NY

I finally got my camera fixed! Yay! I have so many pictures, but to not overwhelm, I want to share about Rick and my trip to NYC. Most everyone knows Rick works at a church outside the city. For his birthday weekend, I flew up to NY for five days. This was a week after his brother died, so I felt like God's timing was in ti all, even though ti was planned months before. My sweet mother took the kids for me, so it was only us. We had a blast. We started the time in Brewster, going into the city on Saturday (his birthday) and then actually stayed in the city on Monday and Tuesday.

This is us eating in a cafe in the city. Gotta love those black-and-white cookies! We bought four, ate one, but pocketed the rest for later.

This was in the middle of Times Square. There are doing a lot of zoning to make it more "usable" by tourists.

This is what you thing, a man playing guitar in his underwear. Believe it or not, the naked cowboy is running for mayor

If you have lived in the US for even a year, you should know this one.

This is us waiting to go through the medal detector to get on a boat for Ellis Island.

Water walking

Hello. My name is Rachel, and I am a fearaholic. Yep, that is me. Unfortunately there is no 12-step program. There is only a 3 stepper. STOP worrying. TRUST God. FOLLOW faithfully. I feel like I have a hand on 2, but number one is much too hard. Most of you know, you cannot skip the first step and ever truly recover. Am I making any sense? Most people give Peter a hard time for sinking when he was walking on the water. People say, "Oh, he took his eyes of Jesus." I say, he got out of the boat!! Only Jesus could walk unswervingly on the water. Humanity fails us. The other disciples were cowering in the boat or jealously wishing they could have the courage to do some waterwalking. No one ever again got the chance.
My husband is a boat jumper. God says, "GO," and he does. Just like that. I am a boat sitter. If you tump the boat over, I will give it a try, but if everything is smooth, I will keep my seat, thank you very much. Right now God is on the water, Rick has jumped up, and I just can't get the nerve. I know if I do not trust, then I might never know the "waterwalking" feeling.
Faith is fine when it involves your own self, but your kids make it a whole different story. I have boldly asked God to put a leak in my boat to make me stand if it is truly His will. Please join with me in prayer over all of this. We need it.

Time Traveling

One of my best friends from high school and I went out last night. We went to see The Time Traveler's Wife. Now, despite the amazing previews and rave reviews of the book, the movie is disappointing, disjointing, and slow. This, however was offset for us by the hilarious, outspoken women behind us. We were rolling throughout the movie. They deserved our movie admission money, not Hollywood.
Afterward, we sat in the car and we somehow got into a conversation of our past, certain significant memories of our past. We started talking about if we could have gone to ourselves in the past, when would we go and what we would have said. One time would be in fifth grade, when my best friend and I got in a huge fight, she said horrible things about me and turned half of the class against me, when she decided she wanted to be my best friend again, I said NO THANK YOU. During that time, there were three girls who decided they would be my friend despite it all. Those girls ended up leading me to a group who would be my group of friends in high school. The girls I stop hanging out with...they became part of a wild group in high school. I told Carrie, I just wonder what life would have been like. It is o clear what God was doing in my life during the seemingly "traumatic" time. If I could go to that girl, I would tell her there was a reason, and it would be worth it. I do not know why this time sticks out so strongly, but it is the earliest time in my life that I remember God allowing me pain to lead me to holiness. He chose my holiness over my happiness.
I can remember times since then as well, but I walked away from our conversation with 2 things. One, trust God with the pain or seemingly endless questions, fear, and difficulties. He always has a plan. Second, stop trying to "better" my kids. Teach them their worth no matter what they look like, talk like, behave like, etc. I am not saying do not encourage them to be better, try harder, obey, etc. I am saying I need them to know that they are "perfectly perfect" as I tell them often.
I know this is a weird post, but it was a moving conversation for me. After all we went through in Austin and the questions an uncertainties to follow, I relish the recollections of God's faithfulness in what may feel like His absence.

Catching up, take 2

Moving on, let's talk about NY. We went there last weekend to look at houses and see everyone at FBC. A sweet new friend had put a bunch of toys together for the kids to play with when they got in town. These pics were taken ten minutes into being there, no lie. The last pic is Rick reacting to someone's tummy ache, if you know what I mean.































When we got home, we all were sick. Our journey home was quite interesting. We were bumped from two flights at our airport on the way home. We were then shuttled to another airport about an hour away. When we got there, we were told that the tickets had not been paid for, so we got bumped again. We then went upstairs to American and got hotel and food vouchers before being shuttled to a DUMP to spend the night, with no luggage, no diapers, etc. NIGHTMARE!! Anyway, we finally got home, rested and healed, and then decided to venture out before Rick left town again. We chose Chuck-E-Cheese, my fave! Now that I have lost 2 sizes, I am willing to be in photographs again. Yes, I am that vain. I have 2 sizes left. HALLELUJAH!

Abbie's Birthday, months later

I know, I know. Close the mouth, no more jaw dropping. I am finally blogging. I used to be so good at it. In fact, blogging has been therapy for me in the past. We have moved so much, it has helped me get through so much, especially loneliness. And here I am, abandoning it/her/him/ whatever. (:
Ok, so I have pics dating back to Abbie's birthday. I guess I will start there, since I am talking about Austin and loneliness. Abbie's birthday was actually hard. Rick was out of town, so we celebrated as a family a little early. I made the cake myself. The kids had a blast. Brooks and I enjoyed setting up Abbie's dollhouse.