The Saga of Preparing for Vacation

Hello, friends! So, we're home now. Our week of fall vacation has ended, but it did not disappoint. Now, we get to enjoy reliving it along with you as we post about our week throughout the next few days. We hope you enjoy reading along! Now, step back a few days...

Anyone agree that it is hard work to get packed up and out of the house for big vacations? (maybe even small ones, too...)

We are familiar with the struggle. Thankfully, we are also familiar with great family vacations and know it is worth it, otherwise, the day of preparation this year may have gotten in the way of our plans.

It was 6:15 am on Friday morning, when we arose and met in the living room. This is a traditional time of meeting for devotions in our household, but this morning, it wasn’t just devotions we were discussing, but also the plans for the day and all that needed to be done.

With just over 20 hours till it was time to leave for vacation, we set out to tackle a very daunting list.

Between the seven of us, there were:

-          Chores to be done at Zehr Acres

-          An exam to be studied for and taken at Heartland

-          A meeting to be attended in Eureka

-          A flower arranging class to be attended

-          A funeral choir to direct and sing in

-          Knives to be packaged and dropped off for sharpening (while we are on vacation is a great time to deprive the house of all its kitchen knives, by the way)

-          Packages to be picked up

-          Work shifts to be completed at Fairview

-          A rental van to be picked up

-          School for the week to be checked off and graded

-          Everything to be packed up to be gone for the week

-          Garage to be cleaned

-          House to be cleaned

-          Animal chore instructions to be given

And then things like eating and sleeping of course, although I’m not sure those things were of too high of priority.

It was one crazy day! But as we have discovered with other vacations and big events: It’s worth it.

Because now we are here: settled in to our quaint cabin in the mountains and pleasantly forgetting all of the stress it took to get here. That was just one day of compacted craziness to compare to the whole week we get to soak in the mountain air. It’s kinda like eternity for believers: It may feel like a lot of work and sometimes not worth it. But, I’m pretty sure that once we are on the other side of things, the small amount of stress and sweat from life will all be forgotten.

The only problem with my analogy, is that with heaven, you don’t ever have to come back…