I Want Off!!!

I told Scott tonight that I feel like I'm on a roller coaster and I want to get off.  Granted, many of the twists and turns have been our own doing - fully willing to accept full responsibility for that.  But I am now tired and I want to sleep.

Just a recap:  We are moving.  We are not moving.  (That was how the summer started.)  We are listing our house regardless.

We went to Haiti.  I realize I haven't blogged about the trip yet, and I will, just not tonight.  Jake and Mags both got sick (vomiting and other unmentionables); it was quite an experience.  We made it back to Minnesota.  Aaahhhh.  Found a key in our front door lock.  Weird.  It was from the realtor lock box on the front door, only, no one showed the house while we were gone.  Still trying to get to the bottom of it; nothing missing as far as we can tell.  Our neighbors tell us our garage door was open one morning, too.  Also weird.

Back for one day; took my nephew, his friend and the kids in the boat for the day.  Super fun.  Jake wakeboarded - was jumping the wake, then rode the tube with the big boys.  About 3, he started complaining of a tummy ache.  Scott and I have both been feeling a little blech, too.  Aftermath of Haitian food and whatnot.  Ibuprophin seemed to help.  But by 9 p.m., I took him to the ER.  By midnight, he was in surgery for an emergency appendectomy.  Yikes.  Thankfully, Mom and Dad kindly took Mags in for the night and the entire following day.  (HUGE BLESSING.) Scott was working, which was also a blessing for me.  There are some perks - like helping oneself to as many heated blankets out of the blanket warmer as one wishes, and getting to charge cafeteria food to Scott's account.  Another HUGE BLESSING was the fact that we were no longer in Haiti.  That would have been a complete nightmare.  The closest CT scanner was in Port-au-Prince, six hours away.  We would have had to medi-vac him to Florida for surgery, once we figured out what was wrong, and by then, the appendix could have ruptured.  So thankful for God's timing.

We are now home, I sorta cleaned up my house and the patient is snoring away in my bed.  He has been a trooper.  Had lots of visitors and got some good loot; and has some really good adventures to tell about for his "What I did for summer vacation" story when he gets back to school.

One cute story...the surgeon asked him if he was worried about anything before the surgery, and he said, "Well, I really don't want to lose an organ."  :)  Made me giggle.

and we're off...

...like a dirty shirt.

Haiti

Last year, Jake came home from school and said, "Mom, we need to go to Children of the Promise and help there.  It's in Haiti."

Children of the Promise is an orphanage; their stateside director had been at the kids' school and talked about what it was like there and the school organized a diaper drive.  Jake was really inspired to do more, so we had a garage sale and sent the money to the orphanage.  But that wasn't enough, so we started planning.

We originally had hoped to go during Christmas break last year, but Scott couldn't get enough time off work, so it got pushed to summer.  When we were telling some friends about it, they said, "We want to come, too."  So, they are.  They have two kids - a boy in Jake's class and a girl a few years younger than Maggie.  Jon is an ENT, so he and Scott are taking antibiotics, etc. and will do whatever needs doing.  The rest of us will help out where we are needed.  I am excited and terrified all at the same time.

I think the terror comes from bringing my children along.  I do not relish the thought of being in the city with them when we fly in - I am not worried about things at the orphanage.

I have a couple of prayer requests, if you have a moment.  We are all less than healthy right now and we leave on Friday.  I have been sick for a week - sore throat, fluid in my ears, sinus pressure, and now a bad head cold and cough.  It will not go away.  Please pray the kids don't get this; although both of them are complaining about not feeling well already.  I think Scott is also in the middle of it.  Blech.  And just pray that we would be useful to the people there - we don't want to be a burden.

I feel very unprepared to go right now; we ended up listing our house and had a showing yesterday. I will explain all of that later - we are still not moving to AZ. We also had company all weekend and have a realtor open house on Tuesday, so pray that I would get it together and not forget anything vital (like our passports...)

If people were food...

...then we'd be waffles.

So, we're not moving to Arizona.  After a whirlwind week of accepting a position in AZ; resigning from a position in MN; putting the house on the market; burning the midnight oil to get the house ready to show (and having one showing before it was even officially on the market!!); booking flights to AZ to look for housing in July; un-enrolling the kids in school; giving away our snow blower; and taking several LARGE loads of stuff to Goodwill; we have decided to stay put (at least in Willmar - jury's still out on whether we'll list our house and do something different in that area).

Many factors played into our decision, which I don't need to get into, but suffice it to say that we are at total peace with this.  (I have teased Scott that this was all a ploy to get a new snow blower...) All through this process, we prayed for wisdom and peace; and once the decision was made to stay, we knew that it was the right choice for us.

During one midnight talk on the porch, Scott jokingly talked about "putting out a fleece" (Gideon in the Bible - look it up if you've never read it) and asked our cat Max to leave a chipmunk on the front step if we were supposed to go to AZ; and a mouse if we were supposed to stay in MN.  The next morning, Max had left something for us - it was a stomach.  I know, totally gross.  But it made me laugh.  (And I'm pretty sure it was from a bird, judging from all the feathers about.)

Thankfully, even though he resigned, Scott got his job back.  And my house has never looked better.