Our trip

We had a wonderful trip last week! Thank you to all those who prayed for us while we were away.

We left Thursday, June 5 and went to my Mom's house. We wanted to break the trip up into sections so we wouldn't have so much driving in one day. Friday morning we left and stopped for lunch in Abilene. We stopped by ACU too. This is called "Jacob's Dream" and is fascinating to see in person.

The bookstore was open and had CD's on sale for $5 so we got three of those. (More about that later!) and went to Lubbock to stay the night with my Dad. We went to the park to feed the ducks, and Caleb got to play also.

We left Lubbock about 10 Saturday morning (after my stop at the post office to get some stamps). We stopped when we got to New Mexico at the Visitor's Center. Then we had lunch in Clovis. As we were leaving we saw the church van in the parking lot. We went back in and found the other part of our group in line ordering! We thought it was neat we both stopped at the same place for lunch on our separate journeys. Caleb napped and we stopped in Santa Rosa at a rest stop. We were surprised to find two more couples from our church group stopped there as well. They were pulling their own campers and had come from Palo Duro Canyon.

I enjoyed watching the changing scenery.

Caleb loved the trains. We should have counted the trains we passed on the trip.

We arrived at the children's home at probably 8:30. I don't really know! Plus we went into a different time zone so I'm really not sure what time it was. Our group stayed in one of the cottage's of the children's home. We unpacked and got settled in our room. The hall was so cold with the blowing air conditioner, and the guys told us they didn't think the a/c was working in our room.

Sunday morning we went to church and in the afternoon most of the group went to pass out flyers about VBS. I stayed in the room with Caleb for his nap. We worked a little bit on our classroom too. We all went out to eat together Sunday evening after church.

Monday morning some of the group went on a little hike out near the home. Then we went up to the church building to work on our classroom again. Monday afternoon we were invited by one of the church members to come over to his skating rink. It was Caleb's first time at a rink! He was excited to put on the skates. He couldn't believe these kind of skates he could wear without shoes on (unlike his skates he got for Christmas that go over his shoes). We had a lot of fun helping him skate (I didn't put on skates, just helped him. Daddy skated though).

Tuesday morning we went on a hike over to Red Rock Park. Most of the group went all the way to the top. We stopped and went back down after we'd gone up part-way along with another couple and their son.

Wednesday morning we worked around the home doing various projects for them. Our family worked in the playground. Caleb woke up at 7 that morning because he knew it was painting day! He had so much fun painting the teeter totter green. Wednesday evening we had a hot dog supper at the church with members of the church and children's home.

Thursday morning we went on another outing with the group to El Morro National Monument. We walked through the path of the Inscription Trail. This is one of the inscriptions. We were amazed at all the different writing styles we saw in the rock. Some were just block letters and some looked like calligraphy.

These are some pictures Daddy took from the top. This is one of the pueblos on top of the mountain.

Thursday night after VBS we got everything ready and loaded as much as we could. We finished up loading and cleaning up the cottage Friday morning. We stopped at another tourist shop before heading out to Lubbock. We were going to stay there through Sunday but decided we really wanted to get home. So we left for my Mom's Saturday morning and then came home Sunday.

It was a blessing to us to all be able to participate in this trip as a family. The children we worked with each night in VBS were so sweet, and our prayer is that we did make a difference in their lives. We are thankful for our safe travel. Everyone asks how Caleb did on the trip. He did great! He read his books, played with some things in his bag, and watched the mountains and trains. As we were coming back he asked if we were in Lubbock. I said no we're still in New Mexico. He said no we're not, I don't see any more mountains. The weather was fabulous and quite different from the heat we were used to here! It was not humid at all. The day temps were in the 80s and the nights were cool. One night they said it got down to 35. We didn't even notice that our room's a/c vent wasn't working. We're thankful to my Mom for letting us use her car for the trip to get better gas mileage. That really did help on the gas bill!

As we were leaving New Mexico on Friday, I fell asleep for a short nap. I was waking up and sat there with my eyes closed and listened to the song that was playing. It was one of the new CD's I'd picked up at ACU. We'd listened to it before, but I hadn't paid attention to the words of the song and it was a song I didn't know. It's called "How Great You Are." I listened for a minute and then opened my eyes and saw a tall mountain before us. As I sat there I felt so emotional that this song matched perfectly how I felt about the trip but couldn't put into words. I saw God's greatness all around me and my heart was full of thankfulness.

I found it on You Tube sung by Phillips Craig & Dean. I hope you are blessed when you listen to it. This particular video has the lyrics too.

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"Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom." Isaiah 40:28