a quick look at our vacation...
day 1: we arrived a little after lunch, rested and headed to our water park. it is a huge park... there is an indoor and outdoor theme park and and indoor and outdoor water park. we went around the whole place trying random rides and slides. then we went to dinner and to bed.
day 2: we went to downtown wisconsin dells where we walked around. at one point we saw a police chasing a man. the man was being chased in his car and then stopped his car and started running... i mean like booking it down the street to the building right in front of us with cops right behind him. i wonder if there weren't so many people on the main drag if there would have been gunshots... also on our walk we found $10 on the ground. a special blessing. :) we came back to our hotel for a quick lunch and headed to the water parks again. now if you know me a little, then you would know that i'm seriously scared of roller coasters... so big water slides do about the same thing to me... but what do you do when you have a 6 year old... have to play tough for her sake so she could try the fun stuff right?? so we went on a really scary drop water slide... i had a blast. i wanted to go on it again, but A was scared. :) it was so much fun!! we went on a lot of other water slides and i think because i know that in the end i'll get wet, it makes it better than a roller coaster that just scares you the whole way. :) so we had a ton of fun!!
day 3 (today): we slept in and went to the water park as it opened. we went on rides, water slides, went into the wave pool, ate lunch, hopped on the lazy river, wave pool, water slides... we spent like 6 hours at the parks... then we came back to the hotel, took a shower and headed out to dinner. the disney channel was having a movie at 8 that A wanted to watch so we came to watch that and now she's in bed and i'm packing up to leave.
i enjoy vacations and i feel like we haven't had one like this in a long time, but i realized some things on this trip...
- A and i love each other like crazy, we have so much fun together and she is a joy to be around. she would say something crazy and i would start laughing and she would be so proud of herself. or i would tell her something and she would give me this look that makes me laugh and we just bust out laughing. she would tell me that i'm miss scaredy pants and i'd dare her to do it and there she goes... usually after asking for something... like an ice cream afterward. :) i would do it too, but that was a way to get her to do the scary stuff. :)
- i carry around this fear that i am going to ruin A's life... but i realized that i am a good mom. not just because we came on this trip, but seeing what a wonderful daughter i have and seeing how she is growing encourages me... i must be doing something right, but on top of that, i got several e-mails, texts and phone calls from people who told me that i am doing a good job with her. makes me a little confident.
- we miss P.
- A's roots run deep in indonesia. the whole trip, she kept comparing it to our vacations in indonesia. i know it's because that's where most of our vacations have been, but she would talk about the beach we used to go to or the water park in indonesia. A loves that place. she started this bucket after watching the movie "up". the bucket is to save up for a trip to indonesia. she wants to go and visit, so started up a fund for it. when the bucket is full, hopefully we will have enough to go see her roots.
- i have a lot of work to do when i get home. :)
this was a fantastic vacation. i praise God for helping me give myself permission to come on this trip. it was a struggle for me to allow myself to do this, but God used a few people to talk me into it. i'm glad He did. A and i are making tons of memories!!! i love it!! thank you God for your goodness during these four years... four years ago on this date, i took heavy, stomach churning steps to our house with eyes full of tears... first time after P's death... to start packing what we needed to bring back to the states and separating what i wanted others to bring later on and what could be thrown away... after a blow to the stomach it seemed impossible to know what to do, but we got it done... tomorrow's date is when we flew back to the states... i know it's been four years, but that week alone felt like four years...
it's crazy how i started talking about this great vacation we are having and then... just like that, i go back to these real vivid days of horror, shock, numbness, fear, sadness, grief, unbelief... not many i guess at the age of 27, loses their husband, their home, life, work, future all in a matter of days. one day you are celebrating the return of your husband who has been gone for a month on what happens to be father's day the next you are preparing a funeral for one in country and one in the states. phone call after phone call to arrange something from so far away... decisions you have to make... it seems so crazy. i still so much appreciate AB (from indo side) and RB (from state side) for walking me through those days. i mean for what they were going through as well... they really made it easy for me to do what i had to do. i am amazed at all that so many people had to do to make it possible for us to leave the country with P's body in a matter of four days after his death and to receive us on the other end. so crazy... but here we are four years later... A graduated from kindergarten with two front teeth missing, reading bible stories on her own for her quiet time... me finished with my first year of grad school, have all my teeth and pressing hard into God's word to obey what He has for us. we've come a long way!! thank you Jesus!!!
thanks for continually praying for us and loving on us!!
cheesehead!!
this is A's favorite ride.
on the go karts. it was so much fun!!
