The morning after, and the days that followed

The next morning we rose in the dark, got Karen's things together by flashlight, and headed out to the airport. We didn't know for sure whether her flight would still be going, but it appeared that the airport was up and operating on generator power. We also hadn't had any contact with the other two ladies who were traveling with her, so we had no idea if they would show up. Cell phone service was all we had, but it was spotty and getting worse as time went on. Texting was the main source of communication.

Both ladies did show up, and amazingly the flight was still on, though an earlier flight had been cancelled. Secure in the knowledge that she was OK, I left Karen and headed back home through a eerily dark city. By the next day, when I was supposed to get Karen's call saying they had arrived at their destination, the only way I could get a signal was to drive out to the highway and park in the median. Once she called, I called everyone to let them know the team was safe then headed home.

The next five days were spent with Philip and me "baching-it", essentially camping out in our house, listening to the radio for information, and making daily treks to find gasoline and supplies. We traveled as far as we needed to each day to find towns with electricity. While there was gasoline in the ground at all the stations, without electricity they couldn't pump it out. There were so many power lines destroyed by the tornadoes that most of north Alabama was without power, and it wasn't going to get fixed anytime soon.

Each radio broadcast brought more information about the damage across the south. Each trek took us through areas of mind boggling devastation. Each day we pieced together a few more creature comforts.

Keeping our cell phones charged was the initial challenge, since they provided our only means of communication. Before long we remembered we had power inverters for the car that plugged into the lighter and provided 110v outlets. But that also meant we had to run the car to keep the battery from dying, which meant more gas we had to keep on hand.

Early on we wrestled through the crowds at Publix to buy a whole bag of batteries so we could keep the flashlights and radio operating. Publix stores all had generators, and amazingly their card readers were operating too, so we didn't have to use our precious cash.

We also made great use of our little solar accent lights from around the house. Each day I would stick them in a bucket in the morning sun, then move the bucket to follow the sun as the day went on so they would get a maximum charge. By the time night rolled around we had several excellent light sources that lasted through the night without using a single battery!

But the real coup came when Philip's lifelong friend Adam came over and invited us to dinner one night. It had been nearly 48 hours since the power went out, and the stuff Karen had left in the refrigerator to sustain us while she was gone wasn't going to last much longer.

It turned out that the Middletons had been supplied with two generators, but their reason for needing the second had disappeared. They offered it to us and we jumped at the opportunity! After a delicious meal, we hauled the generator home and fired it up. First to get connected was the fridge. Though the ice from the ice maker had melted all over the kitchen floor, it appeared that the food was going to be alright.

Next we ran extension cords upstairs to run fans in the bedrooms. The weather after the tornadoes had been mercifully kind, but the house was still stuffy after being without air conditioning for two days.

As the days went on, we added more and more things to the generator, always listening to see if it sounded overburdened.

We hooked up some lamps in the living area so our evenings were more cheery. Then we decided it couldn't hurt to try plugging in the computer and cable modem. The generator held just fine and amazingly, we had internet!

Emboldened by our success, we decided that if the internet was coming through the cable...maybe TV channels were as well. We plugged in the TV and DVR and sure enough! We had TV! Roughing it wasn't so bad after all!

With the TV came our first chance to see pictures of the devastation. It was mind boggling. Especially Tuscaloosa, and smaller towns like Phil Campbell that had basically been erased from the map.

Each passing day brought news of power returning to more of the state, and finally to sections of Huntsville. When the power finally came on at our house there was even a sense of loss. Despite all the devastation around us, our family was safe, and the time spent living through the hardships (such as they were) will always be a special memory.

Lines down just North of Arab.

Working with the chainsaw crew to clear trees.

With the Marines, clearing trees.

Gas station destroyed just North of Arab.

Trees snapped, houses destroyed.

Lines down over a destroyed house.

Shelves at WalMart in Athens were cleaned out.

Working the chain saws.

April 27 - The Day of the Tornadoes

For days prior to April 27th, forecasters in Alabama had been warning that conditions were right for some really bad weather ahead. This was nothing new. The local weather guys sometimes seemed to imply that every thunderstorm that came along was poised to sprout a tornado that would erase Huntsville from the map. And from the time we first moved to Huntsville we'd been hearing stories about the famous "Airport Road Tornado" back in the 80's. Some of our friends still appeared to be pretty scarred by the whole thing.

But for 15 years we never saw one.

Sure, there was the occasional tornado, but they always seemed to be attracted to mobile homes somewhere out in the boonies. And even the recent one that touched down in downtown Huntsville didn't hurt anyone or do too terribly much damage.

So we reacted to the warnings on April 27th with an understandable yawn.

That is not to say that the skies didn't look impressive! Dave joined several of his coworkers outside that morning to watch as an extremely ominous cloud approached from the west. (Full disclosure: they had all been run out of their offices to the safe areas because a tornado warning had been declared.) While the folks who still had any sense huddled in the downstairs conference room, Dave and his coworkers who didn't stood outside, took pictures, and talked about how they all hoped to get to see a tornado! Some had, and their stories were heard with ever greater interest as the winds picked up.

Several tendrils teased their way down from the cloud that morning, but ultimately none seemed to have the energy to form into a full tornado.

Another false alarm.

But the worst was apparently yet to come. By the middle of the afternoon, stories were starting to come in that a number of tornadoes had touched down across Alabama. When Dave finally left for home the newscasters were starting to sound a little frantic, so Dave kept his camera handy and watched the clouds closely as he drove. Sure enough, at a traffic light just before home, Dave spotted what was later recorded as the "Lilly Flagg" tornado, for the road where it touched down.

Once home, the family fired up the TV and watched the continuing coverage by all of the local stations. Things were getting ugly fast.

And then the power went out.

It took us a while to find our battery operated radio, but we did. And we actually had batteries for it! There were functional flashlights as well. Those would prove very useful later since Karen was packing to leave on a mission trip to Vietnam the following morning. Assuming the airport was still operational.

Our cell phones still worked, and before long we got a call from Tucker who was at school down in Tuscaloosa. He seemed pretty upset that we hadn't tried to call him. I mean, REALLY upset. It became apparent that something horrible had happened in Tuscaloosa, but between the power outage and the local radio coverage we hadn't heard anything about it. Tuscaloosa had taken a direct hit by a massive tornado.

Tuck had been at work when it hit and before long, broken and bloodied people started making their way to the Rec Center for shelter. It was the start of a nightmarish few days in Tuscaloosa, and we were awfully glad to see Tuck again when he finally got home!

Sometime later he sent this picture showing the path of the tornado in relation to his apartment and Morgan's. Yikes. The brown streak shows the center of the tornado path, but reports later said it was somewhere around a half-mile wide or wider. Talk about threading the needle!

We fielded several more calls throughout the evening from family and friends who were just becoming aware of the devastation across the state. We stayed glued to the radio, got Karen all packed, and made our plans for the morning.

Sleep didn't come easy, but it finally came.

Snow, snow, and more snow...in Huntsville?

Christmas is always a special time of year, but this one went past special and headed right toward magical!

This was our first Christmas with Erin, our new daughter-in-law, so there was naturally some small amount of anxiousness about how our family traditions would mesh with her family's. It's the same rite of passage that every family has to go through when their children get married, but for both us and the Perrys is was our first time to tread those waters.

Well needn't have worried, of course, because Erin jumped right in as if she'd always been part of our traditions. As it happens, her family normally does their big family dinner and gathering on Christmas Day, and we have always done ours on Christmas Eve so there was no conflict at all. Erin even offered to sit with the boys on the steps for our traditional photo before we allow the boys to come into the family room to see what Santa has brought! What a trooper :-)

As the presents were being opened someone looked outside and noticed that it was snowing! We've lived in Huntsville for over 15 years now and, while it has snowed a few times over the years, it had never happened on Christmas Day! We ended up getting about 3 inches and had a great time watching the dogs play in it and taking pictures of the spectacle. Dave dutifully shoveled off the back deck and the sidewalk leading to the garage. He had to use a small shovel that made the task take twice as long, but then who has a snow shovel in Alabama?

When the presents were all opened, the cinnamon roles eaten, and the newlywed couple packed off to the Perry's for their next round of celebrations, we counted ourselves blessed for such a memorable Christmas.

Who knew that the snow would return again in just a couple weeks!

On January 10th it did, and with a vengeance! It snowed, and snowed, and snowed. And since Jan 10th was a Monday, there was the hope (soon realized) that school would even be cancelled! That had happened before in Huntsville for far less snow (once even for a forecast of snow that turned out to be incorrect - blush!), but this time it was legitimate! By the time it was over we had 8 inches piled up on the back deck! Before long even businesses were closing down, including Dave's job. Huntsville is just unprepared for that much snow and it took days for the city to clear the streets enough to make it possible to get to either work or school.

Thus freed from the cares of normal everyday life :-) we took full advantage of the situation. We made a snowman, did our best to sled in the wet, sticky snow, romped with the dogs, and generally reverted to childhood for a few days. It was a winter wonderland of fun!

After it was over, over the next couple of weeks, there were numerous forecasts of more possible snow to come. Both at work and in the schools, folks started to get concerned about all the days off and how they would have to be made up at some point. Somehow, the magic was quickly giving way to dread each morning as we watched the forecast.

But Dave found a way to fix it.

He finally went out and bought a snow shovel.

And it never snowed again.

Gerrit and Erin get Married

All of those old folks telling us through the years that time would slip away and before we knew it our boys would be grown were proven true in August. Our first born son got all growed up, graduated from college with two degrees, got married to the most wonderful girl we've ever met, and the two of them moved to Houston.

Once there, Gerrit began his career with Exxon Mobil and the two of them have settled into life as if they'd been married for years. We had a chance to visit them in October and had a wonderful time seeing the sites and spending time with them.

Now we're looking forward to seeing them again for Thanksgiving!

Wow, time sure does fly!

A satisfactory end to one journey, and the beginning of a new one.

It took nearly four months, but Dave's journey through unemployment finally ended on May 17th. In some ways that seemed like a long time, with all the resumes, applications, interviews, possibilities, and disappointments. But looking back now it seems more like an unlooked-for break from all the stresses and worries built up after nearly 29 years of working life.

The time off gave Dave a chance to refocus and get his perspective back, plus take care of the huge list of "to-do's" he'd been meaning to get around to in his free time. All the old family video tapes are now converted to DVD, indexed and cataloged. The back of the house got a fresh coat of paint it's been needing since last summer. The old bent-up storm door got replaced. The branches from the huge oak tree next door that were scraping the roof are now pruned. And the grass and shrubs around the house have NEVER looked so good!

Best of all, the extra time spent at home with Karen was a great opportunity catch a glimpse of what retirement together might look like in a few years. It looks like it's going to be AWESOME!

Thus rested, recharged, and ready, Dave begins the employment journey anew. Hopefully for the last time :-)

An Unexpected Vacation

In late January this year, Dave became an unemployment statistic. The Army program he had been working on through his company, i3, had an unexpected budget shortfall, and in a matter of days half the civilian engineering force was unceremoniously asked to clear out their offices.

Using the three weeks of vacation he had saved up, Dave began the process of searching for another job while still under the cover of i3. That kept a paycheck coming in for a while, but eventually even that dried up and i3 had to let him go.

Interestingly, the money didn’t seem to stop coming in. First there was the refund on our mortgage escrow. It seems we had overpaid what was necessary for our property taxes last year by a good bit, so they sent us a check. Then there were our tax refunds, from both federal and state, which should arrive any day now. Plus the i3 severance check. Karen also started noticing that her grocery money seemed to be multiplying. Every week when she went to put in what she normally budgets for groceries, there was already enough there to cover things.

We had to leave the company medical plan and start on COBRA, which we weren’t looking forward to, since it normally costs and arm and a leg. But it seems there was a little provision in the federal stimulus package last year that cut COBRA payments by 2/3! And it turns out that the provision was scheduled to end just days after we applied.

The outpouring of support from friends, coworkers, and even strangers has been amazing. We’ve long preached to others that accepting generosity from folks who care about you is as much an act of service as the giving, but it sure looks different from the other side :-) Our hearts have been touched by cards, phone calls, emails, gift certificates, and roughly a million offers to personally shop Dave’s resume around.

The search for a job still continues, now 40 days on, but our hearts are full of gratitude and peace. God has granted us an awesome gift of seeing life from an angle we never expected, and the view of His grace from here is pretty awesome.

Christmas break 2009

Christmas this year took on special significance for our family. Gerrit will soon be graduating from college, marrying Erin, and moving to Houston in the new year, so there's no telling when we'll see them for Christmas again! Tuck is happily adapting to college life at the University of Alabama. And Philip is rapidly approaching driving age. Our little family is steadily sprouting wings and leaving the nest!

So, we wanted to make the most of the time we had together. For Dave that implied more than just family dinners and board games, though. Not being sure when he'd have all of his home-grown man-power together again, he decided it was time to purge the garage, the attic, and just about everything else that wasn't tied down. We hired a construction-sized dumpster and started throwing away the accumulated junk from 14 years living in the same house. After three days we had just about filled a 30 cubic yard container. The fact that we had that much junk was more than a little embarrassing, but the sense of relief we felt when the truck came to haul it away was wonderful!

Having completed our "big chore" for the week, we set our minds to more entertaining pursuits, like making graham cracker houses! As anyone who knows us will suspect, it turned into quite the competition. We split into four teams of two: Karen with our visiting friend Carolyn, Dave with Philip, Gerrit and Erin, and Tuck and Morgan. The results were quite impressive, and each team claimed victory for one reason or another, though Dave is sure that his "architecturally correct" recreation of Notre Dame cathedral (complete with flying buttresses!) stole the show :-)

On Christmas day we packed up our rented Expedition and took to the road to go see Dave's parents in Charleston. We normally get a chance to see them with the extended family in Lexington at Thanksgiving, but since it hadn't worked out this year, heading to Charleston seemed the logical thing to do.

Since Erin hadn't been to Charleston before, we had the perfect excuse to tour the city again. After driving around the city and seeing the sites, Erin and Gerrit took the historic carriage tour while the rest of us strolled through the market.

Dave's folks rolled out the red carpet for us, continually offering their hospitality in the form of more food than an army could possibly eat. The conversation was great, fueled by collections of letters Dave's mom had saved through the years, and by Grandad's reminiscences from his thirty years in the Navy.

One particularly special evening, the guys all bundled up and sat out on the back deck, puffing on cigars that Gerrit had given Tucker for his 19th birthday, and listening to Grandad tell some pretty amazing stories. No one seemed to notice the cold until we'd been out there for hours.

Eventually though, we had to pack up and make the long drive back to Huntsville, then turn our minds back toward school, work, and our regular lives. But the holiday gave us one last thrill by dumping snow on Huntsville just as school was resuming, giving us an unexpected additional holiday as schools and roads were closed for the next couple of days.

Nice.

Renovations

It all started with the oven door.

After fourteen years in the same house we had gotten used to a lot of the little quirks that made this 35 year-old house our home, and one of them was the fact that the oven door had begun to stick on occaision. It wasn't all the time, but when it did you had to know how to hold it to get it closed again. Then Dave's mom came to visit, and since her heart wasn't warmed by our house's little heart-warming quirks, she left us money for a new oven.

After a while we started checking out the local home improvement stores to see what might be available. The news wasn't good. You see, our oven was a 28 inch wide slide-in model, and it seems that sometime after the seventies the appliance industry had decided that 32 inch widths were the new standard. Trouble was, the space in our cabinets where the oven fit was only 28 inches wide.

So, in order to change ovens, we'd have to have someone work on the cabinets. If they were going to put a bigger hole in the cabinets, we'd probably have to have the counter tops redone. As long as we were redoing the cabinets, we might as well redo the hardware. And since we were getting a new oven, we should probably go ahead and replace the fridge and dishwasher so they matched. Oh yes, and a new stove hood. And since we were changing counter tops and updating the cabinets, we should probably pull down the old wall paper and repaint. Except for the back splash area - maybe something in stone would look good there...

Once we settled on a contractor and he got started on the kitchen, we began to think about the upstairs bathroom. I mean, the contractor was here anyway, so maybe we should just go ahead and do it all at the same time, right?

We saved a few pennies by doing some of the demolition work ourselves. Tearing out the old tile using a pick ax was a TREAT! Philip also scraped off all the old "cottage cheese" ceiling. That wasn't nearly so much fun.

By the time the last domino fell, we had redone the kitchen, living room, dining room, hallways, stairwell, and our master bedroom.

All because the oven door stuck.

Annabelle joins the family

Sometime early this year it became evident to all of us that our faithful dog Maggie was starting to show some signs of wear. She was greying around the edges, and her persistent skin tumors seemed to be multiplying at a faster and faster rate. Sensing an opportunity, the boys began making the argument that we should get a NEW dog now, while Maggie was still able to help train it, rather than wait until after she's gone. Their pleas were met mostly with skepticism that such an idea was even valid, and coupled with memories of what it's like to raise a new puppy, the whole thing didn't really gain much traction.

Until Karen started "harmlessly" looking to see if there were any pups available in the area...

And what do you know, she found a litter not far from our house! What could it hurt to just go take a look?

As everyone knows, it is humanly impossible to see brand new Labrador puppies without taking one home. It's written into the fabric of the universe, or our genetic code, or something. So, we made our pick, determined that she should be named Annabelle, and brought her home.

The next few days were spent acquiring a new kennel, new collar, new leash, new dog bowl, and all the other paraphernalia that go with having another dog. Miraculously, Annie did indeed follow Maggie's lead, and she was housebroken practically without incident. Being inveterate fans of "The Dog Whisperer", we complimented Maggie's training regimen with tips and tricks we'd seen on the show, to include making sure Annie got LOTS of exercise. When taking her for constant walks around the block proved to be impractical, Karen found a treadmill cheap and trained both dogs to walk on it. And so, a daily routine was born: wake up, let the dogs out, run them on the treadmill, and then feed them.

Feed them a LOT.

One other law of Physics relating to puppies is that they GROW. Startling so. Before you know it, they're gangly teenagers, eating you out of house and home. It didn't help any that our vet literally gasped at the size of Annie's paws during one visit, proclaiming that this dog was going to be HUGE! Great.

And teenagers do tend to push the boundaries a bit. While Annie fell right into line with Maggie in her respect for the boundaries INSIDE the house, she tended to feel released from all inhibitions when OUTSIDE. While most of her attention seemed to be focused on sticks of various sizes, she also found time to extract and completely dismantle the drain pipe from the sump pump under the house. The subsequent cycle of repair and re-dismantling went several iterations before Dave constructed a fortress of chicken wire and concrete blocks to protect the pipe. So far so good.

Annie also managed at some point to "get acquainted" with a nest of wasps, which led to some rather comical swelling and a trip to the vet, though it produced no discernible lack of enthusiasm on Annie's part. The swelling took a couple of days to go down and she was none the worse for the wear.

Since then, Annie has continued to grow up and grow more accustomed to being a part of our family. She and Maggie get along well, though Maggie clearly feels her hold on the "top dog" slot slipping as time goes by. And you can tell by the picture below that Annabelle feels that she is now the queen of all she surveys...

Gerrit Sky Dives!

Gerrit Puts His Knees in the Breeze

Since a lot of our Christmas this year revolved around things at our house, it didn't seem fair to make Gerrit share all of them and then head back to school. We needed something that was just for him..

For years now one of Gerrit's dreams has been to try skydiving, and since Dave's flying puts in touch with a community of people who know about such things, we decided to find out if it was possible. Turns out it was not only possible, it was almost convenient! So, a few days after celebrating Christmas the whole family headed down to the airport in Cullman, Alabama.

The weather was spectacular, which was a relief since both the day prior and the day afterwards ended up being yucky, but Gerrit's day was perfect. After watching a quick instructional video, Gerrit was teamed up with an experienced diver from SkyDive Alabama and he got all suited up. We got a chance to watch two or three other groups come down before Gerrit's turn. In each group there were some tandum "first-timers" and several experienced parachuters. Finally it was Gerrit's turn and we watched as the airplane carried him up to over 14,000 feet.

He was just a speck against the blue sky when he first exited the airplane, but we had arranged for someone to video the whole thing from up in the air, so we all got to share the whole ride down later at home. After what seemed like an eternity, we saw the chute open and followed his progress all the way down to the landing. It was probably as much fun for us watching as it was for him doing it! Well, almost :-)

Tuck's new job

It looks as if Tucker may have finally found his calling! It's true that he's still in high school, but after working in the kitchen at Guthrie's and singing for tips at Cold Stone Creamery, he was pretty sure that the fast food industry wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

It turns out that Grissom High School has a program that allows students to work as part of their studies, so Tuck took a shot and asked his orthodontist, Dr. Dickson, if he might be interested in having a co-op student. Turns out "Dr D" was very interested and after all the paperwork was submitted, Tuck donned his mask and started what may be the coolest job ever! Dr D has been great about teaching Tuck all about the job, and has even allowed Tuck to do some of the work on select individuals (brother Philip included). He's made molds of people's teeth, created retainers, inserted spacers, and a host of other things that most guys probably never get a chance to do until dental school. But most of all he's learned that the right front-office person can make or break a practice - Cathy is AWESOME at keeping both of the guys in line :-)

Time will tell if this ends up being the start of a lifelong occupation for Tuck, but at least for now he's having a blast while learning a lot with a couple of great people.

We discover Geocaching!

The Wilsons came for a visit in May this year, and when we got to thinking about what we might do, Tucker suggested we take a hike down the nearby Aldridge Creek greenway. It turns out a friend of his had shown him the locations of some hidden caches of trinkets that are part of an activity called "Geocaching". Tuck showed us where the caches were as we walked along the greenway, and we got curious about how many more might be near our house.

When we got home we went to the Geocaching web site and found out more about the sport. Well, one thing led to another, and before you know it, both we and the Wilsons had acquired GPS units, and were becoming consumed by the sport!

The following Saturday, our family went back out and found five other caches! It was so much fun that we decided to create our own cache to hide up the mountain behind our house. By the next weekend, we were up to 14 finds and it was reaching obsession status (at least for Dave) :-)

So what is it all about? Basically someone hides a container with a log book and perhaps a few interesting things, then they note the location on their GPS and upload the information to a site like geocaching.com .

Other folks find the locations for caches near them by using their zip code or home coordinates, and then they go searching.

The caches can be so small that they contain only a strip of paper for logging your visit, or they can be large enough to hold various trinkets. The idea is that you can take anything, but you should leave something of equal or greater value. Once you get home, you go back to geocaching.com and log your visit. For more information you can visit the geocaching.com information page.

The beauty of Geocaching is that it can be done anywhere in the world, and it adds another layer onto just about any trip or activity. Going on a vacation to Colorado? Just look up the caches in the area by plugging in the area code. Away ball game in another town? Same thing.

As with any sport, the more you get into it, the more there seems to be to it. What's nice about geocaching is that it seems to be easily picked up by someone new to it, yet it provides enough of a challenge to keep it interesting for veterans. The cache locations are often used to bring attention to special places with great views or historical significance of some sort.

Our first cache documented the history of our street, which is rather awkwardly split in half because early residents feared it would become a throughway for folks traveling to the south. Since that one we've placed a total of 10 more around the Huntsville area, and somewhere along the way we've managed to find over 1000 caches in three countries and 11 states!

Vacation in Costa Rica

We head to Costa Rica purely for fun, and to celebrate our 20th anniversary, Gerrit's 18th birthday and impending departure for college life, and Philip's 11th birthday.

We've spent a lot of vacation time and travel over the last few years going to Venezuela for mission activities, but with so many family milestones happening this Spring we thought maybe it was time to head out for a purely fun trip. We had been hearing great things about Costa Rica recently, so Karen starting looking into it, and before you know it, we were on our way.

Costa Rica has been well known for its stability in an otherwise turbulent region, and it's recent ecological focus has inspired lots of eco-tourism. As admirable as that may be, we went for the volcanos and the beach!

We flew into the airport at Liberia, which is less well known than the one in the capitol city of San Jose, but far closer to our destinations. We rented a 4-wheel drive car (which ended up being a good thing) and headed to Arenal for our first stop. There are active volcanos running through the middle of the entire country, but the one at Arenal seems to be the most popular tourist spot.

Our hotel room was actually a chalet that had a gorgeous view of the volcano. Sitting in the rockers and watching the volcano turned out to be as much an attraction as the outings we planned to do things like: walking the hanging bridges through the cloud forest, white water kayaking, and horseback riding up the volcano.

We also watched butterflies emerge from their cocoons at the butterfly house, and sat in an outdoor jacuzzi one night watching glowing red lava spurt out of the volcano.

After three days we loaded back into the car and headed further up into the mountains to Monte Verde. The trip up required us to traverse about 30 miles of really bad, unpaved roads, and about twenty miles in we suddenly realized one of the tires was going flat.

Considering the fact that we'd seen very few houses, and almost no other cars we were glad we had a good spare. But things started looking a bit grim when neither Gerrit nor I could loosen the lug nuts on the flat tire (clearly they'd been enthusiastically tightened with one of those pneumatic wrenches).

Well, what looked like a potential disaster turned into quite the "God story". A lady walked up from the opposite direction and announced that a tire repair shop was just up the road. Moments later a car pulled up with a man and his dad offering to help. Between our two jacks, a couple of flat rocks, and some creative engineering we were able to get the flat off, the spare on, and drive to the tire shop to get the tire repaired.

Monte Verde was an interesting place; a strange combination of gorgeous mountain rain forests, touristy restaurants, and hippy hangouts. But the reason we'd come was for the zip line through the forest. Once we got all harnessed up and trained, we climbed the first tower and worked our way through nearly two miles of cables through the trees, out over deep valleys, and back into the trees. The views were spectacular and the ride was totally thrilling!

From Monte Verde we headed to the beach at Tamarindo where we stayed in a luxury hotel on the beach for three nights.

While there the boys took surfing lessons, we all went snorkeling (we saw a sea turtle, several kinds of blow fish, and hundreds of other fish), Karen had a massage on the beach and then found a place where she got a custom bathing suit made.

Each night we explored and ate at different restaurants. There was lots of kickback time to read on our own, but we especially enjoyed Mom reading aloud from the book "Marley & Me" about a family with a totally out of control Lab.

Far too soon it was time to head back to Liberia and our flight home. The flight took us over Nicaragua and it's picturesque lake with two volcanos in the middle.

It was a trip to remember!