Authentic Community

I have the last email that I received from my boss at the last church where I served, I even framed it. In it he warned me about things that would plague those of us who had committed to live at least part of our lives in ministry. One of those was, and I quote "the over and over again illusion of genuine friendship."

He was right. I was reminded of this during this vacation while working on this blog. Any of you who maintain a blog probably know that statistics about your readership are readily available. When I worked in ministry and before my boss got sick and everything went to Hell in a hand basket the readership for our vacation blog was quite different. Those who daily followed our vacations in those days numbered more than 250 people while today it is more like 30.

First let me remind anyone who reads this that the purpose of this blog is to 1) Provide our girls a scrapbook of sorts to remind them of some of the times that we have had over the years and 2) to help our friends and family to participate in the fun. So, don't think that readership is the goal for this blog at this point and you should also know that we have never promoted the blog except to those whom Megan and I have worked with; but I couldn't help but notice the difference and the change in life.  I would have thought that all of those readers represented and authentic friendship only to find that a very short time later that those and many others would be out of lives completely while others would even will my harm. It turns out that authentic friendship (authentic community we now call it) is rare, very rare, but once you encounter it - it will bless you beyond measure.

Before I go on, I would like to mention that if you are the persons in Alaska or Russia who have been following our vacation blog, I would like to hear from you. We think that it is kinda cool!

We have been through a lot in the past year and we have experienced authentic community in ways that have touched our souls more deeply that we have ever been touched by friends.  I would love to mention them all here but I would surely leave out someone who has made a significant impact on our lives over this past year.

When we got home from our vacation on Saturday and instead of sitting around we wrapped ourselves up into true authentic community.  We went out on the river with our friends, The Clubbs.  You have seen them on this blog numerous times because they are a significant part of our daily lives.  We went out on the river and had fun.

We rode in a really cool boat:

Then in the raft 

Then we ate lunch (not pictured because we were all holding sandwiches)

Then we swam

... and kayaked

And had a lot of fun with great friends

Home

Every vacation, no matter how good, must come to an end, so on this day we got up (having mostly packed the car the night before) and made our way home.  We had planned to leave pretty early but left about mid-morning instead.

The girls did very well.  There were problems along the way.  We sat in traffic on I-95 in South Carolina for nearly two hours. A motor home had driven off the road into a bunch of trees just up ahead.  We were too early upon the scene for Waze (our traffic app that is suppose to keep us off out of such problems) to have been of any help.

On another occasion we stopped for a bathroom break and there was a Dairy Queen in the complex.  We caved and promised the girls ice cream.  Inefficiencies in their system costed us 30 minutes in line and then waiting for our ice cream.

Finally, on the way home we hit construction on I-95 within 10 miles of our exit that cost us another half hour or so.

So, our 10 hour trip (that is with no stops) ended up being about 13 or 14. But, alas we made it and we made it safe.  We arrived at this house with the long grass - the only house that these girls can remember - and everyone cheered.

We mourned the end of a fantastic vacation but we cheered for home.  For all that we love to go and and love to travel, we also appreciate this place.  We appreciate that it has held our daily family experiences (good, bad, and concerning) for lo these many years.  We love this old house. It may not always be our home but no matter where we go in this world and no matter what the future may hold we will do it together and so we will be at home.

For now, this is our home and we love it because we love each other in it and it has been graciously provided for us by God; who loves us no matter what!

Stay tuned ... we won't stay put for long.  There is much to see and experience.  Join us on this great journey!

So Long to the Mouse

Today we started off at Animal Kingdom. We all woke up early due to Fastpasses for The Lion King. Joe and I saw the broadway production many years ago. I was pregnant with Olivia and we made the trip to NYC-that was pre blog days...here's the wrap up: We ate PB&J for two weeks to save money- I was 7 months pregnant and MISERABLE. We had the SMALLEST hotel room in NYC- and we saw The Lion King from the balcony and it was great!

Back to today-We saw The Lion King at Animal Kingdom and it was fantastic. We sat in the giraffe section...do you know the sound a giraffe makes...nope? We didn't either! It sounds a lot like a sheep- BAA- so there ya go!

We ended up going around and getting each girl their "One Things" That's another post so check back in a few days to see what each girls picked out.

We ended up seeing Finding Nemo after a quick trip to the Dinosaur Playground. While it was hot, it was nice to let the girls run free. There is one entrance and one exit so the girls could run and burn some energy.

We headed back to the house for rest time and pool time. Our girls have really enjoyed having a pool at our vacation house. 

We spent our last night at Disney Studios. This was due to promising Olivia we would go see Star Wars night time spectacular again. It is really good and she was really into Star Wars on this trip. While there we rode Toy Story and Great Movie Ride. Addison and Emily Grace went for a quick snack while Joe and Olivia saw the show. It's interesting that every other trip to Disney has always ended at Magic Kingdom. It just shows that our girls are changing and their interests are changing.

I LOVE this picture because if you've talked to Joe for any length of time you will know he enjoys hypothesizing about different things, from Disney to roads and highways. Here he is showing the girls what is coming next...it was truly a great moment:)

It is soon hard to believe that I am going to have a 5th grader this year! This girl makes me soo proud! She really enjoyed our vacation this year and we loved seeing her different interests evolve.

Our BB8 Cupcakes were never eaten...but what do you do...its a story I won't share on our blog. LOL!