Glacier National Park was everything people had said and we had hoped it would be!! Yesterday we spent all day driving through Montana and Canada viewing the majestic splendor that the Lord had prepared for us that day. It was "indescribable", as Chris Tomlin would say, and we couldn't help but blast out praises to the Creator of the universe for His beautiful mountains, valleys, rock plateaus, forests, meadows, glaciers, waterfalls and animals that we saw. Our first animal sighting was a moose. She (I think) was playing in the water in a shallow pond and nibbling on the underwater plants that she pulled up. Most of us had never seen a moose before and it was really awesome! She almost seemed to pose for all of us on-lookers as we all gathered along the roadside to get pictures. Our first attempt to drive over "The Road to the Sun" was thwarted due to snow fall and rock slides that had closed part of the road so we decided to take the long way around to get to the Canadian side of Glacier. We took the "road less traveled" along the east of the park and it was a splendid view of rolling hills and meadows with looming mountain peeks off in the distance. It took us a couple of hours but we did make it into Canada where we spent a few hours in Waterton, Alberta taking in all of this cute little tourist town. It reminded us very much of Ouray, Colorado, being surrounded by huge mountains on every side and ginger-bread like buildings everywhere. We were able to return home via the famous "Road to the Sun" and it was the perfect time to see wildlife coming out to feed and play. A bear was right along the road foraging for berries and whatnots and we spent several minutes just enjoying him! Next we watched a female elk (a cow, least I offend any of you hunters out there) as she bounded at lightening speed through a meadow into a thicket of trees. After her, we saw big horn sheep and mountain goats a plenty! I really liked the big horn sheep and the majestic, proud way that he carried himself. Finally we saw a buck as we neared the end of the park and he topped off the perfect day. We came home to beans in the crock-pot (which had never tasted so good) and then went to the local grocery store for waffle cones packed with huckleberry ice cream :-)). Everyone went to bed content, joyful and full of praise for the memorable day we had had. Today we're going to try our hand at fishing again. Hopefully we will be as successful as our last fishing excursion! Maybe we'll have Montana fish for dinner tonight?!?

This morning was the first time durning our sabbatical thusfar that we actually set our alarm clock and we are soooooo glad we did!! We got up at 5:30am, grabbed our coffee, hot tea or hot chocolate and headed into downtown Cuoer d'Alene to watch the Ironman Triathelon. It was so exciting and totally electric down on the beach by the lake where more than 2500 triathletes in wet suits prepared to take the plunge into the freezing waters. The elite athletes were lined up in the front and the rest staged behind then. When the gun fired, it was mass entry, in a quite organized fashion I must say, and the race was on! We stayed on the beach for a little while watching the athletes fight through the first 2.4 miles of their day. Then we moved over to the bicycle staging area to watch the transition from water to bicycle. This was really cool because we were so close to the competitors and we could cheer loudly for each one as they progressed to the second leg of the race. The elite athletes were out of the water in about 30-45 minutes and man were they fast!! We stayed and watched for over an hour then decided to go get some breakfast before church. We felt kinda guilty as we sat down to our omletes, pancakes, bacon, hash browns and French toast after just being around some of the most fit and chizzled athletes in the world. Sadly, it didn't stop us from clearing our plates!! The waitress at our restaurant told us that some of the professional and elite triathletes will finish their 140.6 mile day in around 9 hours. That is truely astonishing to me!! After breakfast we went to church at a local Christian fellowship here and apparently their regular pastor was gone because he was participating in The Ironman!! So the youth pastor spoke and did a wonderful job...but it made us miss our own youth pastor and FMBC family back home!! (Luv you Mikey and Chelsea!!) After church, it was home, a bowl of cereal and a nap for everyone. What a wonderful Sunday it has been! Plus, we are praising the Lord because my brother and his wife just welcomed their first grand baby into the world yesterday around 3:00pm. Their grandson was named Gage Liam Dean and weighed 6lbs 13oz. Congratulations to my brother Mike, his wife Vicki, their son and daughter-in-law Jesse and Sara!! Well, tomorrow the pride is on the move again headed to Montana. First stop, Glacier National Park then Yellowstone over the fourth of July. Blessings to each of our friends and family (now one person bigger!) and we will chat soon... I think I'll get up off the couch and go take a walk around the campgroung to work off my breakfast!!

Can you believe that we will be in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho at the same time as the famous Ironman Triathelon?!? Just as the Scripture says in Pverbs "A man heart devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps". So we planned to be in Idaho on these exact days without having a clue of the Ironman, but the Lord has graciously directed us here at just this time. It will be so exciting to see one of these events and cheer on some of the world's most amazing athletes. Hopefully we will have some really cool stories to blog about tomorrow. Talk soon!

We had a truly treasured evening with John's Uncle Lee!! He graciously drove up from Yakima to meet us for dinner in Ellensburg and it turned out to be such a special evening!! We met for an early dinner at Eleensburg Pasta Co restaurant and the food was amazing, but the fellowship was even better! We shared and talked and reminisced for a couple hours and none of us wanted it to end. For an 88 year old man, he is very healthy and active and still loves to talk about a variety of subjects. Luke asked him if he had served in WW II and what a neat stroll down memory lane that was (and an education for Luke!). We sadly parted after dinner wishing that we had gotten to do that more often! Thanks again to Uncle Lee for driving up to spend the evening with us. Blessings to you from the Lionbarger family.

It was the Seattle Fish Market Adventure for us today! I have to say that I absolutely loved this experience...sooooo much fresh fruit, vegetables, seafood, pasta, jams and flowers all under one roof could make a girl go crazy!! If I lived in Seattle, my current food budget would never work. I would spend WAY too much on food and flowers. I couldn't resist purchasing fresh basil, garlic fettuccini for a dinner one night soon. Plus I bought some chocolate pasta to be served with ice cream for a dessert one night. Who knew there was such a thing as chocolate pasta?! The bad thing about the market was the crazy amount of people! Before our afternoon trip to Seattle, we made time to enjoy some amazing tide pool during low tide at our campground in Port Angeles. We saw a beautiful, huge starfish, anenomies, urchins, millions of clams and barnacles and lots of teeny, tiny crabs. It was REALLY impressive how "low" a low tide can be...the amount of sea that had move out was shocking!! Today we are on the move through Washington, landing outside of Yakima for a quick visit with John's uncle, Lee, plus laundry and grocery shopping, I hope. Then from there, we head to Coeur d'alene, Idaho for a couple of days. If anyone has suggestions on what to do while we are there, we would love to hear them! Blessings to you from the Lioness and the pride!

Butchart Gardens and Victoria, Canada were the perfect way to spend a beautiful Wednesday! We took the 1&1/2 hour ferry ride from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria first thing yesterday morning and arrived in Canada around 10am. We then chose to ride the public transportation system to get us to the Gardens. With the money we saved using public buses, we were able buy a delicious dinner of fish and chips while we looked out over the ocean. We gotta save money where we can...feeding and entertaining our family is quite the financial investment! The Butchart Gardens were a marvelous splendor to behold!! Everywhere you looked was beauty! It's hard to chose, of course, but I think my favorite was the "Sunken Garden" which was originally started over a hundred years ago by Mrs. Butchart to disguise the ugly limestone quarry where she and her husband lived. The Sunken Garden looked like what I picture the Garden of Eden being like...lush grass, ivy covered boulders and structures, waterfalls and fountains, trees of every kind and amazing flowers everywhere. I could have spent hours in there!! But there was still so much to see...the Italian Gardens, the Rose Garden and an elaborate Japanese Garden...all beautiful and unique in their own way. I do so wish that I could grow gardens like that at my house!! To live and be surrounded by that much beauty would be purely enchanting! First of all, the climate and short growing season of where we live certainly makes flower growing a challenge but the bigger issue is me...I kill everything I try to grow!! So maybe John should take up gardening in his retirement years?!? The rest of our day was spent in downtown Victoria, sightseeing, shopping and eating and taking the ferry back to our campsite. It was a lovely day! Today we are traveling just a few hours to get closer to Seattle and only stay one night here so that our next travel day won't be as long. So, if any of you have thout about seeing Butchart Gardens...you MUST do it!! It is well worth it and will be one of the most glorious things you've ever seen. Today and tomorrow we should have better cell phone and Internet access, so if you need to get a hold of us, we can be available. Blessings to all, Lioness and the pride.

Challenges of a family of six all living in a camper have really been pretty minor. We frequently bump into each other in bathrooms, kitchens and around the dinner table, but we say a quick "sorry" and we're off. The volume of noise seems to be louder in small quarters so turning our voices (and electronics) down a notch has been needed...especially in the truck! The kitchen is continuously needing to be reorganized...especially after trips to the grocery store!! I am still amazed how much food these pantry shelves and refrigerator/freezer can hold! When we travel, things are still shuffling around a lot so we've had to remember to put our hands up, ready to catch things when we open cabinets or the refrigerator. It does take longer to get to certain things (pantry items, pots/pans, baking items, school/office supplies, etc) because you have to "unbury" it and then " rebury" it when you are done with it. Also, our weather has been much colder than expected so we have had to break into the space bags with winter clothes and use electric space heaters almost every night. We started with Luke and Lila sleeping in the loft but after a couple of weeks...that raised the tension levels between the two, so now Lila sleeps on the bottom bed in the garage and Luke is all by himself in the loft and peace has been restored! So far, laundry has worked out just fine using laundromats at campgrounds. We do laundry and grocery shopping with no regularity...just whenever it is available...so both meals and wardrobes have had to be creative! Really...there hasn't been anything big we've had to deal with as we have gotten these first three weeks under our belt. Perhaps the biggest challenge has been lack of Internet/cell access, which honestly, has been a good thing. So, as you are enjoying your nice, spacious bathrooms, showers where you can let the water run as long as younlike, cabinet and refrigerator space that doesn't get jostled every few days and washers/dryers/dishwashers...be thankful for the little things and think of us...who are equally thankful for the roof over our head during this wonderful adventure that we are on!!

Madeline's 14th birthday is today and we decided to keep it free of hikes, travel or running ourselves ragged (at her request!) and I must admit, it has been most wonderful!! It's hard to believe that almost exactly 14 years ago (to the minute) our precious Miss Madeline Audrey Lionbarger entered our lives! She is such a precious, gentle soul and our family would not be complete without her! We have spent most of the day just hanging out as a family, first at the camper and then in a cute coffee/tea shop in Port Angeles, Wa. As is tradition in our family, she gets to pick every meal for the day...so she chose strawberry French toast casserole for breakfast, tomato basil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and lasagne for dinner with Boston cream cake for her cake this year. Right after breakfast she played her piano keyboard , took a shower and put on a dress (the first time during the trip) because she has "been missing wearing dresses". Ever a lady...I often wonder where ever did she come from?!? Yesterday afternoon we did take a hike to a beautiful waterfall in the Washington forest and soaked in a natural hot springs not too far from our campsite. Tomorrow we are looking forward to traveling into Canada to experience the Bouchart Gardens in Victoria. I think this might be one of the highlights of our year. We are missing our friends and family especially today, a celebration day, but we are trying to make the best of the day. I know Madeline is missing her yearly birthday sleepover with her BFF. A sleepover with sisters just isn't quite the same! Hope everyone's summer is going well and we love and miss you all! Blessings, Lioness

Just a quick note on the Tillamook cheese factory...YUMMO!! We had ice cream for lunch and cheese samples as we toured. We decided that dinner tonight will be cheese, sausage, crackers and olive/pickles...one of our favorites and perfect after a day of travel! So, here are a few facts from the Tillamook Cheese Factory...more than 1.7 million pounds of milk arrive every day at the plant. Each of the stainless steel cheese vats holds approx 53,000 pound of fresh milk. It takes 10 pounds of milk to make 1 pound of cheese and approx 167,000 pounds of cheese are made there every day. Talk about WOW!! It was a really neat plant to tour and I highly recommend Tillamook cheese! P.S. Their ice cream was amazing too :-))

Our time in Oregon was delightful! It brought back floods of memories for me of my childhood, especially the abundant blackberry bushes! One of our stops was to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Or. Now, granted, the only aquarium we can compare to is in Albuquerque, the middle of the desert, but this aquarium was awesome!! The touch pool was my favorite part. . .tons of different sea anenomies, urchins, rays, cleaner shrimp and starfish right at our fingertips...literally!! One of the craziest things we saw were the Japanese spider crabs, the largest crabs in the world. They can grow to be upto 100 pounds in weight and up to 13 feet in wingspan of their legs...they were HUGE and CREEPY!! They looked like something out of a horror movie of old.."Attack of the Spider Crabs". We also got to see sea otters being fed and experience hurricane force winds of 78 mph. It was a total blast of an experience for sure! Later in the day John took Luke, Paige and Lila to the beach where they could play in the water. This was a life-lesson learned on the risks of hypothermia!! Even with the used wet suits that were purchased from local thrift stores (I love thrift stores!), they only lasted 10 minutes in the bitter cold water. They came out with blue lips and the super shivers! Despite the temperature, they said they had a blast and wanted to back to the next day. So on Friday, after our wonderful hike to see a beautiful waterfall and have a picnic in the forests of Oregon and a little bit of shopping in cute antique stores, they ventured out to experience the beach again. They chose a different beach with bigger waves and a bit more of a protected cove. This time they boogie-boarded for a whopping 22 minutes and swore that the waters were "so much warmer!". Us crazy New Mexicans were the only ones in the ocean! Today we are on the road heading north to Washington. We will shortly be stopping at the Tillamook cheese factory in Tillamook, Oregon to take the tour and partake of their yummy cheese. Ultimately, we will be landing on the Washington/Canada boarder for a few days to enjoy Seattle and go into a bit of Canada. Perhaps my next blog I'll describe some of the challenges we have had in camper living, but overall, everyone is adapting nicely. Our family has told us of the heat and fires going on in NM and we certainly aren't missing that...our warmest weather has been 65 degrees (with the exception of Death Valley) and about 55 degrees in the evenings. Please know that we are thinking of all of you and praying for you often! Happy Father's Day to all you dad's out there...and especially my daddy, James Dean, the best daddy on earth!! Blessings from the Lioness and her family(the pride).

Paige's input on Alcatraz... "Break the rules and you go to prison, break the prison rules and you go to Alkatraz" is one of the sayings that stuck with me. Once dad and I arrived on Alkatraz Island we joined a National Park Ranger who talked to us about attempted and succeeded escapes. It so happened that two men escaped on December 16(my birthday)by breaking a window and climbing down the side of a building. They tried to escape by swimming to San Francisco but each ended up on the rocks after eleven in the night because of the freezing water temperatures. They were both retrieved and glad to be back! Three people have escaped and never been found. After the escapes lecture, we took an audio tour of the prison. On the audio tour, you got to hear some of the actual guards and prisoners on the tape as they would guide you through the prison. It was so epic to hear some of the most dangerous criminals give their opinions on the conditions and the everyday life. We also saw the gardens around the prison and the prisoners got to work in the grden ONLY if they behaved. So, if you ever get the chance, I recommend you go and see it!

Goodbye Redwoods...sniff, sniff!! It was a wonderful two days in Crescent City, Ca visiting a part of the Redwood Forest. John had chosen a hike through Jedadiah Smith National Park which turned out to be a "gem" of a spot! We hiked the short, yet fabulous, Stout Grove trail and it was a perfect choice. We saw trees that were a few thousand years old and they were HUGE! What surprised me the most was the root bases of a few of the trees that had fallen down...perhaps about 12 feet in diameter with massive roots sticking out. We packed-in a picnic lunch and sat along the gorgeous Smith River to eat our lunch. I would venture to say that it was the prettiest river I have ever seen...just like in the movie "A River Runs Through It". Madeline and I decided to take a two hour drive to Ashland, Oregon to watch "Romeo and Juliet" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Sadly, it wasn't quite what we had hoped for, as the directors had "modernized" and adapted the original script to appeal to a younger audience. We were hoping for a true and authentic performance of the original play. We still made the most of our mother-daughter evening and topped it off with some strawberry pie with ripe, Oregon strawberries. Now we are heading up the Highway 101 of the Oregon coast and making our way to Beverly Beach, Or. We will be here for about three days then travel further north. I will gladly report on our findings in Oregon, after we eat Fish & Chips for lunch at a famous spot in Bandon, Or right along the coast...yummy! Blessings to you all and we miss you bunches!!

Redwoods Here We Come! So we finished our time in the Point Reyes area of California yesterday with laundry at the campground laundromat, leftovers for dinner to clean out the frig and a short trip for John and Paige to an Elk Reserve and Oyster farm on Sunday afternoon. Both John and Paige said that it might have been the highlight of the trip for them...they had a "most excellent time" looking at huge elk and eating raw oysters right from the farm. Currently we are driving up Highway 101 headed to Creascent City, Ca where we will be staying only a couple of days before we continue our journey northward. I am still learning this iPad thing, but at the moment, it's pretty cool to be blogging while John is driving down the road. Hopefully my next big iPad accomplishment will be learning how to post some of our pictures on the blog. If you don't hear from us, it just means we don't have good reception/service where we have landed and we will write as soon as we can. I do have to say that I did not realize how beautiful and wooded (or how cold) northern California would be. We have very much enjoyed our time here but are looking forward to all that the Lord has planned for us to experience on the road ahead. Blessings to you all on this day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in Him!

Point Reyes and the Big City of San Francisco So this week was filled with two completely opposite experiences!! First was Point Reyes and a private educational tour of the South Beach by a national park ranger named John. We nearly froze as we battled the brisk, powerful wind while we learned about the history of Point Reyes, Sir Frances Drake, and the ocean life and weather of the area. We got to see lots of cool things...lots of crabs, millions of barnacles, pink and orange starfish and sea lions with their pups. Coming from the deserts of the Southwest and never really experiencing those kinds of things, we were pretty enthralled and overcome with excitement!! We ate a delicious lunch nearby, topped off with some scrumptious locally made ice cream made by "Three Twins". We finished our day with a look at the Point Reyes lighthouse which had just clocked a wind gust of 60 mph...did I mention that it was REALLY windy and cold that day?!?! Overall, it was a day of unique and never before experienced adventures that we will always remember. The next day we ventured to see the famous Golden Gate Bridge and pass over into the city of San Francisco. Contrary to the previous experience, this day was sunny, warm and had very little wind. It was the perfect day to be outside enjoying a walk through the famous Pier 39, Alcatraz and Chinatown. Paige and John went on the tour of Alcatraz and they will have to tell you all of the details about that, but they said that they had a fantastic time. That was one of John's "bucket list" items that he got to do. Me and the three remaining children enjoyed shopping, eating and people watching on Pier 39. The kids certainly got a big dose of one of the largest cities of the world and after a full belly of Chinese food from Chinatown, we were all anxious to get in the truck to head "home" (the camper)! On the trip back to home, we did see Golden Gate Theological Seminary where some of my dearest friends went to school and it flooded my mind with thoughts of them (especially my dearest bff) and how great their time must have been while they were here. Overall it was a wonderful day, on the opposite end of the spectrum from the day before. We will be heading to the Redwood forest tomorrow morning (Monday). We will have another long day in the car so I will have to get creative on what we can do to pass the time. I'm not sure of our Internet accessibility so it may be a bit before we can type in another entry. We will write as soon as we can, but know that we are having a blast and that things are going beautifully and that we are enjoying this wonderful opportunity that the Lord has afforded us!

Death Valley and Yosemite National Parks

What a Blessing a simple turn in the road can be! We Didn't intend to go to Death Valley or stay there overnight, but what a great 12 hours we had! It was 114 degrees on the valley floor and yes Pastor Tom is right, after swimming in the pool for a bit, we did feel a bit of a "chill" when we got out! Weird! We also really enjoyed the beautiful full moon that night. We would highly recommend the Stovepipe Wells campground in Death Valley, it really was a charming place and enchanting place! We have seen the hand of the Lord upon us in so many vivid ways. Our next stop was Yosemite National Park, but before we got there, we had to experience some overheating issues with our truck! Thankfully, not in Death Valley! For those who don't know, hauling a trailer into Yosemite is quite a haul with very steep grades! Especially when you are hauling 8 tons of camper! We made it to camp, and I spent the next day having the vehicle serviced in Jamestown, CA. Another blessing and charming little place! Thankfully, no major damage with the truck! The floor of Yosemite Valley is picturesque to say the least. Everyone should see this grandeur that God has made! We took a couple of beautiful hikes, one to the lower Yosemite falls and one to the Merced grove, where the giant sequoias grow! One tree was at least 50 to 60 feet around at the base! We fished out of our camp on a creek that was stocked with Rainbow trout! Luke caught 4 fish, mom and dad 2 each, Paige 1 and even Lila 1! Madeline was just a picture of grace as she sat on the bank reading her book! No need for her to mess with any stinky fish! There is nothing better than fresh trout cooked over the camp fire! We were quite satisfied! We would highly recommend the Dimond O campground just outside of Yosemite! We apologize for not blogging much, but we have been without wi-fi and have been technically challenged somewhat! We will try to get some pics posted in the next few days. We are currently at Pointe Reyes just outside of San Francisco! Lion