Doing nothing

The plane hit the runway hard. I tried not to giggle when I felt Luke's body tense as the wheels of the plane rebounded and hit the runway a second time.

It was the ending of a long, beautiful, quiet and totally relaxing weekend. One that went by much too fast and yet incredibly slowly all at the same time. How is it that time can do that to you? How is it that the days can seem long but the weekend seem short?

"We'll remember the quiet, the peacefulness, the rest, this whole weekend a week from now when we're back home and the chaos has set back in, right?" Luke said, almost sheepishly.

He was serious. It's so easy to forget the refuge you've just enjoyed as six precious, screaming, emotional children are hanging onto your pants legs and wanting their needs met instantly.

My parents were rockstars, taking control of our small army of children, dispatching them to varying locations of family and friends, feeding, bathing, filling cups and putting kids to bed. Their generosity has continued to baffle me in the days since we've been home.

After all, they gave us that trip last Christmas. I was sure they'd say it had expired long ago. But instead, they continued to urge us to go, take a vacation, spend some time away from the kids, be alone. They were equally excited for us as we were excited to go.

We chose Colorado because we love the mountains. We chose a quiet little town because we wanted someplace quiet, without the hustle and bustle of a busy ski resort town.

It never takes me long to remember just why I fell in love with this man I call my husband. He's thoughtful, gentle, strong, considerate and he always makes me laugh harder than anyone else. Over the course of the weekend, I just kept thinking about how I wanted our own children to know and understand a love like that one day.

I'm not going to pretend our marriage is always sunshine and rainbows. In fact, since we've been home, I've been less than cheerful to my husband. He's not really done anything in particular wrong.

Unless you count breathing.

Which has annoyed me at times over the past week. As has every other aspect of his living.

I blame hormones.

At any rate, as I think back on our 4 days alone, in the middle of no-where Colorado, I think about how we did absolutely nothing and yet had the best time ever. No kids to distract us, no must-see attractions. Just lots of sitting and doing nothing.

And I realized that I'm so thankful that I can sit and do nothing with my man and still feel like it's been the best day of my life.

I can't think of a clever title about the Rockies that doesn't sound like a beer commercial

Last Christmas my parents generously gifted us with a vacation.

An all expense paid vacation for two. Just me and Luke (or is it Luke and I?). Anyway, Ella was a nursing 6 month old, I knew that my trip to Guinea-Bissau would come about the time she was weaned. And well, there was all that other life to be done somewhere in the midst of babies nursing, mission trips, schooling and such.

Finally, we have booked our vacation. The trip included airline tickets, hotel accommodations and even spending money and childcare. Seriously. We are just so blessed.

I've never been much of a beach bum myself and I love, love, love the mountains. Over the course of 11 years of us being together, I think I've finally converted Luke. So rather than head to someplace warm and tropical we are heading the mountains. The BIG mountains. We live near the Appalachian mountains so we figured we needed something to compare them to.

After much debate and looking at tickets and travel time, we settled on Colorado. Rocky Mountain National Park here we come!

We leave late Wednesday night and don't return home until late Sunday evening. Our children and dog will spend copious amounts of time with their MeMe and PawPaw and we'll get to sleep late, enjoy mountain air, sleep late, make spontaneous decisions on dinner, sleep late and hopefully see lots and lots of snow.

My soul is aching for some down time with my husband. Time for us to laugh with each other, talk about our dreams, goals and desires, pray over our future and that of our children and just hang out. We've reserved a tiny little cabin in the Rocky Mountain National park and I couldn't be more thrilled at the idea of settling in and not leaving for a couple of days.

Over the course of the last few weeks, we've made decisions for our family that have reduced much of the stress I was previously feeling. And while I'm not yet able to fully discuss some of those decisions, I will say that knowing we have a plan and that the plan is one to a happier, less stressful home is freeing.

I feel like this little get away is a the 1st stage of us finally letting go of some of the fullness in our life and looking forward to what God has placed on our plate. We were making decisions based on what we felt we needed to accomplish rather than what God desired for us to accomplish.

At any rate, the next time you hear from me (at least on the blog anyway) I will be snuggled down under some warm blankets, hopefully sipping some hot tea while the world outside is slowly covered with beautiful white snow.

Approximately 53 hours until our plane take off. But really, who's counting? (Oh wait, I am.)