Appomattox, Virginia

The weather has pretty much cleared out, with the exception of a few clouds, and we were getting slight cabin fever, so we decided to take a field trip to Appomattox Court House, where the end of the Civil War occurred. It was about an hour drive to reach our destination, which was a most enjoyable drive through the back-roads of Virginia. Such beautiful country this is back here!! Appomattox Court House was the place where General Lee of the Confederate Army finally signed terms to end the Civil War and surrender to General Grant. We did learn on our outing today that their meeting together didn't actually occur at the Court House, but in a person's home. Mr. McLean's parlor was the official location of the meeting and signing of the terms of surrender. So we got some wonderful pictures of both the landscapes of Virginia where the last battles of the Civil War were fought and of the house where the feet of both Lee and Grant walked and the tables where they sat to sign their signatures...it is all quite surreal, really!!

Appomattox Court House

 

The town tavern

 

The beauty of Virginia

 

 

The McLean house where Lee and Grant met.

 

The parlor where the two generals sat, talked and signed the terms of surrender.

 

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Prayers for Hurricane Sandy Victims

Just a quick post to say that we are safe, warm and with full power as we watch the devastation that superstorm Sandy brought through the night to the eastern part of our country. We have been and will continue to be lifting them up in prayer as they grieve their enormous losses and begin the process of clean-up and rebuilding. We were more than fortunate...BLESSED!!...to be in a location here in Virginia than didn't suffer any problems...no wind, no snow, no power-outages, just moderate rainfall. We give all the praise and glory to the Lord for keeping us safely hidden in "the cleft of the rock" as the storm ragged around us!! Thanks also for our many prayer partners...we watched miracles being done as the Lord heard your plea's!! With that said...if any of you know of a family in need in this area, please let us know. We have a house on wheels that can meet needs and provide assistance...we are our own mobile rescue unit...shelter, food, water, power, etc and we have room to share that with others!! Blessings from the lions, Lioness

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Flight into the Night

Never when we decided to take this sabbatical did we expect to encounter the "perfect storm of the decades"!! It is now Monday, October 28th and we are as well prepared for hurricane Sandy as could be. We had found a national park in the Shenandoah valley that we were well prepared to settle down in to weather the forth coming storm...then came the knock on our RV door at 7:00pm last night!!! The camp hosts informed us that the national park service had ordered a mandatory evacuation of our park by noon on Monday. So what do we do and where do we go?!?! We listened to CNN weather report that said the wind would be picking up early Monday morning, and we certainly didn't want to travel in hurricane force winds, so we decided to leave immediately and not wait til the morning. The lion clan sprang into action!... putting bikes on racks, closing down the inside of our house, unplugging electricity and water and hooking up RV to truck and pulling out of the park by 8:30pm...our "flight into the night" begins!! It was dark and rainy, but at least there was no wind! We traveled about two hours to the southwest and landed in the Walmart parking lot in Lexington, Va. We joined several other campers in the parking lot and spent the night there. As the Lord so graciously orchestrated for us...there is a campground 3 miles from the Walmart of Lexington, right behind (up on a nice, clear hill) a TA truck stop at the junction as of interstates 81 south and 64 west...and they had one opening!! So we drove right out of the parking lot and into our campground by 10:00am this morning. We have full gas tanks for our generator, full propane tanks to cook and heat with, full water tanks and full hook-ups here at our campground, so we are as safely settled as we can be. Plus, we have great cell service and TV reception so we can get news, which we did not have in our previous spot. We are full of thanksgiving for the wonderful way our Lord has protected and provided for us and for the powerful prayer warriors who are praying for our safety. We love and miss you all and we will keep you posted as the storm heads our way. Blessings from the Lions, Lioness

 

 

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Virginia

Quick post while I'm in town (have no cell service at our campsite)...we have made it to Front Royal, Virginia and we are staying at the Shenandoah River State Park. It is REALLY pretty here and we are enjoying it while it's calm. We are making preparations for the storm (ie...big trip to Walmart for supplies! and gas stations for gasoline and propane) that is predicted might come from hurricane Sandy. We will keep you posted, as we can. We love you all and we are praying for everyone's safety as hurricane Sandy makes landfall. Blessings, Lioness

 

 

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Trick or Treat

Our meager decorations, but we still had fun doing it!!

Our campground had a trick-or-treat party this weekend so we bought a few decorations and participated with the 75 or so kids (with their families) who had moved into our quiet, peaceful spot. Everybody decorates their sites, gets dressed in costume and trick-or-treats in the afternoon and then has a haunted house and monster mash family dance in the evening. We still weren't 100% healthy, but we participated when we could and enjoyed having kids around for a couple of days while Madeline and Paige where back at home having a grand time. We took Sunday off to rest...literally!! and stayed around our campsite most of the day, except when we went to see a movie in the afternoon. Overall, it was a great weekend, even if we didn't feel our best :-)

 

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"Color Me" Fun!!

We are all finally feeling better so we ventured out to Easton, Pa where the Crayola Fun House and small factory is. It was just Luke, Lila and I and we had a most excellent morning!! Sooooooo much fun!! We got to color on EVERYTHING...even a car!

 

Our message from us New Mexico folks!!

 

Colored on special black paper with a "magic" white marker.

Coloring on the floor-chalk-board with Crayola chalk, of course!!

 

Colored with glowing markers on a black, light-up screen!!

 

Even learned about the importance of water ways (rivers and canals) to move coal and freight in this industrial area of Pennsylvania.

We will be picking up John from the airport this afternoon in Philadelphia and the girls will arrive on Thursday...very excited to get them all home!!

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Home, Sweet Home

Our home, sweet home while 1/2 of our family is traveling.

Miss Madeline and Paige flew out yesterday for a visit home and John also flew out to Utah for a business trip so that split our family numbers in half right quick! Thankfully, before they headed out, John got us set up in a wonderful campground about 40 miles outside of Philadelphia called Colonial Woods Camping Resort. It is absolutely beautiful here, so I thought I'd post you a quick picture so you can see where we are nestled in at. Sadly, just as part of our family was getting on the airplanes, the other part of us was getting sick :-(. I'm pretty confident that Luke and Lila have strep so I started them on antibiotics and we have been laying low, resting and watching movies. I am taking this nice opportunity to clean, reorganize and disinfect everything. So, if you are back in Albuquerque, you might just get to see our girlies in the next few days and can give them lots of big hugs!! As for us back at the camper...pray for everyone to get well soon and for mommy not to get it at all!! Blessings, Lioness

 

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Buttermilk Falls, Pocono Mts, Pa

Since our pastor grew up in this area, he gave us some GREAT tips on where to go and what to see, and Buttermilk Falls was one of them. Right off the road, this is a little known spot to tourists, but the residents all know it well...perhaps they are trying to keep it their little secret?!? All I can say is "MAGICAL"!!!

 

Look at this bridge...absolutely charming!!

Here is a good pic showing the size of the bridge from the perspective of the kid's sizes.

 

Over the bridge and through the woods...

 

 

The upper part of the falls

 

 

 

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Pastor Appreciation!!

October is an important month...the peak for fall colors both in NE states and back home (get out and see the Fourth of July Canyon in the mountains east of Albq), breast cancer awareness month AND pastor appreciation month!! We are soooooo very privileged to have such a precious church fellowship to come back home to and our travel these last five months has shown us how VERY fortunate and blessed we are to have the music team who lead our worship, our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who run all of the wonderful programs that minister to us and our communities, but most of all, our PASTOR who shepherds us with such love, compassion and humor!! So I dedicate this blog in honor of our pastor and his wife, Tom and Tammy Lambert who are not only our most favorite pastor but also our TREASURED FRIENDS!!

They both come from the Pennsylvania area and every year they try to come back to see family and friends and we are blessed to be able to rendezvous with them while we are here enjoying the Pocono Mountains. We received some much needed hugs and love from them from home which lifted our homesick hearts!! We have gotten caught up on how everyone is doing back home and they have heard all about our adventures on the road and we haven't laughed this hard in a long time...it has been a very sweet and treasured time of fellowship these last couple of days!! We will even spend most of the day tomorrow with them and get to take them out to dinner at a famous restaurant here in the Poconos tomorrow night as a way to say "thanks and we appreciate you"!!

So, don't forget to thank your pastors this month and for our Tom and Tammy.... THE LIONS LOVE YOU!!

 

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Q and A Session!!

I got a great e-mail yesterday from one of our sweet friends back home, Dalton and Vicki Jantzen, and they asked some wonderful questions about some of the details of our sabbatical, so I thought I would answer them here on the blog so that everyone can enjoy the answers...so, D and V, here are the answers to your questions (and we love and miss you both!!).....

1. How do we pack all of the clothes away...especially after a rainy day? One of the many reasons we purchased this rig was for the storage. We have everyone's clothes for all seasons with us and every piece of clothing has it's place. Lila has her stuff in a storage bench on her level so she can reach her needs. Luke has his clothing folded into 4 drawers that are up in his loft. The big girls have 2 storage bins each plus one small closet space to share. Wet things (like rainy outfits or swim stuff) are dried outside on tables or chairs or we can hang things up over our shower. My favorite storage thing during this trip is Space Bags!! We have rotated summer clothes out for some winter clothes that were brought in space bags. These bags go under our bed...a large storage area that is kinda the catch-all.

2. Is Goodwill our place for updating new sizes as the kids grow? Absolutely!! Every small town we go to we hit the thrift store...mostly because we are thrift store shoppers and love to find deals!! Our very first thrift store yielded Paige a rain coat for $1.00!!! Our latest thrift store find was a Columbia 100% wool jacket with hood for Miss Madeline (who is ALWAYS cold) for $4.99!! Plus we found a small DVD player, cables, etc for pennies for our bedroom...we certainly LOVE thrift stores!!

3. How can we keep from gaining weight especially eating all of the lobster, clams, pancakes, French toast, clam chowder, strawberry rhubarb pie, etc? Well....we don't! We are putting on pounds at an astronomical rate!! We do walk a lot and try to bike ride as much as we can, but it can't offset the spectacular regional foods we have been eating. We knew we would gain, because we told ourselves we wanted to taste it all, so we are just trying to eat in moderation when possible, loving the local favorite dishes and know that we will have to work hard to get it off when we get home!!

4. How can we resist purchasing nick-nacks and curios in every place we visit? Well, this is more of an issue for my husband than it is for me!! We have bought some things to bring home and John purchased one large item that he had shipped to his parent's house for them to store until we get home, but we just don't have the storage for "extras". If we "must" have it...then it has to find a place in the camper (mostly under our bed) and this really reduces our temptation because our space is limited! So far, we have purchased a pin (the hat-pin, collector-type) from every place we have been to so that we can remember each place and the adventures we have had. These pins are going on an "Abraham Lincoln" hat...53 pins so far and counting!!

Our lovely model displaying the Lincoln hat with our pins!

 

5. How is home schooling in the truck? Believe it or not, it works really well...we don't really have to do it that often. We mostly do our work when we are in the RV, camped at some campground. Every Monday we try to start a new math lesson (all done in workbook format) and then work on it throughout the week. We are reading "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom as our read-aloud and the kiddo's work on their drawing journals as I read. Plus they have workbooks for their language/grammar that are easily portable? They each have their own books that they read for their own grade level. We certainly research and learn about all sorts of cool stuff as we go along. So, at the times when we do have to school in the truck, they just bring their workbooks, pencils, crayons, drawing journals and reading books and get their stuff done rather quickly.

 

Ok...final question...how is the truck/rig running and are we pleased with our purchase? Absolutely great and yes, we are more than pleased with our purchases!! Our Dodge Ram one ton is pulling like a work horse!! It pulls this big rig like a dream! As far as the RV... overall it's good. We've had a few issues...our awning, a couple small plumbing leaks and new tires needed because of cheap tires from the factory, but we certainly are comfortably accommodated on MANY levels with this big rig. Due to our size, we are sometimes limited to where we can go and where we can camp, but we just work around those places.

That's it...Q and A session is over! Lots of great questions, and probably too long of answers, but I had a good time tonight sharing about our adventures on the road!! Gotta get the kiddos ready for bed and put this wonderful day to rest. Blessings to you all, Lioness

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The Famous Fort Ticonderoga!

This fort is located in upstate NY, on the edge of Lake Champlain and it was a very important fort during both the French and Indian War and the War for Independence. It was built be the French in 1755, captured be the British in 1759 and seized by the Green Mountain Boys (led by Ethan Allen) in 1775 during the War for our independence from England. The weather Saturday was very cold, windy and we've even seen a few snow flurries, but we stopped to see this famous fort despite the weather. We are making our way out of NY and into Pennsylvania where we will stay once more as we begin to make our decent down the eastern coast of the country. What a wonderful time we have had in the New England state...it has been everything that I dreamed it would be!!

The entrance into Fort Ticonderoga

Walking in the footsteps of history!!

 

All good forts must have lots of cannons, right??

 

The enlisted men's quarters

 

I love it when the guides are in period costumes!!

 

The officer's quarters

 

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