Family

The week of July 11th I spent with my family.  After leaving the Mission Team in Indy they headed south to Bloomington and camped out in our living room.  Again, I WISH I HAD TAKEN PICTURES (I'm going to have to get better about that).  Mom and dad had a full size blow up bed in the living room floor, Nathan slept on the couch, John slept on a twin blow up with his feet in the kitchen and head in our tiny dining area, and poor Rache got wedged on a blow up twin in the hallway.  Actually, I think everyone was pretty comfortable.  But, there was absolutely nowhere to walk!  Pepsi loved it and leaped from bed to bed, I'm sure she just wanted to make sure that our visitors were enjoying their stay.  ;)


On Saturday we took a day trip to Edinburgh, IN.  Camp Atterbury has a public gun range and Allen wanted to take the boys target shooting.  Historically, I've been a little hesitant on the whole gun issue/question.  But, during this past year, Allen has introduced me to target shooting and maybe its just some competitive nature in me?  I really like the challenge of hitting that bull's eye.  

After shooting, we all shopped to our heart's content at the Exit 76 Antique Mall.

This is one of mine and Allen's favorite things to do and having my family there just made it more fun.

Allen even found one of the more rare pieces of a set of cast iron pans that we are collecting!

This is not our set.  It is what we are aspiring to collect. :)  We currently own the number 8 and 3 of this collection.
We were all tired and ready to rest when we got home Saturday night and on Sunday we went to church and my wonderful real family met my wonderful Bloomington church family.  Then we just rested.  Its nice to rest after you have traveled non-stop for 2 weeks.

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But, we didn't rest long!  Unfortunately, dad had to fly out of Indianapolis and into Florida on Monday morning.  Up until this week actually, he has been flying to Florida every Monday morning for the past 2 years.  But, last week he did finally get a job transfer!!  Hurray!  My mom has been praying for him to be able to stay home for the entire 2 years.  Thank the Lord that He does listen and He works everything out with His perfect timing.

"I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry."  Psalm 40:1

Anyway, so we had to take my dad to the airport Monday morning, and did I mention that he had to leave Indy at 5 AM?  Ugh!  Poor dad.  We missed him the rest of the week.  But it didn't stop us from having adventures on our own. :)

Monday afternoon Mom, John, Nate, Rache, and I drove south to Kentucky.  We had to leave Allen and Pepsi.  Allen had vacation the two weeks previous so he couldn't come either.  

Just shy of the Kentucky border, we stopped at the "Falls of the Ohio State Park."  The river bed here is full of fossils and there is a small museum explaining all the geology and history of the area.  The park was great, but it was H. O. T. HOT!  The two boys walked further than the girls.  They reported that because of the heat, the rocks were better to look at than to walk on.  

 The girls did explore though.  We enjoyed the extremely green plant life that seemed so unlike the rest of the plant life we had seen driving that day.  The heat and lack of rain had made most plants go dormant by this time in the summer, but we postulated that the river must keep these plants alive and green.

We also speculated about how high the river might have been during the flood season earlier this spring.  Notice all the debris high up on the bank.  There was actually debris almost all the way up to the parking lot and we decided that during the April and May floods, the park was probably quite a different place.  

That night we drove to Elizabethtown, Kentucky so that we could get up the next morning to explore Mammoth Cave.  (Which I will write about next...)

I miss them everyday.

"Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply"

-Jane Austen

To the outside world we all grow old.  But not to brothers and sisters.  We know each other as we always were.  We know each other's hearts.  We share private family jokes.  We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys.  We live outside the touch of time. 

 ~Clara Ortega