Celebration Park

Lately I've (Angie) been tired, not just physically tired, but emotionally tired as well.  The roller coaster that has been the "normal" for our lives this past year has taken a toll.  When I get tired like this I don't need to veg out in front of the tv or read a book, I need to get outside and enjoy God's creation.  Luckily Mike understands this about me and after he came home from work last night suggested driving out to Celebration Park for a hike.

Celebration Park sits right on the Snake River.  When we told the kids the name of the river, Macie's eyes got very big.  We explained to her that the river wasn't called the "Snake River" because it's full of snakes.

Boise is only about an hour drive this side of the time zone line, so the sun stays up super late this time of year.  We were still hiking past nine o' clock and it was still bright (yes we are a family of night owls).

There was most definitely a hatch going on and the fish were rising to the surface of the water like crazy.  I could tell Mike wanted his fly rod so bad!  Of course it in storage back home in Washington.

Here are a bunch of pictures.  It is so pretty out here!

Macie is really into bouldering (climbing rocks) right now. 

This is a converted railway bridge which is a walking path now.

When you are a mom you get the chance to suck up your pride and carry around princess lunch boxes your little girl "promised" she would carry on the hike.

Colton is pretending to sleep in this picture.

So tired.

We are Batting One Thousand

Thursday morning Mike and I carried out our daily morning ritual by checking our email inbox to see if we had any news from the travel department at MAF, and we finally read the words we have been waiting for since we turned in our paperwork last June.  All four of our visas are here!  We were thrilled to get such good news. 

Then our day took a turn for the worse.  

Ever have one of those days where you feel you just need to go to bed so that you can put an end to it so bad things stop happening?  It started out with small problems.  Colton started to feel crummy and ended up with a fever by the end of the day.  On the way to our celebratory dinner at Chick-fil-A his flip-flop blew out (minor  I know, but still unfortunate).  On the way home the clutch went out on our car.  To top it off when Mike turned on our iMac to research how to fix the clutch he got the "beach ball of death".  Our hard drive crashed.  Apples are not supposed to die!  This is the point of the day where I wanted to throw in the towel and just go to bed. 

It is sometimes easy to focus on the negative and feel let down after a day like we had, but if you examine it closer you can see the hand of God at work in the midst of it.  I didn't mention it earlier, but our car broke down 1/2 a block away from home.  Isn't that a miracle?  I thought of all the places I had driven the car earlier in the day, and counted the amount of times I shifted gears.  The fact that the clutch broke so close to home is a miracle.  

Mike was able to tow the car with a tow dolly and truck MAF owns to a hanger full of tools and aircraft mechanics.  What a perfect place to fix a car.  Now we can sell the car with a nice new clutch in it.  The clutch was starting to take a bit of "finesse" to down shift, not the best selling point.

Is it a bummer our computer hard drive crashed?  Yes it is, but we had it properly backed up and there is an Apple store in the Boise Mall.  We took it in to the Apple "geeks" (or are they called "geniuses") and they are installing a new hard drive for us, no big deal after all.  Imagine if the computer crashed one month from now in Indonesia?!  What a headache that would have been.  

As for Colton he woke up the next day feeling better, nothing a day of laying on the couch watching cartoons couldn't fix.  He is also rocking a brand new pair of red flip-flops, his favorite color (his old flip-flops were blue).    
  

      

Three Out of Four Ain't Bad

Three out of four...the amount of visas in our possession at the moment.  Mike and the kids have their visas, yay!  My visa has a minor typo and will be issued soon we are told.  This is great news for us!  Visas are moving in Indonesia, our friends, another MAF couple also awaiting their visas received their's this week.

Our family has most definitely missed the May language class in Salatiga. We don't have exact dates or plane tickets yet; the next language class start date is July 5th which means a departure date of June 18th (ish).  We will let you know when we find out our exact departure date.

Are we disappointed that we missed the May class?  

Not really...and this is why:

Mike and I have been praying for God's timing awaiting our visas and moving to Indonesia in June will actually work out quite well for our housing situation.  All of the MAF housing is currently full in Salatiga at the moment and if we were to move to Salatiga this May we would have to stay in an apartment until the end of the month.  Which basically would mean one more move, and one more transition for our family.  God knows what is best for our family and I am grateful he is relieving us from an extra move!

In the meantime we will continue to live in Idaho, while Mike works at MAF headquarters.