The Lord's Day

This is the day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it!

Yesterday evening we took my husband out to dinner for his birthday and had a really fun time. The twins kept teasing him that they were going to tell the waitress it was his birthday so he could get a free dessert and be sung to (their goal - to embarrass dad I'd say!). It was so funny to watch the three of them. My husband didn't really believe they had the guts to do it, but I assured him they did. There was one moment when one of the twins (DR) just couldn't stand it anymore and he just blurted it out to the waitress. Knowing how my husband really felt, I told her he didn't want to be sung to and she assured us it was company policy that they couldn't sing. She failed to mentioned that she would come back with balloons and dessert and a birthday sign! We laughed harder than we have in days (at least the twins and I did...)After we returned from dinner, we came to the conclusion that this hotel room may be home for a while and that we needed to be content in all things...ALL things! We looked everywhere for an apartment yesterday, but nothing felt right. Not only would another move be really tough (meaning we would either have to get a few furniture items to get by or have our stuff delivered and then repack when the time came to move on post), but most places wanted at least a 6 month lease and our house could be ready anytime in the next one to three months. The more we talked about it, the more we all felt this is where we needed to stay. Today I told my husband this place was sort of growing on me...and he agreed. This was before chapel...

We went to two different chapel services this morning - Chapel Next (contemporary) and one other that was extremely small, but where my husband might be preaching in the near future. (The sermon title...Patience!) The first chapel reminded me of our church we left when the Lord called my husband into the military, and the second one reminded me of the little country church in Oklahoma (great acoustics!) where he was interim pastor at one time...but even smaller and a lot younger people. The services were very different, and I enjoyed them both. More than anything I would say it was about the opportunity to worship the Lord today. It just felt good to focus on God, who IS the same yesterday, today and forevermore! If there's one thing I'm certain of during this transition, it's that my God is constant. He does not change! As we drove home from chapel, I turned on Big Daddy Weave's hit - Every Time I Breathe (since we found out they're going to be in concert here on post next week!!) so my husband would know who they were talking about and we all sang and praised the Lord.

After chapel we came back to the hotel, changed clothes and headed to the PX to eat lunch and get our twins their school supplies. While we were there it began to rain (the first time since we've been here) and as I walked to the car, leaving the rest of the family to stay dry, rain drops falling, I felt such a sense of belonging. I KNOW all things work for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose and I am excited about serving the Lord (with gladness!) here - come rain or shine, good days or bad days, easy days or tough days...

A special post for a special man...

Today, and every day, I salute you, my love! You make me so proud. You're brave and strong, full of faith in your Savior and a true soldier for the Lord! I love to watch you as you daily live out your faith and trust in the Lord. You're a wonderful example to me and I admire your willingness to follow the God's will for your life, no matter the cost and sacrifice. Thank you for the example you set for our children. They are blessed to have you as their dad and they love you very, very much! Thank you for being gracious and for loving me unconditionally. Thank you for serving our country and for ministering to the soldiers of the United States Army. I love you and cherish our marriage and friendship. You are a wonderful man of God and I am blessed to be your wife. I love you and wish you a wonderful birthday today!!!

Transition isn't easy sometimes...

Today we spent the morning looking for apartments and checking out more of the area. It was a little disheartening since most places require at least a 6 month lease and we only have 1 - 3 months to wait for post housing. We have no idea what to do! We hope to have more answers next week...

This morning, as I spent time with the Lord, I decided to focus on not complaining. It means I've had to bite my tongue a few times, but I'm trying to be positive and not look at the things around us that are difficult right now. We're most thankful that we can be together and continually pray God will work out all the other details.

Trying to keep our chins up!

Today I checked us out of a really nice hotel suite into a dump on post...real bummer!! We're trying to keep a good attitude about it, but we're a little in shock since they have one brand new hotel and one other that is fairly new and in much better condition. As we walked down the hall, we knew it might not be too good...then my husband stopped at the door and prayed it would be nicer than what we were walking through. Sadly, it wasn't.

We did, however, get the boys enrolled in school and they will start on Monday. It's a very small school and everyone who worked in the office was REALLY nice - especially the twins' counselor. Talking with her was the highlight of our day. She was a super nice, strong Christian woman and we both left there feeling our boys would be in good hands. They are excited about starting on Monday.

We went out to dinner and talked about keeping our chins up and smiles on our faces. We plan to look for apartments tomorrow and pray our post housing becomes available very, very soon!!!

I'm not sure where to start...

The twins and I went exploring this morning and found it to be A HUGE post (just as we suspected from the short time we were there yesterday) with a lot going on. We found the officer's housing area in which we will live and we can't wait to move in. They won't start school until we know which exact area we will live in, but we're hoping we will find that out tomorrow when my husband goes to the housing office. Then again, the twins aren't too worried about it since they're getting to be out of school a little longer!

They brought up the idea of homeschooling while we were traveling here. The funny thing is - I didn't dismiss it. And, more than that - the idea came to my mind several months ago and I didn't dismiss it then. I've actually been praying about it. I've never really been a big fan of the idea for our children so for the thought to come to my mind I felt I better pray about it and not just dismiss it. If it meant that we could be with my husband more, or if things were really bad for them at school, I would do it in a heartbeat. On the other hand, I want them out in the world making an impact and don't want to interfere if God desires that for their lives. I just want to be open to whatever the Lord wants for us as a family.

I'm sitting by the pool while the boys swim. It's so nice and relaxing! Last night we went to swim and when we got back to the room the twins said to my husband, "Mom made a friend!" (It's funny what they notice...and meaningful when it's something like that because I could have said the same thing about them and this lady's little girl. In a matter of minutes they were playing with her and the mother noticed that and was so happy!) I considered it a divine appointment. I later told my husband that him being a chaplain brings up spiritual conversations very quickly it seems.

I asked her if they were in the military and immediately she moved over next to me and asked the same of me. When I told her my husband was a chaplain she wanted to know much more and shared her background with me. I won't really go into the whole conversation, but I shared my faith with her and before she left she asked, "Will I see you back here tomorrow night?" Later on in the evening, my husband and I came back to the pool so he could sit in the hot tub and, again, I would say that was a divine appointment. The moment my husband said he was a chaplain the man opened up and talked to him about his son and spiritual matters. Come to find out, he just visited the chapel on post last Sunday.

Before we went to sleep we prayed and thanked the Lord for those moments that confirmed we are here for a reason. We also shared more of our thoughts from the day's drive here...

We've driven many, many miles and seen some of God's amazing creation over the last 10 days, but it was at about this point in the trip when I realized how truly far away from our older children we were and began to cry. The emotions welled up so strongly that I finally couldn't hold back the tears any longer. They were tears of joy - because over and over again we've seen God's hand in all of this - and, yet, also tears of sadness - because our other children aren't alongside us to see and experience this with us. I know it's all a part of "growing up" but it's sure not easy! And I thought high school was tough...

Here's a few more pictures of the drive here...

Watch what happens here...Keep your eyes on the sky...

At this point in the drive my husband asked if we were ready for the next six months. It looked like a forest fire from far away (like in the first picture), but the closer we got the more we realized it wasn't. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen!

About 15 minutes later I was praising God for the sunshine and clear skies as we neared the post! I realize it may look more like this, and that's OK...I won't have to worry about the sun being in my eyes too much or getting a really bad sunburn...I'm looking at this cup as half full rather than half empty! :) Honestly, it is a beautiful place to live and a beautiful place in my life right now.

We're here!

...and it's beautiful! The post is HUGE so tomorrow we will go exploring! Since we arrived early we're off post at another really nice hotel. All they had left was a suite...I counted it as a blessing from the Lord since it's big enough to live in.

We're all very excited to be here. The drive was absolutely beautiful and I'll download pictures to post later. For now, I'm going to kick back and relax! Hot cookies are being served downstairs!

I've washed, folded and repacked five loads of laundry, cleaned out and reorganized the car and truck, and got everything ready for tomorrow morning (...my blog is posting as Wednesday but it's still Tuesday where I am) - when we'll depart for our final destination and begin the new life God has set before us. Although we've been in the military before, we really have no idea what to expect tomorrow. I know we will live in a hotel off Post until the 14th and will move on Post to a hotel (unless housing on Post is ready...which I'm praying fervently about!). If housing isn't ready we'll either continue to stay in the hotel or rent an apartment off Post for a while. Whatever we have to do is fine with me...I'm just happy we're together!!

My husband will sign in and begin in-processing, and the twins and I will look into school and remain flexible and supportive until we get this whole thing figured out. We've talked a lot about the fact that we still can't believe we are actually doing this. I know my husband has a lot going through his mind right now and I'm praying all the time for him. I don't have a doubt in my mind that God called us to do this and that he will be an amazing chaplain to the soldiers. I can't wait to see him in action!!

I really miss my older kids. We talk on the phone every day, but I miss being with them. I'm trying not to really think about it too much and am just counting the days until I see them in November. I'm so excited...on our drive here we decided to fly our son up for a week or two before he leaves for training, and we already bought tickets for our daughter to visit the week of Thanksgiving.

Several of our friends and family have emailed or called to encourage us this week. We really appreciate all the love, support and prayers. It's not easy to be thousands of miles away from those you love, but it's a great feeling to know you are being lifted up in prayer!

My fishermen...

They didn't catch any fish in this river, but they sure looked cute tryin'...

Good times at C'mon Inn

This is the hotel we stayed at last night and until literally 2 minutes before we had to check out at noon today. It was such a cool place. We played ping pong, swam, relaxed in the hot tubs and the twins played a lot of games in their game room. I beat both the twins in ping pong this morning, Pops! No mercy...
The suite we stayed in was really nice. From the bedroom we had a balcony we could sit at and see the waterfall. On the third floor they had leather couches and chairs to sit on outside your room.

OK, so I know this might seem cheesy to blog about, but our twins thought it was an awesome place to stay. Every time we stop to get a hotel they get so excited and wonder what it'll have to offer for fun (while we're just looking for a comfortable bed...haha). One of the twins spotted this place from the road so we agreed to see if it was nice and the price was right. It turned out to be the best place yet! It has been such a blessing to see the pure excitement in their eyes as we've traveled along. We are all very excited and anxious about tomorrow - when we will arrive on our new Post! Here's a couple of pictures we took along the way today. I couldn't get a good shot of the rivers and lakes we saw from the highway, but it was beautiful.

Our adventure over the last few days...

Our drive from Colorado to Yellowstone was quite interesting. My husband came up with the idea to count antelope along the way, but the way in which we did it was a game. The first one to spot an antelope got to count that antelope, plus any others with it. We counted over 600 antelope in a 300 mile radius. The largest heard was 70 - found by the older twin. The picture below was taken as we passed by the Grand Tetons before heading into Yellowstone (see the herd of buffalo?).Once we arrived in Yellowstone we encountered deer, antelope, elk, chipmunks, and buffalo (lots of buffalo!). We wanted to see a moose or bear, but never did. Our first night walking through the woods we encountered this elk right by the road.We left Colorado a day early, thinking school has started so surely there will be somewhere to stay...boy were we wrong! There wasn't a hotel anywhere within a hundred miles! There was, however, a tent in one of the general stores and we had plenty of blankets so we decided to rough it. Oh...one other interesting fact, it was only a three-man tent and there was four of us. We thought since the twins are a little smaller than us we'd be fine, but once we laid down to sleep we all had to turn at the same time...kind of like a rotisserie! We didn't get much sleep since about every 15 minutes our bodies started to ache.
The place we camped was called "Bear Country" and they warned us not to take anything at all in our tents since five days earlier a momma bear and her two cubs were in the area (we saw the picture). We joked about our tent being camouflaged and an animal stepping on our little tent because they couldn't see it. I'm not sure which we worried about more - animals or freezing to death as we slept! When we woke up it was 33 degrees and we had our tent packed and were back in the truck with the heat on in less than 10 minutes.
The following day it snowed, not a lot, but some. We fished, hiked to a natural bridge, saw a lot of geysers (including Old Faithful...that wasn't exactly faithful, but was worth the freezing cold wait...probably didn't help that we had ice cream before heading out to watch it). We also saw several waterfalls, a huge canyon, and animals. The picture below is of the natural bridge. The twins immediately noticed the shape below the bridge looked like the shape of Africa (which made them think about their sister). On Monday when we woke up it was 22 degrees! Thank the Lord, we found a room available at a nearby hotel! We didn't even care if it turned out to be a dump...luckily, it was a really nice hotel!! We fished in the rivers and then headed towards Montana where we're resting in a REALLY nice hotel that has 5 hot tubs, two pools, waterfalls in the lobby...and is less expensive than all the others we've stayed in! The twins say we have to take pictures of this place, too!

This afternoon we will head to Spokane. It's still strange to us that we are actually moving!