safe landing

In celebration of our afore mentioned anniversary, and as a reward for putting up with (I mean, so graciously and lovingly enduring) David's last 2 years of school, he blessed me with a wonderful trip to Hawaii. We opted to visit the more laid back island, Kauai. Can I just say that I think it should be required by law for every married couple to visit Kauai every year? We had so much fun!


Thanks to the five hour time difference, we were up every morning before seven (we are not at all morning people.) My favorite morning by far was when we woke up at 5:30 and walked down to the beach to watch the sunrise. My first sun rise ever and it will definitely be hard to top. We spent the next week taking amazing hikes - our favorite being to a beautiful, secluded (except for all the other people who apparently had the same guide book) beach. We found what we thought was the perfect beach - Hanalei Bay. (Until we found an even better one on our last day.) We stumbled upon a random sidewalk restaurant and were hooked - we ate there at least once a day from the time we found it. And right next door was our favorite breakfast spot - a very tasty vegan juice/smoothie bar and bakery. We had a very relaxing massage and I even talked David into taking a Bikram (hot) yoga class with me. (Never in our lives have we sweat so much - 90 minutes of yoga in a 90 degree room - and we were pleasantly surprised by the lack of "new-ageness" of it all.)



And to top it all off, we had absolutely no worries about our girls. A very generous friend kept them all week and refused payment. They came home with stories of water gun fights, going to Braum's in their pajamas, fun circle time (where they learned a new song I think I've probably heard about 50 times today already!), lots of outside playtime, and Abigail's favorite: band time. My friend's husband is a gifted guitar player and singer, and they all had music time together where he led with the guitar and all the kids picked an instrument with which to play along. It has been reported that Anna has a gift of drum playing - I would never have guessed that! And Abigail has no rhythm at all, except her own (no surprises there folks, she is after all David's daughter!)



After 6 full days away, we were more than ready to come home to our girls. Tuesday was our last day in Kauai and our flight didn't take off until 9:00 p.m. We took our favorite hike one last time, discovered what would have been our favorite beach (as we left, we heard people saying that they had just seen turtles, an eel, and many other amazing fish), showered and headed to the airport. We slept pretty much the entire, uneventful flight to L.A. From there we caught our final flight to DFW. Let me just tell you that the Lord has some work to do in me. When we go hiking (in Colorado and such) I am terrified the entire time of bears and mountain lions. When we go snorkeling, I am constantly keeping an eye out for sharks. When we are out in the back yard and anything buzzes in my ear, I am outta there for fear of wasps or bees. I am ashamed to say I have quite a spirit of fear.



It is probably not surprising then that I have never been a very good flyer. I've almost cut David's circulation off more than once as we land and take off. This time was different. I had plenty of good books to preoccupy myself with and was sleepy enough to not really waste any energy being afraid of what I knew was statistically unlikely.



As we were just about to land, early if you can believe that, the pilot all of a sudden starts heading back up again. As he circles around for what feels like the zillionth time, he comes on the overhead and says, "Folks, we're having some flap trouble. Don't worry, we do have flaps to land with and our landing should be normal. The only difference will be that there will be some emergency vehicles waiting for us when we land." Say what? Flap trouble? Should be normal? Emergency vehicles? Not exactly music to my ears.



I immediately began to go into panic mode and my mind was racing with several worst case scenarios. (I have no idea where my girls learned to be so dramatic!) I sensed an uneasiness in David as well, which didn't help my own fear. He pulled out his Bible and started to read. Then all of a sudden I remembered I was a Christian too! I stopped worrying and started praying. I don't really remember specifically what I prayed, but God was good and we had a rather bumpy, but safe, landing. (Emergency vehicles and all!)



While it was certainly an awkward ending to an otherwise perfect trip, it served to David and I as a good reminder of how temporary this life is and what a gift we have in each and every day. I feel like the Lord has been trying for some time to teach me to relax and enjoy all the "little" moments of life. While I am still certainly a work in progress (in so many more ways than just this!), I feel like I'm sort of starting to get it! I've been so blessed by the seemingly mundane and small moments lately - may you enjoy yours as well!