When pictures don't tell you the story

We just returned from a 24 day trip that took the kids and I from North Carolina up to New Hampshire and then over to Colorado where we met up with my husband. Neither trips were planned and I actually booked our flights to Boston on a steal of a deal,one way. I was hoping to score a good deal with a flex return flight home. At the time, I didn't know we were going to Colorado and within a few days it worked out best to just fly to Colorado from Boston. Easy peasy (said no Mom traveling with two kids carry-on only, through senseless security "lines" that are empty but you still have to zig zag the whole way somehow pulling 3 suitcases and wearing an overstuffed backpack... and forgetting your license at the check in kiosk. Turn around, go back.) Anyway...

I know that opening sentence might sound like a wildly fun adventure, and yes fun was had, but these two trips were not planned even a month in advance and while both were very much necessary, my body and soul longed for rhythms of home life. 

If you've followed our journey these last several months, you have heard about the crazy upheaval of our "ordinary" or anything that resembled a "routine" or "rhythm." And that is just how this roller coaster of life goes. You rarely get warnings. 

Nobody told me that my husband was going to be severely injured and unable to fulfill his contracts doing professional bike shows for the rest of 2018. (Because that's his job. For real. He does bike tricks and public speaking and I have a huge crush on him.) 

Nobody gave this homeschooling Mom a heads up that she would have to find work almost overnight.

 I didn't even really know what a brain aneurysm was when my Dad called in September and within two hours I was flying to see my Mom. 

No, I didn't get a note in the mail, a text or an insurance policy that made up for our major loss of income while my husband recovered. But I did get this one thing, this one little bit that I could hold onto when we found out my husbands recovery would be 6-9 months. This one little bit that I could hold onto while I spent a week at Mass General Hospital with my Mom hooked up to dozens of machines in the Nero ICU.

I had such an overwhelming sense of peace and hope and I knew beyond any doubts and fears I was carrying that the peace and hope filling me was from the Lord. 

Isaiah 46:4 washed over me on repeat-

"I have made you. I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." 

Maybe that sounds weird to you. That's okay, I don't really know how to explain it right now. I'm still processing this crazy train I've been on. I will probably be chewing on all that I've learned, saw, felt, experienced these last several months for a very long time. Because that's how I process things and it's a lot to unpack. But I don't want to forget in the weeks and months to come, that in the midst of the hardest moments with the least certainty and lack of security, my hope and peace came from the Lord. 

And we shall call the boy Billy. Because he is a Billy-goat!

Do you see my monkey girl up there!?

Abby in her self declared "beast mode" 

She's on top of the world, hey!

Garden of the gods was incredible. 

We went just before the sun went over Pikes Peak and it took my breathe away.

 Literally.

 Abby and I were filled with zeal as we ran up some of these wondrous rocks. On my way down it all hit at once. Sadly, the contents of my last meal needed to be scrubbed off of the side of the minivan. And it didn't get better for a long while. 

Colorado, I love you.

But can you maybe not be so "mile high" and maybe lower the altitude?