Forever Young

"When the blog is silent, life is not."

Read that quote recently and it certainly applies. God has been and continues to do amazing things in our lives and it has us holding on tightly for dear life! After returning from an incredible month Down Under (which I really hope to finish blogging about - God did so many mighty works down there and I'm busting to share them and give Him GLORY.)  Maybe summer will slow down?

We touched down in Charleston late January ready for a quiet spring, but ended up finding a house we couldn't resist and decided to move. (Just 5 miles away) Well, I say 'we' decided, but you know we spent several days in earnest prayer about it and sensed God giving us the nod. And His hand has been all over this entire process as only He can so lovingly do. The house needed some work and we found 5 incredible contractors to help us out. (If you live in Charleston and need a painter, hardwood floors, A/V help, bookshelves built or just general miscellaneous type stuff - let us know. These guys have done top notch work with utmost integrity and we'd love to give them a referral.

We have been in the new house 11 days now and it is really feeling like home. Rich has been busy digging in the yard and with lots of help has a beautiful garden planted already. So y'all come visit us now, ya' here?

Here are a few pics that I had posted on Facebook over the fast few weeks because what is a blog post without a few pictures???

Early morning tranquility. Perfect way to start a busy day.

Isn't she the yummiest?

Oh my dear blog, forgive me for neglecting you. I have good intentions, but other things take my time (and as they should.)

But I have to take a few moments to say how thankful I am for my dear husband, affectionately known as My Hunk. I grow more madly in love with him each day! He inspires me to be a better person with his Godly character that amazes me. Thank you, Jesus, for your work on the cross and Resurrection and the JOY you bring us together. It is because of Jesus that our marriage and love for each other is what it is today. I think back to the day we were married, not even Christians yet, and what could have been had we not found God the very next year together. Our lives have been a wild wonderful ride every since!

God has richly blessed me with My Hunk. He is such a devoted husband and father. He works all out, he laughs all out, he gives all out, he endures all out, he loves all out, he gives grace all out, he receives grace all out, he plays all out, he forgives all out. He lives his life with a passion and zeal - never missing a moment. I pray that our sons grow up just like him (only with their unique personalities, of course.)

I love you, My Hunk!

Time to say "good-bye" to the city and head west about 2 hours into the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.

Amazing how crammed a 12 passenger van can be with 8 people and their 'stuff'! Logan named the van Abraham, "because," he said, "Abraham had great faith and so do we." Love his confidence.

The Blue Mountains are about 1000 meters in height (just over 3000 feet) and I must admit, I wasn't expecting them to be anywhere near as spectacular as they were. I was anticipating something like the Appalachian Mountains here in the U.S. which are certainly beautiful, but not sure I'd always label them spectacular. But the Blue Mountains are quite different and definitely spectacular!

They are densely populated by oil bearing Eucalyptus trees. The atmosphere is filled with finely dispersed droplets of oil, which, in combination with dust particles and water vapor, scatter short-wave length rays of light which are predominantly blue in color. Thus the name!

We hiked and hiked and hiked for 3 days seeing all sort of beautiful cliffs, waterfalls...

and flowers that were foreign to us.

The 3 pointed rocks in the background are known as the Three Sisters

So, of course, we had to get a picture of the 3 sisters in front of the Three Sisters.

We crossed streams...

pushed our way through dense ferns (always on the lookout for all of the deadly snakes that Australia is famous for! Thankfully, didn't see a one)...

And stopped for morning tea under a giant rock... (yes, 10am is morning tea time in Australia. Usually doesn't involved any tea, but is just a nice snack time.)

We hiked down to the valley which was a beautiful, dense rain forest.

Micah had the best ride on Daddy's back!

Arvo (afternoon) tea consisted of these fun little cookies (known as biscuits in Oz)

As we were munching away, we let Micah continue his nap in the back pack carrier. Apparently, a big juicy rain forest leach thought his sweet, chubby little leg looked like a good place for a snack (unbeknownst to us!) Once Rich loaded him back up and they were happily hiking along, Rich was feeding him some of those yummy koala biscuits (aka bikkies). All of a sudden Micah started fussing and refusing the bikkies. Not characteristic of our little man to refuse a sweet treat. Rich asked me to check if his foot had gotten caught in the carrier. I screamed when I saw the slimy black thing sucking my baby's blood! And since we were hours from any salt to properly detach the thing, Rich quickly flicked it off. 

Caleb and Rich are always looking for an excuse to do crazy stunts. Here Rich is lowering Caleb over the edge to retrieve a water bottle cap that had rolled away.

So proud of Anna as she hiked the entire time - several miles each day. I think she was hoping this mule would take her back to the top of the mountain where our bush walk had begun.

Never fear! We hitched a ride on this train back to the top. Steepest one in the world at a 52 degree incline!

The more we travel and see across this great earth of ours, the more I am amazed and in awe of the creativity and beauty of God. We truly relished in the sights we enjoyed and sing praises to our Creator God.

God really ministered to our family during his time. The days and weeks leading up to this adventure had been crazy busy and it was quite nice to have some alone family time to relax, be silly together and to just 'be' together. Although, our legs walked away from our mountain time screaming sore, our spirits were soothed and refreshed. What a joy our family is! Rich and I are constantly amazed at the joy our children bring to us (when the world continually says they're a burden). But they're really a lot of fun! 

Last time we were in Australia for the GFA conference we attended the conference first and explored afterwards. Not such a good idea. We were completely jet lagged the entire conference, blurry eyed and awake at all the wrong hours. We were in a fog. And we hate to not squeeze every ounce of incredible like-minded family fellowship out of every opportunity we get. So... we wizened up and reversed the order this time. Explore Australia first, conference at the end of the adventure.

With the sun freshly awake and just barely peeking over the horizon, our precious friends, the Foote family met us at the Sydney airport after our 27 hours of adventure in the air. (It's always an adventure flying in a small metal tube for that many hours with a 23 month old. And I'll leave it at that.) I kept my mind off the long flight by thanking God repeatedly that it was "only" taking us 27 hours to get halfway around the world. We had just finished reading Adoniram Judson's biography and it took him 6 months to get to Burma on a leaky ship. Yes, very thankful.

Knowing that our bodies would be screaming "Sleep!" the Foote's wisely kept us away from any structure with a bed in it 'til at least 6pm (upon which we promptly collapsed in bed and slept for many, many, many delicious horizontal hours.)

Day #1:  La Perouse and Botany Bay National park - where Captain Cook first landed on April 29, 1770 when navigating his ship, the Endeavour around Australia.

Did I mention that it's now summer!?!?!?!? (Big grin)

Day #5: Australia Museum, downtown Sydney

Day #7: Bondi Beach (complete with fish 'n chips for lunch. Oh how I love the food of Australia)

We watched as 2 swimmers got caught in a rip current and struggled to swim to shore. (Now think Baywatch as you read this) The lifeguards sprung into action to rescue the swimmers as camera men appeared from nowhere, all to catch footage for the reality show Bondi Rescue. After the swimmers were plucked from danger, they were interviewed for the show up on the beach. The kids strategically started building sand castles a small distance behind the interviewed rescuees. Hope that wasn't their 15 minutes of fame.

And finally, we need to mention several other families who selflessly gave us 'the keys' and thus contributed to making our time in Sydney great. The McKees, the McFadyens and the Timbrells all lent us their cars at various times. We were able to rent a van near the end of our week in Sydney, but given the summer/New Years holidays, they were scarce. And then the wonderfully generous Ewings family for giving us their home to use for our Seven Days in Sydney. They were off holidaying in Tasmania, but selflessly gave us the keys and said, "make yourselves at home." We did and are extremely grateful.