Family Vacation

I learned that even though you may live in the same house with your family, you still don't know them well enough until you've spent several hours with them in a small confined space like a moving vehicle. See if you live in a house together you can still get away from them whenever they annoy you, but in a moving vehicle there is no other place to go. That was the first lesson I re-learned during our family vacation.

We left California early Friday morning to ensure that we arrived in Portland, OR with plenty of time to visit friends. Since I work graveyard that meant I spent most of that drive laying in the back seat of the van sleeping while my father drove. My brother is more of a swing-shift guy and so he still sleeps in the morning. The drive was nice and scenic though you knew you weren't in California anymore as soon as you saw the lush green hills of Oregon. My parents had an old friend who was ill in Vancouver, WA which is just across the river from Portland so we visited her first. Her kids knew me and my brother and saw us growing up so the families are pretty close in that sense. We spent Friday night at another of my parent's friends house. Now I had forgotten how wet, gray and dreary the North-West was and so on this trip I brought some shorts and only one pair of jeans. What a mistake! I soon learned that even though it is summer the sun only peaks through in the great North-West and doesn't stay very long. It was wet and drizzly in Oregon when we left Saturday morning to head to Washington.

That was lesson number two: always bring more than one pair of pants on a trip.

Butchart Gardens

On the way to Vancouver Island & the Butterfly Garden

Oregon & Sequim, WA

Family Vacation

I'm leaving later on this morning for our family vacation. We're heading to Portland, Oregon tonight and then on to Seattle, Washington for the weekend. My dad is preaching at a church there. Then come Monday we're going to take a ferry to Victoria Island, British Columbia for three days and two nights. I've always wanted to see the Garden there and mom would love it too. We head back home Wednesday and I'm hoping to stop off at the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle to buy some fish. Yum! Come Friday of next week, we are going to be up in the mountains for church camp before I head back to work.

If that sounds exhausting and not much of a vacation. I agree! But that is usually the way our family vacations go. We go from place to place meeting up with old friends and seeing as many sights as possible. My parents would rather go to a different city, see old friends and visit with them an really go sight seeing. It's one of the reasons why I take another vacation during the year where I can go and see the sights either alone or with a friend. Hence the Spain vacation to look forward too. But this isn't to say that I don't enjoy my family vacations. I do! My family is great and I love spending time with them. We laugh at each other and tell old stories while making new memories on the current trip to tell later on. =)

Prayer for a Friend

One of my good friends passed this on to me and it was so uplifting that I had to share it. There is a friend whom I've been burdened about lately and this song was so encouraging. It reminded me that I am not in control but God is. So in prayer I shall continue for my friend(s).