Dancing Between the Raindrops

  I remember a fairy tale from long ago in which a non magical young man impressed a group of evil wizard types by claiming he could "dance between the raindrops."  The evil wizards couldn't handle water (I guess like the Wicked Witch of the West) and presumed the young man must really be able to avoid rain, when in fact he was just a normal human and was fine with rain falling on him.

  Ok, I realize that is rather random.  I just liked the title I came up with, and wanted to explain.  It seems more inspiring than "Going to Michigan".

 But yes, we went to Michigan this week.  And we were dancing between our own raindrops...specifically the raindrops of illness and bad weather.  We have been sick mostly non stop since mid December.  We've had a fair amount of bad weather and Western Michigan has had even more thanks to lake effect snow.  Kevin took a week of vacation and we organized and coordinated and prayed and managed to go to Michigan, though one day late to avoid bad weather.

  My brother, his wife, and their 1 year old son met us at my parents.  We've not previously met little A.  He is 13 months and incredibly cute.  He is an only child who spends most of his time at home with his parents or nanny (plus one sweet, elderly dog) so I wasn't sure how he would handle a horde of unknown cousins.  Answer...JUST fine. He did great.  He is a very cute little boy and we praise God for him.

  After my brother and family went home, Kevin, Rose, and I ran off to Holidome for a little time away.  Rose is still nursing, so leaving her with my parents wasn't a good option.  The older 8 did spend 2 nights and a day with the grandparents.  We had a nice time away, though Rose was a bit of a challenge as she didn't find sleeping in a weird hotel room to be an easy experience.  But it was good. The older kids loved their time with the grandparents, including a trip to Pizza Hut one evening, and a trip to the Air Zoo (a sort of indoor amusement park thing with rides) the full day we were away.

  We woke up on Wednesday to discover a nasty weather system was bearing down, once again, on southwestern Michigan. So we checked out of the hotel hastily, collected our kids, and barreled on home. It was a fairly miserable trip as the winds kept getting stronger, and strong winds are not fun when driving a 15 passenger van. Kevin did the driving, I did lots of praying.  The children mostly did VERY well except for the last 30 minutes, when both Sarah and Rose started falling apart.  We had one detour due to an accident, plus 30 minutes midway through the trip where we were in a major traffic jam due to another accident.  It was tedious, but I kept reminding myself that dealing with a traffic jam was far better than being in an accident. It was bitterly cold and even a minor accident could have been really scary in that we'd have chilled quickly and obviously have small children.

So...good trip, glad to be home, we're thankful for the opportunity to spend time with family.