The Scheer Flyer

Well we arrived back in Spokane yesterday evening and are just trying to get settled in again. We had an extremely busy time in Bellevue, but it was a good time of meeting many new people and reconnecting with friends.

On the way there we actually had trouble with a snowstorm and the mountain pass closed on us right before making it over. We turned around and went to check out hotels in CleElum but they had already filled up, so we headed to Ellensburg. There were only two hotels left that still had rooms and I ended up being on hold with one of them for 15 minutes. By this time I was getting pretty frustrated and the kids were starting to meltdown. On top of that, we had the poor cat and he hadn't gone to the bathroom in quite a while. By the time we found the hotel, we could see that people were overflowing the waiting area! What were we going to do? We could go to Yakima to stay with my great aunt, but that was 40 miles away. The next morning we were supposed to speak in a church in Redmond and we had no clue if the pass would even re-open that night. Just as we were about to head to Yakima, the pass opened up! It actually was a huge blessing that we were on hold so long with the hotel, because if we would have booked a room, the pass would have opened up shortly after. Overall the trip took us almost 9 hours (should have taken less than 5) and we were exhausted by the time we arrived in Bellevue, but at least we had space to spread out and didn't have to worry about missing our speaking engagement.

The next day as we were driving to the church, we realized that we had forgotten the most important thing...our thumb drive that had our presentation! Not only that, but we forgot BOTH of our phones so we couldn't call my parents to meet us halfway. Usually we aren't that flighty but we were extremely tired. I dropped Matt off and unloaded our stuff and raced back home. I got back to the church about 30 seconds before he called us up to do the interview in front of the church. WHEW! The presentation ended up going well and we were able to meet several friendly people. We spoke at another church the next Sunday and after showing our video people actually started clapping! It was encouraging to see people get so excited about what God is doing through MAF.

As usual, staying with my parents was awesome and they enjoyed babysitting (they did a lot of it!), which eased the stress of running from place to place. Unfortunately, one of the things I feared most about leaving Spokane again was disrupting Callie's schedule after she finally had started sleeping through the night. Sure enough, she started waking up again. We were up with her every night, sometimes for hours. Since she was sleeping in the walk-in closet off of our room, there wasn't much we could do about it. For me, that is probably the toughest part of this whole process. As a woman I just want to be settled and have a routine!

Overall, though, it was a good trip and I loved the times that we had with friends and family.