She Goes Public...: What happened when we loaded everyone up and headed out...

Week 1, Day 1: Our self-imposed time of departure that morning was 4:30a.m. Actual time of departure was 6:00a.m. (No chortling, please!) Part of this because I stayed up packing/cleaning like a maniac until after 2:00a.m. and the Dude thought I might travel better with a 2 hour nap than a 1-1/2 hour nap. Also partly because THERE WAS SO MUCH TO FINISH UP. (And the day before we left would be a Sunday...)

So off went the alarm at 4:30a.m., and It Began.

Personally, I think dragging little kids out of bed super-early in the mornings for a trip is exciting and fun. We bustle about hugging and whispering "Goodmorning-night!" to each other. The look of dawning realization on their faces when you wake them up in the dark is indescribably rewarding. Like some sort of secret adventure you're in on together.

So we headed out, and drove north-er than we'd gone since driving into Texas that fateful...I mean...providential day we moved ourselves and our two babies to a previously unknown location to follow the Lord's leading of ministry, education, and, ministry education.

The sun came up. I did my duties as Flight Attendant and served breakfast in plastic snack bowls: Cinnamon Life and a dried cherry mix. We drove and smiled (and felt nervous!!) and drove some more. Only two stops that first day, in which we drove 9 hours total, and reached Tucumcari, New Mexico by mid-afternoon. Plenty of time to swim, shower, and prowl around for a restaurant. No one slept before 9:00p.m., mainly because it was so much cooler(!), and partly because I'd forgotten the fact that we'd be sleeping in one room. Oh. My. Moon. (Needless to say, we're not Dr.-Sears-loving, co-sleeping, family-bed folks.)

But we woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (tho my eyes might've been a bit crossed at this point), organized the troops, and pointed them in the general direction of the Breakfast Room of the hotel. I'll spare the details, except to say that small-to-medium children experiencing their very first hotel stay are pricelessly hilarious. Especially when they bellow out repeatedly "This is the best hotel EVER!" *whimper*

We left only an hour past schedule and the extreme boringness of driving North Texas to the Panhandle (except for when we stood in line at the gas station behind a real gun-on-the-hip Texas Marshal) was quickly made up by the drive through northern New Mexico into Colorado....which was amazingly different.

My heart sobbed and soared when we drove through mountains into mountains. But then it was pricked to discover that the children did not share my heritage of mountains-in-sight-always. *blink* Emily kept pointing, "water-mountains, mama!" (watermelon? mountains? or something), and hollering the clouds were making them messy. By Colorado City, Laura had had enough, and was in glower-mode. "I'm tired of all these hills. If I live here when I'm big, I'll cut them down." 8-l

Moving on...

That evening we had dinner at the home of an old family friend of my mother's. She is like an auntie to me, but moved to Denver nearly 15 years ago, so it was lovely to see her, her husband, and one of her grown-up sons. After staying too late, visiting far too short, we piled back in the car and drove to the southeast of the Denver metro are to our hosts': parents of our good friend Randy , who lives nearby with his wife and two girls. Randy and Jess are dear friends who left us behind in Texas to follow his folks to Denver in 2004, meaning that we have 6 years of visiting to catch up on. (And visit we did!)

But that's another post. :-)

Pictures!