Sabbatical has begun

I've been trying ever since I got here to get started on blogging about our sabbatical, but we only have internet in one place in camp and we've been super busy. So, I'll probably keep this as short as I can just so I can get started. Going to staff conference just before sabbatical began was a huge blessing. After weeks of planning and packing and thinking, it was nice to have some recoup time before our road trip. Of course, a lot of it was spent in hiding because of all the tornadoes whirling around. Sharp Top didn't have any damage, but we did lose power and had to cut the conference short.

The drive out to Colorado couldn't have been better. My mom was Super Granna and drove the kids all the way to Lexington by herself, which gave Joel and I a whole leg of the trip without them. However, by the time we got to Knoxville, I was so car sick that I was wondering if we were making a huge mistake. Luckily, I discovered how wonderful Dramamine was and stayed doped up for 3 days. It was super fun to get to celebrate Rebecca's birthday in Kentucky. Her husband and his family were amazing and cooked a fish fry and let us all spend the night (since Rebecca was basically running a bed and breakfast for the weekend and had no room). We also got to see her horsebaby, Zeus, and the renovations that they've done to the barn for their new barn business. We headed out early Friday morning. We made the call that it would be Young Life camp in the car for the next 2 days, where the answer would always be yes. I must have changed Ford's DVD player at least 100 times (many times before the movie even started). The kids were absolutely wonderful the whole time. One of the biggest things I was worried about was MK getting car sick since she often complains of needing to throw up on a 10 minute drive. But, she never once said anything about it the whole way. Thank you, Jesus. We made a long stop at the St. Louis Arch along the way to let the kids get some energy out. We made it to Lawrence, KS that night to stay with my cousins, Bill and Sonya. They made us a great breakfast on Saturday and we headed to CO. We go to Denver about 4:00 and made a stop at REI. The kids had fun playing on their playground, but we had to leave because some punk kid kept beating up all the other kids. He seriously jerked Ford to the ground and pulled his hood back. Then, we headed to Casa Bonita...Mexicanwonderland. It took the kids a little bit to warm up to it since they thought the gunfight was for real and that the "robber girl" really fell off the cliff. Anyway, it was a fun dinner before making the last leg of the trip to Buena Vista. We got into Trail West about 8:30 that night.

Click on the picture to see pics from the trip out to Colorado.