Monday, August 24, 2015

Whose Idea Was This?

Hey there! I hope your summer is winding down well. My Facebook feed is loaded with pictures of kids settling into college dorms and even today the first day of school for some little ones. It will be so weird around here when the few days after Labor Day mean absolutely nothing at all to me.

Today I stumbled across the Back to School flag that my kids have been photographed in front of for all of their first days. Not sure what to do with it now.

We are more than half way through our two week transition to moving to the Adirondacks and starting our new jobs, all while selling a house, packing it up and getting our youngest two kids to college. Go big or go home, baby.

The last time I wrote we were just home for a less than 24-hour turn around of bringing Ben home from his summer ministry, unpacking, doing laundry, repacking and off to college in Chicago. Whose bright idea was that?

The story is more fun to tell in pictures.

Benny gets his haircut in the hood. He digs an "edge up". I guess this is what they do when they want to trim the bulk of the hair without taking off too much, though clearly he could spare to lose some. Afro anybody?

That's more like it - back to the clean cut boy I recognize. And yes, I did buy him that tshirt for his birthday. Don't judge.
First stop on our whirlwind mid-west tour was to see Drew and Brittany in Indianapolis for a few days. We got to tour their new church, see Drew's office and crowd into their little apartment. We enjoyed every minute. And got to eat at Chick-fil-A. Twice. In case you wondered, everybody loves Drew - even the CFA cow. Ha! (Actually, this is one of the boys in Drew's youth group).
For Drew's birthday, Brittany had bought him a map for his office and sent me this.
I know.

When we toured his office, I was looking for it. This is what I saw.

I mean, seriously, don't you think she needs to sell her work? I love this.

Next stop, Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago. Downtown. As in city. I didn't need Ben to tell me that it's the third largest city in America.

I'm sort of blocking out that little detail.




At Drew's we had just had a conversation about how he was buying a new Bible. We all laughed because we are Bible junkies. I think I counted how many Scott and I had between us once and it was a ridiculously high number.

Our kids could say the same. So we giggled when at our first stop in the registration line, Ben was given a new Bible. There could be worse things to collect. Like I tell them, as long as you're reading it and living it, go for it.
We got Ben all set up in his room, met his roommates and walked around the city a bit, not forsaking eating some Chicago deep dish pizza.

Then the last thing before "family and friends say goodbye" on the schedule we attended a dedication service.

I am so happy we did. The president of Moody spoke, underlining the fact that none of these students are here by accident. God has a plan for them, will teach them great things and they should give this experience all their energy and effort as they prepare to serve God for life.

I was doing pretty good up to that point. Then the students were asked to stand. The parents were to recite a prayer in unison over them. I think I got the first two words out in my normal non-croaking voice. After we said amen, the parents were asked to stand and our kids prayed a prayer together for us. Oh boy.

Lastly, the faculty and staff stood and prayed over all of us. What a tremendous gift to a mom and dad's heart. Totally put us at ease and full of gratitude that God brought Ben to this special place to continue his studies.

Til Thanksgiving, we bid our little guy goodbye. He's kind of like a man now though. Eek.

The next two days were spent visiting some special friends and places we used to live. This was fun and I'm glad we had the time to spend with people we love and don't see very often.

What I didn't mention above is that while all this was going on, I was having a dental emergency which I was trying to ignore. The previous week I had a tooth filled but instead of that taking care of my pain, it only heightened it. Every day it got worse. So much so that we walked 9+ blocks in Chicago to find a Walgreens that my dentist could send a prescription to.

We left Michigan at 4:30am to arrive here....everybody's happy place...before they closed. Totally not cool. After a few wicked painful xrays, I was presented with a choice.

1. Root canal. Takes two long appointments, two weeks in between. Couldn't start it that day, would have to wait until after the weekend. $2,500.

2. Extraction. Right now. $250.
What would you have done? I'm not going to go into the gory details because it was so traumatic. Let's just say when Scott picked me up, I did the ugly cry not because of the pain. Why didn't they put me out?  I'm happy to report all is well and I couldn't be more grateful for all those bottles on the counter.

For months now I've been shooting off at the mouth how I can pack this house in one week. It's time to put my money where my very sore mouth is. We have begun our marathon four day packing binge.

Oh, did I mention we accepted an offer on our house one hour after I got back from the chair?

God amazingly answered my prayer to sell it by the time we got home so I could pack it up before we head north. If you're keeping track, it was on the market for two weeks. He did it! We are so excited and continuing to marvel at how He is writing our next chapter.

So this is what it looks like around here now.
I just have one thing to say. I'm estimating that we own 4,289,617 books. Someone needs to stop the madness.

1 comment:

sachamb2000 said...

Love your amazing blog!!! Praying all goes well.