300 ft above sea level.

Unfortunately I wasn't the only on who didn't like the altitude and mountain climbing. As we turned onto the dirt road to camp, our truck started smelling and pouring out fluid...transmission fluid. So for the time being we left our camper and truck parked on the dirt road, loaded up the boys and myself and a few essential belongings into the remaining working truck and proceeded to camp...on the bumpiest road I've ridden on during all 3 pregnancies. Jonathan seriously thought I was going into labor.

After much work and many helpful hands as well as the wonderful provision of God we figured out we  blew the transmission on our truck and the Lord allowed it to be replaced in time for us to make it to our next week of meetings.

But that was only the beginning of the week! I found myself huffing and puffing the rest of the week around our cabin and up the stairs. The couch and the bathroom were my two favorite friends for I could not keep much food down. The boys were entertained by their fisher price basketball net and old PBS kids episodes on the internet. The scenery was beautiful, the rest of the team accomplished much in cleaning up the forest fire debris...but I was counting my days to get off that mountain!

And miraculously as soon as we came down, I could eat again!! I've never been so thankful to be able to eat before! Let's just say this week was truly a learning experience...one of complete dependence and one where I realized that I must continue to surrender to God moment by moment or I simply wouldn't make it.

The view was gorgeous!

Our cabin was awesome too!

Begging me to take them outside

Keeping busy in the cabin

Ethan is looking for a troll under the bridge

The main camp building where we ate

View of part of the camp. The fire damage was just beyond those pine trees

Traveling with baby 101

Photo Credit Here

I must start by saying that I do not have all the answers! I just wanted to share a few tips/tricks that I have learned while traveling full-time.

1) Keep the bottle warm! When Hudson started taking bottles at about 6 months, my life in general became much easier. Except the tricky question of how do I provide a warm bottle for him when we are on the road for 8 hours. (Maybe your baby is not picky about warm bottles. Mine is!) I first tried having my husband stop at a gas station for me to warm the bottle up. I didn't think this should be too inconvenient, but I was wrong. We learned that especially when traveling out west gas stations with microwaves or hot boiling water were very few and far between. So I googled car bottle warmers. After getting many mixed reviews on their workability, we decided to try this...

The tried and true Stanley thermos. And it REALLY does keep liquids warm for more than 8 hours. The first time I used it, I boiled the water I was going to use throughout the day to make Hudson's bottles. Then I poured it straight into the thermos. 8 hours later the water was still to hot for Hudson to drink! Thank you Stanley thermos for making my life much easier!!

2) Leave your kids alone. What??? You probably think I'm crazy. Yes, I do get a little crazy after traveling so long in the car with a 3 year old and an 9 month old. But after much experimenting, both boys do better when I leave them alone in the back seat for a period of time by themselves to play, talk and eventually fall asleep. Mommy does better too. It gives me time to regain my sanity and feel like an adult again. (I realize I have 2 children and they keep each other company while I'm not sitting with them. If you just have one precious bundle in the back, you probably need to make your presence known a little more, but just remember, they may need a break from you so they can fall asleep every now and then.)

Photo Credit Here



3) Set apart toys, games, books, movies, and activities for car travel. Both my boys now have special "travel only" back packs. I try to keep them stocked with their favorite books and toys. Then I have the most special bag (or bags if you want to count the snack bag :-). Ethan has now caught on that Mommy has a bag of "special things" that he is not able to play with on his own. I usually pull them out when Hudson is napping or if the trip is getting long. Recently we had two 8 hour days of driving in a row and our dvd player was broken! I had to pull out all the stops with my special bag. My bag contains mostly school type stuff because that fascinates Ethan right now. I have been collecting several different dry erase workbooks full of dot-to-dot activities, letter tracing, ect. It is so nice to be able to just erase those and start over again on our next trip. (I have found these dry erase books mostly at teacher stores, but every now and then I see them at walmart too.) We have school flash cards (from walmart) and coloring books too. Another fun idea is felt. I feel like a just discovered the endless possibilites of things you can do with felt. We have some felt bible story characters (found at any Bible bookstore) and I just cut up some felt shapes and animals. I bring one of Hudson's receiving blankets and the felt sticks wonderfully to it. One more activity that we enjoy in the back seat takes a little time to prepare, but keeps us busy for a while. I found many school type games at http://www.filefolderfun.com/ and http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/ (scroll down until you find "tot packs" or just click here). I printed out several activities, laminated them, and cut them out. Then I figured out the best way to make the activity "travelable." (meaning some activities I really like had several pieces I knew would be easy to lose while traveling so I put them in envelopes or glued down what could be glued so we wouldn't lose them.)

4) The snack bag...Many things could be put here, but the 2 lessons I have learned that stick out the most are very simple, but I'll still state them anyway.

• Gas station snacks are expensive...highway robbery :-) REALLY. Do you realize that you can buy a package of 8 cookies at a gas station for the same price you could by a package of 36 cookies for at a grocery store. And water bottles...$1.75 for a water bottle...REALLY! So stock your snack bag up with a few special treats that you know your kids and husband (and be realistic, yourself too) would long to buy at a gas station stop.

Photo Credit Here

• Don't forget fresh fruit and veggies!!!!!!! This may be harder to travel with, I know, but it is just as important as when you are at home. This hit me hard these past few months as I look at how often we are in the truck on long trips. I have to treat travel days like normal days where I would offer my kids fruit and veggies throughout the day. I even think they need more on 8 hour road trips. Fruit and veggies give them an extra chance to receive some hydration, not to mention the great vitamins and fiber we already know about. So think ahead and prepare some fresh snacks.

5) Pray! Above all else! Many of these ideas and solutions became apart to me after prayer. God desires to be the leader of every part of my day, whether I am in a truck traveling all day or at home. He wants to help during the stress of traveling, but I must give my burdens to Him, realizing that I can't handle them on my own.

From the Land of Enchantment

You may not have known it, but the state motto of New Mexico is "the Land of Enchantment." During our stay in New Mexico, I often looked at my surroundings and thought that whoever coined the state motto was using an advertising gimmick. Maybe they were trying to get people to come out and see what was enchanting about New Mexico and then hoping the people would stay and live there. Perhaps it is because I grew up in an area of grass, woods, and flowers...I had a hard time finding New Mexico completely enchanting. Yards consisted of sand and something that looked like tumbleweed. There were little pockets of "enchantment" like the mountains and the sunsets. But then there were days when you saw this blowing across the parking lot...

Yes, that's tumbleweed, folks!

Here are a few highlights from our stay in New Mexico...

 Snack time on the couch (looks cute, but shortly after this Hudson 

got "into" his bowl a little too much and puffs were everywhere)

Ethan has been dying to ride on a school bus with his backpack. Daddy had to move the buses in order to set up for the basketball tourney, and Ethan got to have his dream come true!

This may seem like a strange picture, but I had to try and capture what I could of the Balloon Fiesta. (The small dots toward the mountains are hot air balloons.) Every morning during our stay near Albuquerque, NM, we saw several hot air balloons in the sky as we woke up. On the actual festival days, there were at least 50 or more in the sky. My photo doesn't do justice to the beauty of the hot air balloons against the backdrop of a clear blue sky.

Ethan and his favorite snack, freshly popped popcorn (notice the 

beautiful New Mexico landscape behind him :-)

 Our second week in NM was a record breaker for the area where we were. It rained pretty much for 2 days straight. It hardly EVER rains in NM. And it was CHILLY! The boys had fun playing in this church nursery on rainy & cold days!

Near Farmington, NM, we visited B-square Ranch. "It is one of the largest private collections of it's type in the world today with over 2,500 specimens. The collection from five continents gives visitors a change to view animas in their natural setting and to appreciate the beauty in nature's animal kingdom." (www.bolackmuseum.com) This type of thing would not typically be something I would enjoy, but it was pretty awesome. 

This is what you see when you walk in the door...HUGE!

Yes...this is (was) a real giraffe! Wonder how hard it was to get it back to America?

 12 foot Polar Bear (and a 3 year old sticking his head through the railing...whoops)

I shared the story behind this "Nile Croc" in a previous post. here you can see necklaces hanging out of the croc's mouth. Those are the necklaces of the ladies he munched on.

So whether or not New Mexico is truly "the Land of Enchantment" is up for grabs. Personally, I am glad to be back in a state that has grass.

Go West Young Man

Here are a few highlights from our week in Colorado Springs, CO.

Beautiful mountain and hiking trails EVERYWHERE!

How would you like to wake up to seeing this every morning?

We were able to take a tour of this "castle." A man built it for his wife, whom he called "Queen."

The boys took in the Air Force Academy

A visit to Focus on the Family

They had lots of fun stuff for kids to explore!

Ethan was humoring me by stopping to smell the flowers

Pikes Peak

Happy Hiker Hudson (with snot running out of his nose)...very attractive

Visiting "Garden of Gods" (a bunch of tall red rock formations). Ethan is looking up because there were a bunch of hikers scaling the rocks in front of him and then repelling down.

We often heard Dr. Bob encourage students from the chapel platform to spend a few years out west upon graduating. I never really understood the extent of his plea until spending a few weeks out west myself. Laborers are NEEDED out here. It is not uncommon for us to be in a small church where our children are "the nursery." How encouraging would it be for several young families to come along side a church planter or pastor out west and serve in any way possible? Ministry opportunities abound!! Just had to share my heart :-)