An answer to prayer?

So, a few weeks ago, we attempted to drive up Pikes Peak...the weather got the better of us, and we were stopped just a few miles from the top for high winds!  This weekend, we made another attempt, and it was a beautiful day.  The leaves were changing colors, we got to find a letterbox, and take a beautiful hike; all in all,  it was wonderful...thank you Lord for teaching us patience, something I have been trying so hard to get a handle on lately.  I write this now and it sounds like the best day...what I'm not saying is that I got a horrible headache as we were on Hwy 24, getting ready to turn on the Pikes Peak Highway.  I got nauseous and I spent most of the drive up there with my eyes closed, wishing I was already back down again.  I honestly just wanted to be in bed!

When we got to the top, Indy watched the kids as they played on the "rock playground" and then we went in to the gift shop and ate some lunch, and then we took some photos out on the peak.  He bought me some Motrin and I took it and slugged a bottle of water and started praying "Dear Lord, I really want to enjoy this, please heal my headache, I don't want to remember this trip this way..."  I sat for a bit and by the time we were on our way back down, I felt pretty good.  Indy kept asking me if I REALLY wanted to stop and do the letterbox or just skip it and go home.  Initially, we passed it; but, then all the kids chimed in and started "begging" to go back and do it.  We did a U-turn and went back.  I am so grateful we did.  It was gorgeous, the leaves were changing, we had a nice little hike and found a really neat double-sided, hand made stamp.  I am so going to miss letterboxing in Tanzania, there is 1, it is at Mt. Kilimanjaro...I think we'll be planting more when we're there ;)!

I think this weekend we had a few answers to our "simple" prayers...thank you Lord for rewarding our patience and allowing us to get to the top of Pikes Peak, thank you for letting us find another really neat letterbox and finally, Lord, thank you for healing my headache so I could have an enjoyable experience and memory with my family.  I am so grateful Lord and sometimes it really is the small stuff, isn't it?!

"They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength..." Isaiah 40:31

What a cutie pie, she really wanted me to take her picture by the "Continental Divide" sign!

Bighorn Sheep that crossed the road, right in front of our van.

The changing of the leaves

On our hike to find the letterbox

View from the peak

The famous poem, this monument is just beautiful!

Our Weekend

It's Tuesday and I feel like I'm finally coming out of the fog of the weekend!  We went camping with several families from our homeschool co-op, High Country, and had a really good time...minus all the "incidents" :)...  there were bee stings, snakes, concussions, multiple car jumps due to dead batteries, sleepless nights with infants and even some pre-schoolers...and the list goes on!

It really was fun though, we were able to sit up at night and chat after the children went to bed and get to know each other a bit better; that some of us are cold, no matter what the temp., and that we all enjoy the outdoors and so we started talking about other trips we can take.  I so appreciate the group's patience with each other, the grace that abounded with our children, and that God loves us and looks out for us, even in the small stuff.

Our car, in particular, died twice.  On Saturday, as we were preparing to leave for the Civil War Encampment down in Parker, the car wouldn't start.  We got a jump from our friends and were on our way...stopped the car to get gas and also in Parker at the encampment, and had no problems...figured one of the kids must have left an interior light on overnight.  Well, Sunday morning, it was dead again, and I do mean DEAD....it took over 30 minutes to bring it back to life and so we WERE NOT turning it off...we came straight home and dropped off all the stuff and the kids, and Indy took the car right over to Autozone.  Now, we had talked on the way home, that we couldn't remember where we got the battery; but, knew it was less than two years ago.  The car had died on our ski trip to Keystone in Jan of '09 (SNOFEST, the military ski weekend).  The people at Autozone immediately recognized the battery as theirs and tested it, said it was bad, and gave us a new one!!!!!  No charge!!!  Can you believe it?  I was floored....  Thank you Lord!

Matthew 6:26   Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?


Here are just a few pictures from our weekend....

Sissi and her new dance teacher, Bethany...she has class on Friday afternoons from 3:30-4:30

Sissi and big brother (still undecided on psuedonym...either Krypto or Spaceman Spiff, any votes???) with President Lincoln.  He gave them pennies, with his picture on them ;), who needs re-election buttons when you can hand out pennies?

A cooking demonstration at the Civil War Encampment on Saturday

By the "beach" at the camping place on Sunday morning

Gwangi (look up the old movie, and this nickname will make so much more sense) with his rocks!

My big boy, up in the tree...what a great location for some family fun!

What a week...and a few more questions answered

I can hardly believe that a week has gone by since I did my last post!  Seems like it is always something, doesn't it?  A few thoughts and lessons learned this week ;)...

Number One, don't over-commit, HAH!  Isn't that so much easier said than done?  Don't they "say" that if you want something done, ask the busy person?  We had 3 events this past Saturday alone, and I just KNEW going in that it was too much; but, I have such a hard time saying "no"...Indy even sings the song to me from Oklahoma! "I'm just a girl who can't say no"...I always laugh; but, it is so true.  Well, I'll be honest, at one point I lost my temper and actually cried...not at anyone in the family or quite frankly at anyone in particular...it was the situation; but, I think I did scare Sissi with my tears :( .  I was tired, had been out in the sun too long and had spent WAY too long in traffic at the USAFA football game.  I kept trying to leave base (we had left the three boys at the game) and "all roads led to the stadium"...odd, since I had just come from there, two times....ahhhh....I'm not kidding, the traffic plan was horrendous, you would sit for 30 minutes or so in a line, think you would be able to turn to leave the base, and then would be directed to park in yet another of the stadium lots.  I kept trying to explain that I wanted to leave base, not see the rest of the football game...really, I'm not kidding...  They would tell me, "ok ma'am, but you have to go this way to leave".  Hmmm, really, I've lived here for about a 1/3 or more of my life, I know how to leave base and THIS isn't it!!!!  Breathe, right?  I tried to think that...I confessed later to Indy what happened and he said I need to get used to inefficiency....I might be the most organized executive officer he's ever seen; but, most of the third world IS NOT!  I really do need to keep that in mind....

Number Two, get enough rest!  I can hear so many of you laughing at this one too.  I put a post on my FB page about this, too.  Here it is, for those of you that didn't catch it the first time...

http://raisinghomemakers.com/2010/im-so-tired/

So, I'm trying on this one...but it is so hard.  I find it difficult to get a lot of my organizational stuff for school, and just life in general, done during the day.  I seem to get a second wind after the children go to bed and then am tempted to stay up until 11 or 12.   Then when 6:15/6:30 comes around the next morning, I can sometimes push through and get up; but, more often than not, I push the snooze and go back to sleep and then I'm trying to fit in a shower and breakfast amidst the children's needs.  School gets started late (as in, I feel rushed to get it done so we can still go to the Y or the library) and I know I'm just setting myself up for a melt down...let me clarify, this is MY melt down, not one of the kid's ;).  Right now, the three kiddos are playing outside, I've had to go and intervene a few times; but, for the most part, they are playing well together...I know it's getting easier; but, then why am I so selfish with my time?  Why can't I sacrifice a few things that I want to do and just GO TO BED????  Still working on this one!

So, an update on how things are going with our application - we're waiting for several of our references to be turned in and we're starting our medical reviews tonight!  There's also a few other questions that I thought I might answer...

--What will you be doing there?
Well, there is the obvious teaching that will happen, both Indy teaching History and I will be teaching our own children.  There is also mentoring and mission projects with the boarding children.  About a 1/3 of the children are MKs and so their parents may be far away, some of the staff can take the place of their parents and help the children to develop a heart for local missions by getting involved in the orphanages, churches, and street work that is ongoing there.

--Where will you go to church?
There is a local AG church in town, I'm sure we'll start there and see what the Lord would have us do.

--What is Tanzania like?
Wow, where to begin, I might suggest you do a Google search and consult a map to add to what I'm saying here...first, look on the East side of Africa and down, just below the equator and NW of Madagascar.  The main city of Dar es Salaam (it is not the capitol though, Dodoma is the capitol city and is inland) is on the coast and by all accounts is quite beautiful.  Temps year round are in the 80s and being on the coast, there is a breeze, most of the time.  They speak English and Swahili.  There are Christians and Muslims there, more Muslims are in the city than are in the rural areas.  There is also a large group of Animists.  Some of the famous attractions that people go to Tanzania for are Mt. Kilimanjaro (tallest mountain in Africa), the Serengeti National Park (part of the Great Rift Valley), Lakes Victoria (source of the Nile River) and Tanganyika (world's longest lake and also the 2nd deepest and 2nd largest freshwater lake), and the island of Zanzibar which is just off the coast.

Well, that is enough for today, I need to play with the kids and then get started on dinner...I hope this has helped you, whether it was that you learned more about me or gained some new information about Africa.  I know it was good for me to get my "lessons" off my chest, now to get them firmly in my head and heart...then I'll be good!

A Busy Day...

Yes, the title is "A Busy Day"...and I'm sure there will be more where that came from ;).  As my friend Beth in TX commented, maybe I should have "rested" on "labor" day; but, we tried to pack it all in and really, it was a great day and a learning experience too.  We started off going to the Colorado Balloon Classic, both last night for the glow and today for the ascension.  What was I thinking, a late night and then an early morning...but really, the kids took it very well...especially the part where the balloons didn't get to take off because of the storm front moving in from the north.  A lesson in patience?

Remax is the sponsor of the Classic and their balloon gets to fill up and "light up" first.

Here was the balloon "Second Chance", it belonged to friends of some of our friends!

This morning, bright and early!

The balloons filling this morning

After we watched the balloons inflate, we went and got coffee at Starbucks and hit the Interstate, we were off to drive up Pikes Peak.  It was a beautiful day and I guess I forgot why the balloons couldn't take off...  We stopped at Crystal Reservoir and spent an hour trying to find a letterbox, to no avail...it's either missing, or the directions weren't quite right.  We looked under every rock, that was in front of a pine tree, that seemed to have a fallen log nearby it (anyone who letterboxes knows how funny this sounds).  Another lesson in patience?

We then continued our drive up "America's Mountain's Highway" and got to the tree line when we were stopped by the Park Ranger.  The winds were sustained at 55+ mph and there were gusts up to 77 mph on the peak.  She told us a story of a boy on a bike, at the summit, that had been picked up by the wind, bike and all, and moved quite a distance...ouch!  We could hang out at the "Glen Cove" gift shop or get a raincheck and come back another day.  Really, we're so close, I just wanted to finish something today!  We did decide to go in the gift shop and the kids just couldn't keep their hands to themselves, and in my frustration, I said "OUT, back to the car...we're done".  Lesson three for the day, are we keeping track yet?

We drove back down to the reservoir, and I had brought a picnic lunch, so we sat by the water and ate it.  There was peace and tranquility in that lunch and we were all calm...Thank you, Lord!  We talked and said you know what, in a positive light, this a great thing...we get to drive up the highway again, and it won't cost us anything, we have the raincheck.  As Indy put it, we got 1 and 3/4 trip for the price of 1 ;)!!!!  I like the positive spin!

On another note, we did finish our 6 pages of application paperwork for HOPAC (Haven of Peace Academy) and that is off and that ball is in their court.  Now the AG paperwork, Indy has completed half of it, the other half is for me to finish, maybe by Wednesday?  I still have to get a grocery list done in there somewhere, oh yes and teach the kids school, and regular household chores...another lesson in perseverance and patience Lord?  Honestly, isn't everyday?  That's where that "making a decision" comes in!  A decision to think on the good things...

Crystal Reservoir and our attempt at finding a letterbox, absolutely stunning, thank you Lord for slowing us down enough today to enjoy this!

The kids on our hike around the reservoir

God's Amazing Creation - Cave of the Winds

Don't know that I'll post daily; but, as long as I have your attention and we're waiting on our official acceptance to go to Africa...I can keep you all interested in our "life adventures" and what we're doing...right?  Since we know that one way or another, we're leaving Colorful Colorado next summer, we've made our "Things We Must Do Before Leaving Colorado" list and this weekend, we're hoping to get a few of them checked off...YAHOO!

Today was an excursion to the "Cave of the Winds", discovered by two boys, aged 10 and 11 (the Pickett brothers) in 1880, it was opened to the public as a "tour" in 1881.  The tour used to take hours, you would ride in a horse and wagon from Hwy 24 up to the edge of the mountain and they would take you into the sinkholes and people actually crawled through the tunnels and went over rope bridges and used lanterns and candles.  At one point, they turned off all the "lights" and showed us how dark it would be, wow!  Back in the late 1800's it cost $1 for the tour and that doesn't seem like much now; but, in that day and age, it was a day's wages...I'm thinking only wealthier, eccentric people went on this tour.  I can hardly imagine being in a dress and crawling on my hands and knees through some of the tunnels that they showed us from the original tours.  Indy says that people were made of tougher stuff back then ;).  

It has been excavated over the years, by hand, and even yet, we went through some tunnels as low as 3' 8".  Our tour guide had quite a few puns and jokes that she shared with us and the kids really enjoyed the tour (and her jokes).  The boys say they want to bring their friends back next spring for their birthday party...we'll see if they're still interested in 9 months; but, it was quite the hit today.  Indy and I think we might take a date night and come up and do the "Lantern Tour" which is twice as long, goes through a section that hasn't been completely excavated, and they tell you all the old tales and yarns about the caves.  Definitely something to consider doing, if you're in the area and have some time.

It really is a beautiful and amazing creation.  I feel so fortunate to have lived so many years in Colorado where there is always something like this to see.  Even having grown up here, and being stationed here 2 times with Indy, we still haven't seen it all.  None of the 5 of us had ever been to the Cave of the Winds before!

Stalactites on the ceiling, protected by a grate now because people would break them off and once broken, they don't grow back.

One of the "rooms" we went into that has stalactites (on the ceiling, remember this by thinking they hold "tight" to the ceiling) and stalagmites (on the floor, remember by thinking they just "might" one day reach the ceiling...cute, huh?)

The two sinkholes that the Pickett boys originally found in 1880.  They only went down about 10-20 feet and then the wind blew out their candle.  They ran all the way back to Manitou Springs and told people that they had found a haunted cave.

The valley that the original tour had to come up and through in order to access the caves.