We traveled to Texas with Hubby on a business trip and visited the Fort Worth Zoo. The favorites were the little monkeys and the rock climbing station.

The boys did their 1st dissection in Zoology class at co-op. Here’s the Gremlin with his shark.

We went to a wild cat sanctuary in Florida and the 10 month old “baby” bobcat took a liking to Sarge’s shampoo.

We’ve been blessed to have family from Michigan for the past 2 weeks. We’ve been catching up on baby cuddles with our newest little nephew and his adorably HUGE “Gerber baby” cheeks. We’ve managed to excise most of the electronic gremlins that were plaguing our RV after sitting in storage too long. We spent several days in Disney eating wonderfully sugary and salty amusement park foods….all the while noting the swelling of feet and buzzing in the back of our heads from caffeine and afore mentioned foods. We’ve frolicked from early morning till way past any sane person’s bedtime in an attempt to not miss a minute of family fellowship, bonding, and excitement. We also discovered that the world of eternal happiness and magic isn’t all that happy if we have not slept at least 8 hours over the course of 2 days.

We are home now, grateful we don’t have the flu….. all 5 are suffering with head colds from one of the billions of public cooties we were exposed to. Our extended family is going back home soon and we feel like we have let them down by getting sick for the last few days of their visit. Laying on the couch watching movies, napping, medicating, and reminding children not to cough on each other….we have been less than FUN for the last two days. We played much too hard, had a wonderful time catching up with family, and now we need a vacation from our vacation, it seems.

We’re home again! After being caught up in the pre-Christmas parties and packing around home (home being Florida), we piled into the car to spend Christmas with our families in the hometown of our childhood. (17-plus hours of driving North, in one day, mind you.) They had snow!

It was good to see both our families again. Hubby’s sister is glowing and very pregnant which was fun to see. The children were amazed to feel their little cousin kick and move. We saw several cousins we haven’t seen in a while, on my side, as well as siblings, aunts, and uncles. (Mom had about 30 relatives there!) It was both wonderful and overwhelming at the same time.

We were able to visit Frankenmuth and Bronner’s with Hubby’s family. The place looks the same as it did when I went as a child, it’s good that some things stay familiar. We needed some things to be familiar. We drove past our old home and the area that we spent the first 15 years of our marriage. The house looks the same, but nothing feels the same anymore, it was unsettling and a little sad. We attended a service at our old church and it was good to be at home there.

Between parties, gatherings, outings, and trying to see everyone, the time flew too quickly. We returned home having seen many, but not really having had the time to visit with them. (Like watching a slide show that lets you see the changes, how much they’ve grown, how different everything has become, but not being able to connect.) Though we tried to see as many as we could, there just wasn’t enough time to see everyone. I kept feeling like we were always letting someone down. Not enough time spent here. Not able to meet up for a lunch there. We had to take care of some business things while we were there, but I doubt there would have been enough time, regardless.

Then Hubby found a great deal on a vehicle, and we ended up driving both home since we couldn’t get the hitch/trailer situation covered in so short of time and over a holiday. We each drove a car, split up the kids, and rotated vehicles every 3-4 hours or so. We left early in case we needed to stop overnight somewhere. We probably should have, but we got to a point where we were only a couple hours from home, so we pushed on through. Thankfully we missed all the big snow storms and arrived home safely.

We spent the next day sleeping off and on. It’s astounding the difference between driving all night as a teenager and doing it when your children are practically teens! I haven’t been that exhausted in a long time. Anyhoo, we are home and starting to ease back into our routines. (Still not entirely caught up on sleep, but no major illnesses this time around.)

Seems Hubby is getting itchy feet and starting to look within the company to move out of the Sunshine State (or at least our little corner of the tourist trap). He came home all excited about a posting in Germany. “The guys that had been stationed there LOVED it! What better way for the kids to learn German than to be immersed? How cool to continue our adventure over seas for a few years!”

My mind shifted, balance….balance…..I tried not to squash his new found excitement with a knee jerk outburst of terror. The practical side of my brain reached my mouth first (thankfully, “the tone” was checked….I remember thinking, is this how Noah’s wife felt when he came home and announced he was going to build the ark?), “Um, Wow. GERMANY?!..Really?….That would be exciting….maybe?…. What are the homeschool and American-But-Lliving -In-A-Foreign-Country laws? What have you looked up about it so far?” Keeping an open mind, we researched how Germany would effect our lives over all. It ended up being a short lived foray when we discovered homeschooling is illegal and parents are fleeing across the borders to avoid being arrested for refusing to put their children into the school system.

Hubby still has itchy feet and is starting to scan company offerings for something interesting for us. He seems to be intrigued alternately, by International offerings (adventure) and finding a place to settle for good (security). I’m game for one more temporary move (2-4 yrs.) but would like to find a forever home after that.

For our actual anniversary day, we went white water river rafting with the fine folks down at Noah’s Ark. This is always the highlight of my trip. I absolutely LOVE to go rafting. The sun, the water, the scenery, the excitement of a little white water, and squeals of children make for a great afternoon. We loaded up all willing family members and headed out. After the initial safety talk and boat assignments, we were off! The 1st part of the trip was sunny and just as I remembered. Our guide pointed out landmarks and answered questions. We noticed some clouds forming but we were “mighty rafters”.

My brother’s raft got too close to us so we held an all out water war. My Dad and Hubby managed to UTTERLY soak them , (under the blessings of our guide) and made OUR raft “the raft to fear”! Some unknown rafters challenged our water faring prowess but we restrained ourselves since half of their boat was pathetically shrieking that they did not want to get their hair wet. (Note to future rafters: you WILL be in a BOAT, on the WATER, heading for MORE violent WATERS…..if you want to keep dry….. you should STAY HOME!!)

We noticed it was getting darker and we began to hear the reverberation of distant thunder bouncing off the mountains. Our fearless leader said we would press on. (We were already soaked so rain was not an issue.) We had successfully navigated a few smaller rapids and were coming up on the larger, “Zoom Flume”, which is pictured in the above photo.

In that photo, you will note that my mom is sitting in the back on the left hand side. About 30 seconds after that picture was taken, our raft hit a pocket and we all bounced. Grandma went up as she had previously, but when she came down, the raft had shifted and my dad watched her land in the river at the beginning of the rapids. The guide started yelling to row backwards, my dad was debating jumping in after her, we weren’t making any progress towards her, and the boat behind us was getting ready to head down on top of her. She assumed her “river position” and we watched her try to stay clear of rocks as she bobbed under and resurfaced in the rapids. The boat behind us almost snagged her, but she bobbed under again on a surge and our guide and Grandpa grabbed her and hauled her out of the river.

She handled it like a trooper, she was a bit scraped up but I think we were all shaken more than she. It took a while for the metallic taste of adrenaline and the sick helpless feeling to pass, but Mom has always been strong, and this was no exception. After a brief stop to check for injuries and collect equipment, we were off again. The rain came down hard. The sun was blocked by clouds chilling everyone to the core, (we would have been shaking anyways), but Mom was ok. God received many heart felt thanks for watching over her that day and Grandma has bragging rights for making it through the rapids solo! Go Mom!

Deer Valley Ranch is even more fun now that I can watch my children experience it as I did as a child. We had a group of 22 (only one family couldn’t make it this year). Within 10 minutes of arriving, the Imp found a deer to feed and pet!

We went up into the mountains to 4×4 and we stood on the Continental Divide at Tin Cup Pass.

The boys took horseback riding lessons and we all hiked to Agnes Vaille Falls to play in the waterfall.

We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary with a date night at a local gun range and dinner at a quaint little Mexican restaurant that we found in town.

The Imp wasn’t quite old enough for riding lessons, but we were able to lead her around and fuss over her too!

We are back from our summer vacation/family reunion at Deer Valley Ranch and it was wonderful! We just got in from driving 30 hours in 2 days which was NOT wonderful. Details and pictures will be coming once I dig out from under the mountain of laundry and find the memory card from the camera.