Home again.  Two simple but very, very sweet words to our family.  We arrived Saturday just in time for snow, wind, cold temperatures...who cares!!!  We are glad to be home.

Thoughts about the trip now that it is over:

  We needed one more suitcase.  We had seven.  Since we had to pack for weather of every season there were a lot of clothes for each of us.  We certainly didn't want to haul six suitcases at each stop especially when it was only for a night or two.  So, I packed several days worth of clothing in one suitcase for the whole family.  The rest of our clothes were left in a bag for each individual.  We also had to have a special bag for Sunday clothes.  That meant that baby and mommy had to share a bag for our extra clothes. Oh well, we are close anyway! 

  Hotel rates make no sense.  We stayed in one particular chain of hotels for nearly any night we needed a hotel.  The one in Gillette, Wyoming charged more than the one in Chicago, Illinois!

  Schooling on the road is not so bad as long as you are in the car and don't want to do science experiments.  The problem comes when you are not in the car -- there are so many distractions.

  When you are traveling on I-90 west from Rapid City, SD there is a point where you see a sign warning that the road will be doing the "s-curve" thing.  Underneath where it usually suggests something like 35mph or even 50mph the sign actually says 70mph!  Yes, we trusted it.  We went 70mph on a curve that is truly s-shaped.  It almost felt like we were on a racetrack because the road was banked so high. 

  If you are ever in Wheat, Montana there is a fabulous place to get coffee, cinnamon rolls, and several kinds of wheat flour.  It is called Montana Wheat Bakery.  We left the place with coffee, rolls and a 50 lb bag of whole wheat flour. 

I don't suppose that is all the wisdom I can come up with but it is all I can think of during the time I have to write tonight.  So, I will close for now to go enjoy my    

Home Sweet Home.

We drove into Vermont yesterday.  DH's parents and sister live here. We ran to town to buy Seth some new Sunday shoes today.  We think one of his shoes got thrown away while we were in Oregon.  Don't ask.  Anyway, we found a new pair and bought some groceries as well. 

On the way back to the house Seth asked why grandma doesn't drive faster.  Grandma explained that she would not want the police to give her a ticket.  Seth said he thought that all cars should be able to go faster.  A few seconds of silence filled the car.  Seth said that cars could be just like roller coasters if they would only go faster!

Whew!  I thought we might have to keep him from driving until he is thirty. 

Yesterday I met a fellow homeschooler here in Oregon.  Yes, we are in Oregon now.  I last wrote from Ohio.  We then went to Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia before flying here for a week to visit a supporting church for their missions conference this week.  The odometer says we have driven 10,000 miles and counting; at least we flew to Oregon.  Anyway back to the new friend, if we lived here in Medford I am sure we would be good friends. 

She introduced me to a new book...always the sign of the start of a good friendship...that I promptly started yesterday during naptime and finished today during naptime.  It is called "Daddy Long-Legs" by Jean Webster.  What a lovely, fun, easy-to-read book.  I am going to have daughter number two read it as soon as I get a copy of my own.

The other book I am reading right now is an autobiography by Frank and Marie Drown called "Mission to the Headhunters."  Frank was the guy who lead the team to find Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, etc. when they were killed in Ecuador.  Anyway the book is certainly worth reading.  Elisabeth Elliot says it is "a page turner" and she is right.  You will find joy, sorrow, danger, excitement all wrapped up in one book.

So, need a book to read?  Check out "Mission to the Headhunters" or "Daddy Longlegs." 

Here goes time...flying as always only now the miles are flying by, too.  Roadtrip '07 has begun and we have already driven almost 4,000 miles or was it just over that?  I don't know.  All I know is I was mighty glad when we arrived at my Uncle and Aunt's farm in Wisconsin for a couple of days.

Driving out of Haines, Alaska means that you are driving into a wilderness.  It is beautiful though desolate until you get past the mountains and onto the plains of Canada. We saw a couple moose and a mama bear with two cubs and two herds of bison.  We also saw the world's largest pysanka egg.  Do you know what that is?  Ukranians make these easter eggs with intricate designs on them.  So this Ukranian village built a 24 foot metal egg weighing thousands of pounds that swivels in the wind like a weather vane.  It was beautiful.

Then we crossed the line back into the US.  I don't want to offend any Canadians because we really enjoyed their country but it sure was nice to get back home. With a quick stop in Minneapolis we arrived at the farm just in time for our car to need repairs.  In this case it was a mixed blessing; not so good to need a mechanic but great to spend a couple extra days with family.  We helped with calves and haying (haying is definitely a word in farmer vocabulary) while enjoying sunshine and time together.

Now we are in Kansas City, Missouri.  Time to connect with our mission headquarters and we get to take in a conference while we are here.  Bonus!