Wow.
My imagination completely failed me in what I thought prep for this trip would be like. It was absolutely insane. It was ridiculous. I can't believe we ACTUALLY hit the road today at 7:30pm! Only 48 hours behind schedule, but, let me tell you, it's amazing that it even happened.
That's right! We are taking a road trip and heading to the wild state of Alaska for the summer! For all of you doggie lovers that are here just for puppy updates, I'm sorry but we are commandeering this blog for the duration of this trip to keep our friends and family posted on our travels. We came close to taking Lucy along with us but in the end it felt like too much since all of the National Parks do not allow dogs on the trails. It really would have become too much for her and us to leave her in the camper all day... possibly in very warm weather. And with having to break up our days with frequent trips back to the campsite to let her out. I really wanted to have her with us but we decided it was for the best to leave her with friends. She followed me everywhere and hopped into the van anytime we got ready to head anywhere. She was determined not to be left behind this trip! Poor girl will hopefully have a good summer with a family of 4 boys and 3 Labrador friends.
Driving to Alaska is a lot. Driving to Alaska with 7 kids is a little nuts. Driving to Alaska with 7 kids and prepping for your absence from a farm for 6 weeks is a little crazy. Driving to Alaska with 7 kids and prepping for your absence from a farm for 6 weeks AND dealing with major setbacks is InSaNiTy.
One kid broke his finger a few weeks before the trip (sigh, it's always Malachi...). 4 trips to the orthopedic later... delay departure a day to give the hand it's needed cast time, into a
removable splint until Friday...
Another kid began to have strange muscle and joint pain a week before trip. Weird rash appears, a few trips to a few different doctors - Lyme disease! Antibiotics for 21 days and off we go. All the while mom is a little bit paranoid about anyone complaining about being tired or of sore joints for the next week...
Same week ANOTHER kid has completely different strange symptoms, a few more doctors later and a freak, very bad infection, becomes systemic... more antibiotics! At one point, I was literally in the same patient room with all three kids. Running to appointments, collecting supplies, preparing the farm to be left in another's hands... I felt like I was losing my mind.
AND THEN (yes, it goes on) Tim, in his zeal to finish a 2 acre perimeter fence (3 year project) so our animals will have a safe space to live for the summer, rolls the 4 wheeler down hill and pins his leg between a tree and the ATV. Thankfully, no broken bones, but it puts him in crutches and enough pain to keep him immobile. That setback prevents him from building the barn he intended as protection for the animals from the roaming bear we caught on the deer camera.
This dilemma causes me to make a rash decision to drive 3 hours one way to pick up a Bernese Mountain Dog to live with our goats, hoping to deter the predators. We call her Rosie and she seems sweet enough, maybe a little more skittish than normal, but we feel like she'll calm down after a few days in her new place. More on Rosie later...
Tim and I really began to wonder if we should forgo the trip. With so many issues arising, my stress level was through the roof. Were we jeopardizing our kids health, our farm's well-being to make this happen? Was the Lord trying to tell us this was a bad idea? We had been planning this trip for YEARS. For those of you who don't know, we lived in Seldovia, Alaska for 8 years about 11 years ago before moving to NC (here's the blog on THAT very interesting trip https://wintersfamilyadventures.wordpress.com/thursday-july-19th-2012-leaving-seldovia-on-the-mv-tustamena/) Our 4 oldest children were born there. We were rooted deep with our church family and our years there were full of wonderful memories that we hoped to share with our kids. And we had planned to do it once our oldest, Abigail, graduated from high school, before she headed out into the wide world. The investment we had already made for this trip was significant.
And asking our church body to pray for us seemed silly for a family trip. But then it dawned on me that all that stuff minus the trip was still a lot to handle! We were getting slammed! I'm thankful I reached out. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit soothed my stressed out soul. I slept. Well, slept some lol. It was still hard but we continued to press on with words of encouragement. Our Alaskan pastor said, "We will pray for God's covering on your trip. Things may not be perfect, but it is in those times we see the goodness of God." And from our NC pastor's wife "1 Peter 5:10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you."
And you know.
We finished the fence! A huge deal after several years of work cutting through forest, hauling hundreds of pounds of spools of fence and t-posts up steep hillsides, and hooks hundreds of fence
clips.
We caught the Lyme now instead of on the trip.
The hand only held us up one day - and the delay helped us sell our other camper on the day we intended to leave which helps enormously.
The infection was only an infection and not some deeper issue we feared would cancel the trip.
Rosie... I'm still waiting on that one. She held us up ANOTHER day. lol
But the Lord IS good.
It's getting late - after midnight somewhere in TN. We'll find a place to park and sleep for the night outside of Nashville :) More tomorrow!
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