ColoRADo!

My soul feels overwhelmed by all we’ve seen and done this week. What a treat, well most of it anyway. An hour into our trip to Portland on Tuesday afternoon, I realized I left my wallet and cell phone at home, so our little autumn getaway had a rocky start. We planned to be in Portland by dinner time to visit a friend and spend the night there before flying out to Denver the next morning, but my major “oops” caused us to be several hours late since we had to drive back home and get them, then got stuck in rush hour traffic on the second trip through Seattle. Ugh. But that was the worst thing that happened all week, so I will not complain (nor did Kory as he did all the extra driving.)


The tickets to Denver were cheaper to fly out of Portland, so the plan was a good one initially, but with the diminished time to visit my friend Dorothy, it was a bit too rushed for me, as I love spending time with my friends – especially those I don’t get to see too often. But something is better than nothing, and we had a leisurely breakfast with her on Wednesday morning and then were off to Denver where we had dinner with my friend Launni and her family. Then Thursday Launni hung out with us all day, which was absolutely wonderful. We all took a tour of the Denver Mint, then while Kory and Kaleb explored the Denver Science Museum, Launni and I sat and did a lot of “catch-up” over a large cup of coffee. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

We got a cute little retro rental car so we headed up into the Rocky Mountains Thursday night. I was invited to a bridal shower for my girlfriend Paula’s daughter, Anna-Grace. Her wedding was tonight, which was the point of our whole trip to Colorado this time of year, so I scored big-time on being able to see so many friends on one trip, and I’m not done yet.

While all the women at the shower were doing those foo-foo girly things with Paula, her husband, Paul, took all the guys down to their firepit. They sat out in the dark and ate sausages and beans and talked about hunting and fishing. This cowboy life in the mountains serves Paul well. They have a huge log cabin home with a gorgeous view of Pike’s Peak at every turn, and as much as I want them to move back to the Northwest, it’s easy to see why they love it here. They have 35 acres full of pine and aspen trees, and it’s breathtaking this time of year even if they weren’t at the 9,200 foot level, where I’ve been struggling with the lack of oxygen.

I’ve been worried about Kory’s heart not getting enough oxygen up this high, but he’s done fine so far. I’m the one that’s breathless after just a few steps. We have stayed the last few nights just down from the Meredith’s ranch, at a gorgeous retreat center they rented for all their out of town company. We haven’t been there much though as we’ve done our share of the boot scoot boogie since we got here. Yesterday we went to a farmer’s market, a rock and gem shop and then were down in Colorado Springs taking a tour of the Focus on the Family facility (at Kory’s insistence), shopping a little, and hiking around in the Garden of the God’s park (see photo of Kaleb reading the trail map at the park). We joined the wedding party for their rehearsal dinner at the Garden of the Gods Trading Post, so it was a great ending to another wonderful day, but today had to top them all.

We were up early and drove over to Cripple Creek, the sight of the first and largest gold mine in Colorado. The aspen trees were unbelievable (see photo!) I had to stop often to take pictures as I’ve never seen fall leaves that looked like lights were coming from inside them before – it was breathtaking. And we lucked out once we got to town. This weekend is only one of two weekends a year the gold mine there allows tours – and they were free! The mayor hopped on the bus and told us all about the history of the town as we drove through that first, then up the hillside to the mine where our minds were filled with more facts and figures than I could keep track of. They do these tours as a fund raiser for the local donkeys that roam the town and represent the part of their gold mining heritage. It was all rather fascinating and even Kaleb enjoyed it.

The town of Cripple Creek is fairly historic, so we strolled around there before heading up to another gold mine where Kaleb bought a little nugget of gold with some of the money he’s saved over the last year. He was very pleased with it. We rushed back to the lodge to take part in a “No Kid Left Inside” day the Nazarene church was hosting to get city kids out in the country. The Nazarene church owns a LOT of property up the mountains by the Merediths and they opened their camp up to the public today for free – so Kaleb got to go on a massive zip line, we all did some miniature golf and went out on kayaks on their lake. It was a beautiful day and so fun to play together a little. We had to cut it short in order to make it to the wedding though, as that was one occasion NOT to be missed!

Little Miss Anna-Grace got engaged only ten weeks ago and I told Paula tonight if she had a year to plan this wedding and reception, she couldn’t have done it any better. It was a feast for the eyes, soul and stomach. They had 150 people in their front yard overlooking one mountain range after another, then the same folks enjoyed a formal sit-down dinner on their deck. It was all top-notch, gorgeously coordinated autumn colored flowers, aspen leaves and white bark tying all the table decorations together. The “thank you” gift from the bride and groom was a caramel apple and the stick was printed with their names, dates and the thank you for attending. Too cute.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a better day.

Happy Birthday To Me!

At a certain age, just celebrating the decades seems to be adequate enough. I’m in one of those “mid” years now, so doing anything special to draw attention to that fact - isn’t high on my priority list.


Ever since I was 18, I’ve always tried to go somewhere on my birthday that I’ve never been before. I love new places. I’ve managed to do that fairly regularly over the years, even if I don’t hit it right on the exact birth date, and this is one of those years. We are flying to Colorado on Tuesday, not so much to celebrate my birthday, but while we are there, we’ll be driving down to New Mexico and going to the UFO museum in Roswell, and THAT is a place I’ve never been. So I’m trying to avoid any other celebratory events that highlight the extra candle on the imaginatory cake, and focusing on the fact I’m soon doing something I love to do by going to a new place. Of course, that’s not a place I would pick as a birthday “gift,” but as any mother knows, when our kids are happy, we are happy. Kaleb is intrigued by the concept of UFOs and since we’ll be within a seven hours drive of that place, it’s doable.

We are heading to Colorado to attend the wedding of the daughter of  friends of ours, and also to visit other friends in the Denver area. Now really, THAT is the best way to spend time, in my opinion, whether it’s celebrating a birthday or not – just having a cup of coffee and catching up with old friends. I don’t think life gets any better. So on that note, I spent the bulk of today on the phone, calling some of my favorite people and just chatting. Kaleb was gone all day playing with a friend, Kory was working at church, and I had the house to myself, so I made sure it wasn’t too quiet by talking non-stop the entire day. I had to take a break a few times to charge up my cell phone, but otherwise, it was great.

Kory and Kaleb brought me breakfast in bed early this morning. Kaleb played “Happy Birthday” on the piano and they both made me gifts carved from wood. I loved it. (Kory made the "puzzle" in the photo - the object is to get both hearts on the same side... ha ha.)  We went out to dinner last night to celebrate and I went to a hysterical play in Seattle a few nights ago with another friend, as her way of acknowledging one more year of my life on earth. It’s been a pretty good week, considering….

It’s been nearly six years since we found out that Kory had some clogged arteries near his heart. In all that time we’ve prayed for wisdom, healing and direction. God clearly said NOT to do anything surgical and Kory’s been doing naturopathic things all this time. We’ve had an outstanding “fleece” with God – a certain open ended prayer that if He ever did want Kory to have any surgical intervention, that Kory would get angina pain in his arm when he is just sitting down – not when he is exercising (he is able to bring on that pain with exertion.) Well, Kory hasn’t done much exercising at all the last two years, so his stamina level has been dropping significantly. My pleading with him to get out of the recliner and go for a walk has fallen on deaf ears. But this week, he informed me that as he was sitting in the recliner watching a very scary movie, his heart rate got up so high that he actually got angina in his arm. So, we are now wondering what that really means. On the one hand, it’s definitely the answer to our outstanding request, but on the other hand, it’s perplexing. So, we are now asking for some kind of confirmation that surgery is really the way to go. I’ve lost a few night’s sleep over this new bit of news, but I do know I can’t borrow any worries about tomorrow because today is all we have, and things are pretty good today. But God has definitely gotten our attention.

All this came about on the same day that Kory found out the other health issue he’s been dealing with isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been – Hallelujah! He had a bladder infection and the urologist thought it was from scar tissue that was formed from his early years of racing motor cycles and injuries sustained to certain parts of his anatomy. If the infections (he’s had many over the years) were caused from that – surgery was the only solution, and not pleasant on any level. But we found out this week, the “dinner and a healing” we had a few weeks ago when we invited friends over to pray for Kory, produced some good results. No scar tissue was found. Thank you, Jesus! But what the tests did reveal was that Kory was born with a little annex to his bladder which is what could be contributing to these infections. Of course, surgery is optional, as it’s not a serious condition, but if he did want surgery on it, the doctor said he’d need to get his heart condition in order first. Strange timing.

It’s been an emotional roller coaster this week, to say the least. On the upside though, Kaleb has done very well own schooling himself. He’s made a lot of money and caused us very little grief. He’s loving Honors Chemistry and even caught a mistake Johns Hopkins made on the first test he took on the structure of the atom. His professor was impressed, as she hadn’t even caught that one. Nothing escapes that boy. I also started teaching this week and I realized I need more prep time than I allowed so I might not have as much time to sit and write a book as I thought, but I’ve come up with the title for my autobiography which is yet to be written. All week I’ve been referring to the time I had with God out on the lake at family camp, and my mantra has been, “My oars are in the boat,” meaning, I’m not the one in control here. A friend suggested it would make a great book title, so I think I’ll use that, as surely, I’m not the one steering this ship.

Own Schooling

Another week has come and gone, but at least this one had some significance to it – school started! (See photo of Kaleb's first day.)  I’m not sure yet if that is a good thing or bad. I do like that Kaleb learns stuff, but I hate that he resists the process so much. Homeschooling took its toll on both Kory and I last year, so we were ready to throw in the towel. Kaleb proposed that he “own school” himself to take the pressure off of us telling him what to do all the time. So far, it’s gone pretty well, but it’s only been four days and it wasn’t a normal week.

When I asked Kaleb what “own schooling” would look like, he wrote up a schedule of classes, complete with start and stop times. I thought he would just want to goof off for school, but he got my attention when his class load included piano, honors chemistry, algebra, PE, Bible, writing and speech. I couldn’t have scheduled it better myself, so I entertained the notion. I also made him sign a contract with some guidelines as to how it would work (no electronics or “free reading” during school hours, etc.), and then I told him I’d pay him ten dollars a day if he could pull it off. I figured if he’s ready to be responsible for himself at age 11, it’s worth dolling out some cash.

We don’t pay Kaleb for doing chores, but I told him if he can start school on time, do his best, do all his subjects for that day and put in a full days work, it’s just like having a job and he should be rewarded for that. Of course, he gets his pay docked if he starts late, has a bad attitude or cuts a class, so I have a lot of one dollar bills sitting around each day that find another home if he hasn’t earned them. In four days he’s already made thirty five dollars, so that’s not too shabby. He’s not complaining either, and both Kory and I are whistling Dixie since we just sit around waiting for Kaleb to tell US what do to, rather than the other way around. If he needs a ride somewhere, it’s his job to round us up to take him there. If he needs help with a project, he’s responsible for recognizing that.

Next week we’ll be kicking things up a notch because he starts his on-line science and math classes with Johns Hopkins University and they are real time consumers. This past week he filled those hours with a lot of art and woodworking projects, so it was good for him to ease into his school schedule when most of his work was just plain fun. But he did update his website and started working on another edition of The Weekly Puppy, so that was productive. I didn’t help him as much, like I have in the past, so he wasn’t too happy about having to write out his articles long hand, rather than dictate them to me, but I told him now is the time to do more work himself. I hope this momentum keeps up because I could really see this paying off in the long run as he’s learning all kinds of valuable skills in the process – not just what he learns academically. He’s having to plan things out, negotiate things and be nice! I like it. I love it. I want some more of it!

This week I’ve been experiencing the calm before the storm as well, because next week my schedule gets kicked up a notch too, as I start to teach debate for a group of homeschoolers, as well as lead Destination Imagination (a creative after school program designed for gifted kids), facilitate two home fellowship groups as well as two weekly prayer meetings. I’m also keeping the three-times-a-week work out session with a neighbor, so the feeling of the treadmill won’t just be on my exercise days – it will feel like it’s running from Sunday to Saturday each week as my calendar is packed full of weekly commitments. Unfortunately, it’s the American way. But somewhere in the midst of my days off from helping Kaleb (Kory and I still alternate days), I’m going to be writing. Cleaning closets has moved down on my priority list, as the need to complete my “blog book” takes front and center stage.

I had coffee with an elderly local woman this week who claims to be the biggest fan of my feature column on Norway. She is of Norwegian descent and insanely loves my weekly articles and wanted to ask me all kinds of questions about my life and living in Norway. She is the sweetest thing. It was weird to experience a little hero worship like that and I got the feeling she’d take me home with her if I let her. She showed me her photo album of the trip she took to Norway in 2004 to visit her second cousins, and in the back of the book she’d taped in all my columns. She saves every one to copy them and send them to friends and family. Too sweet. She can’t wait for the book to come out. I promised her the first copy, so now I just need to get it done!

We had a few out of the ordinary things happen this week that are worth a mention. Kory entered his Avanti in a classic car show just for Studebakers up in Bellingham, so he was pumped to meet fellow Avanti owners and to make some connections there. We are dog sitting this weekend and as much as I love that dog, I’m not thrilled with the muddy paw prints and dog hair everywhere. (I wish Kaleb charged enough that we could afford a house cleaner to come in afterwards and clean up the dog mess.) We are also hosting a woman here from England for a week – she trains dogs for the deaf, so she’s working with the people at Summit Assistance Dogs in Anacortes and we are loaning her our car, feeding her and giving her a place to stay. She’s quite the world traveler, even at age 30. She’s staying in America for three months traveling around doing some sightseeing but also working with other assistance dog agencies. We were hoping she’d help a little with the dog currently in our home, and some of his dastardly behaviors, but as we soon found out from her, the root of the problem is more with us, than with the dog. Oops.

Family Camp

I am writing this from Family Camp at Camp of the Cascades down in Yelm, Washington, a camp owned by the Covenant Church. It’s an incredibly beautiful hide-out from the real world as all that is visible in this little corner, is God’s creation. It would be hard not to experience Him from this place. This afternoon during the free time, I had a pretty good encounter with God that was worth the eight hours it took to get us here. (We experienced an incredible amount of traffic Friday, since we were heading into a long weekend, plus we stopped and picked up our “family” to bring with us.)


The “Powerline Kids” as I call them, have been in our lives for the past 17 years. They lived in our old neighborhood and I’d see them when I was walking the dog under the power lines. Eric was six at the time, Sara was nine. We’ve been very involved with their lives over the years and they now refer to us as their “god parents.” They each have kids of their own now, so we decided to treat them all to Family Camp and a weekend away from their otherwise pretty mundane lives. They are all on various forms of public assistance so they don’t get out much. This weekend is a pretty big deal for them.

So this afternoon, after spending over 24 hours with Kory and Kaleb, plus three adults (Eric’s wife is also here, but Evan, the third “kid,” couldn’t make it), a baby and three preschoolers, I decided I’d catch a little quiet time out on the lake while they were all busy doing other activities that make Family Camp a very fun place to be. Kory and Kaleb were busy making rocket cars, Eric and Sara took their kids on pony rides, and I finally, and unexpectedly, had some time to myself.

As I hopped in the boat and started rowing, I immediately noticed the oar lock was broken on one side so that the oar slipped out of its holder with nearly every stroke. My only goal for the day was to get to the other side of the lake, and to enjoy some peace and quiet, but the stupid oar situation was more than hindering that process.

I looked around at this pristine, undeveloped lake and all the mountains in the distance surrounding it and I felt guilty for having such a bad attitude. It felt like I was “in” a place where God truly resides, and I should be enjoying it, rather than grumbling about my situation. Recently I’d done a word study on the word “in” as in being “in Christ Jesus” and what that meant. When I looked up the original Greek word used in the Bible, I found it means “to be in the interior of some whole.” It’s often translated to English as “with” and it’s the same word used when the Bible says Mary was “with” child. That Greek word came to mind as I was out on the lake today, like I was “in” God and “with” God and He was all around.

I had started thinking about that concept just as my blood pressure began to rise over the broken oar problem, and I also thought about some of the “problems” I seem to have as well. I finally decided, since I was in the “interior of the whole”ness of God, I’d just let go of the oars and see where God would take me when I stopped rowing and trying to be in control myself.



My heart’s desire was to get to the other side of the lake, but the wind, up to that point, had been pushing me back to my starting point, so it had been a real struggle. Strangely enough, when I let go of the oars and just kicked back in the boat, closed my eyes and let it drift, the wind shifted and I started heading out across the lake. It was so peaceful, so beautiful, so relaxing. I enjoyed the slow speed and absolutely silence that came with it. I also realized I could hear things around me that I hadn’t noticed before because of all the noise I was making while rowing. It was a beautiful analogy to this scripture of being “in Christ Jesus” - just letting go and being in the middle of God. I was out there for hours, and at one point, when I lifted my head to look straight up into heaven - right above my boat was a heart shaped cloud. It was one of the coolest ways God has ever communicated His love to me, and all I could say was, “Wow.”

It’s been a rough week on many levels, but this was a good way to end it. I’ve been fasting and praying most of the week for people I love that are struggling in different ways and it’s not necessarily getting better for any of them yet. When we are in the storm, it’s good to let God be in control and if we allow enough quiet space in our crazy busy lives to let Him love on us, He doesn’t disappoint.