Blue skies

April is a month of birthdays around here. The Mr. had his birthday this past week. It was a very busy day and evening - Wednesday's usually are pretty crazy around here. But we were able to have some time in the evening for cake and presents with my in-laws at our house.

 This past weekend the Mr. and I were able to get away to the coast for a short time. It's the first time we have left the kids home alone overnight without a sitter, or 'chaperone'. Now that The Boy is 17 we figured he and his 15 year old sister could handle things for that short time. We did ship the two youngest off to my sister's house, so that I could relax and not worry,
and so that the older kids wouldn't have to be responsible for a 5 yr old,
and so that there would be less possibility of them fighting while we were gone.
It all worked out great. I don't know why we haven't done more of this earlier!

The coast was just gorgeous. Cool of course, it IS Oregon after all, but the sun was out and the wind blew away any fog that might have tried to come in. One of the Sunday school classes at our church asked the Mr. and I to come and speak at their annual retreat. So we had the honor of sharing on Saturday morning about the mountain top adventure from last September. It was emotional, but yet so good to talk about it, first on the drive out between the two of us, and then the next morning with the large group, asking questions. It is getting a little easier to give the narrative of what happened up on the mountain, but getting through the emotional parts, and the 'where-do-we-go-from-here' parts are still a process we are churning through. So talking to others really helps. The friends this weekend said that they were blessed bu us sharing, but really, I think we were the ones blessed by them.

We also go to spend a few minutes walking on the sand. It was windy and cold, so we didn't stay out too long. But before that we visited with our friends from college days who live in that town. People used to mistake my friend M for my sister long ago; we lived together for a couple of years, and she was a mentor to me in so many ways. She was actually on my first (real) date with the Mr way back in 1996 too, which sounds odd, but if you knew the two (or three) of us back then, you can see how that works. So it was so good to see her and her husband and just sit and talk and laugh for hours with them.