6 Nights Home in 20 Days

My family and I have been doing a whirlwind of traveling.  Unfortunately having several 10 hour trips in the car.  We have done 4 10+ hour trips since Memorial Day and my son, the dog and I have one more to go.  I think my husband and cat are relieved to hold the fort down (oh and the fish too!)

My son is a pretty good trooper, but I think he's getting hooked on Amazon Prime video.  My husband and I tried to keep him away from videos and devices at least until he was two and now it's pretty much free reign during a long road trip- for everyone's sanity.

So, as you can tell, I've gotten behind on a lot of stuff, my blog for one and pretty much everything else.  I am glad that I had the foresight to wash our sheets right before we left so at least I've got a clean fresh bed to come home to after an 8 hour drive turned 12 hour.  Unfortunately a fatal crash down the line from us shut down the interstate and ended up adding 4 hours to our trip, which is rather hard to explain to a five year old that the "fast lane" became a parking lot.

We tried to keep our patience and model to him that our loss of 4 hours of our time was nothing compared to the loss that someone now had to deal with in their family.  "We may be later getting home, but someone is finding out that their family member is going home to Jesus and not coming back, so we can remember to be grateful even in our impatience."

Sometimes it's hard to know what part of these little messages we share with him get processed, but we believe they are seeds we are planting.  Seeds of compassion, seeds of patience and gratefulness.  Oftentimes, these seeds and plants need to be nurtured in our own hearts.  Perspective.  It's something that we need to work on at every stage in our life.

So as we go through this whirlwind of travel, and all the hardships, annoyances and work that ensues, we will remember to be grateful for this time with family and friends and the memories.