Day three of being snowed in and the sun was out. It was such a beautiful morning we decided to go on a family walk to the store. There we no sidewalks cleared but we took the back roads and there was very little traffic. One car did stop and offer us a ride. On the walk back more people were out doing what we were doing. Walking out on the snowy sunshiny day.
I probably should have posted an update yesterday. Our plan was for Chad to take me to the airport in the morning and get back home (one hour’s drive) before the snow started to fall. I was aware that my flight would most likely get cancelled or at least delayed, but we had called the airlines Thursday morning and they had told me that if I wasn’t there at the airport I would not get refunded for my flight if it was cancelled and the reschedule timed they were offering me were ridiculously late in the week (like there was no point in going for so few days). There was no way I would make it on Saturday, besides that, I just didn’t want my family on the roads. We got up early and took a shower. Then we recieved this text from our Virginia Sunday school teacher’s wife. “I must say this..the airport in Richmond will be closed. You would be sleeping on a chair for a day or two at least. Our area has not seen anything like this. Not just snow. Wind. Blizzard. I feel led to say, I wouldn’t risk it. Snow is going to start soon. I totally understand about wanting to be there so u can possibly go, but I feel led right now to urge you and your family to not go. Praying right now for the Lord to give you peace about a decision..whichever it may be…as He leads. ” I have to be honest and say I don’t take the advise of the wise adults in my life nearly as often as I should, but we did listen to this one.
We called the airlines again and they were more willing to work with us this time. The very earliest they could get me to Honduras is Tuesday afternoon. The week would be half over by then and it was way too early to call the West coast to talk with Roger our team leader to see if it would still be worth me coming. In the mean time I talked to Mary Beth who would be filling my shoes in Honduras as she is an early riser and was already up at 0500. She had already text me to ask what questions I normally ask and so I called her as it was easier than texting it all. When my alarm went off to call Roger he wasn’t suprise by my news as he had been watching the forcast as well. He was glad to hear that I had already talked to Mary Beth. He said that one of the interpreters that we would be working with was a med student so they would pair those two up. We decided that if they can get me in on Tuesday I would go and if the flight get’s pushed back any more due to weather it would no longer be worth my while to go.
At that point I felt all dressed up with no where to go. My bag was all packed. I had showered and was all dressed and ready. So I started cleaning the house. It was a little weird to be at “home” (our apartment) as I had not yet spent s whole day at our apartment. I was always either at work or gathering everything to leave for our next adventure. Needless to say our space was in much need of some focused cleaning. Around 10:30am the snow started.
The kids were just a little excited. The snow is the small dry powdery flakes that you would not associate with quick accumulation, but when it snows 27-30 hours even dry powdery snow can account for some deep snow.
I took a much neede nap and we had pizza and snow cream for dinner.
Snow cream is ice cream made from snow mixed with sweetened condensed milk, vanilla and milk. It tastes a lot like vanilla ice cream and is a fun way to enjoy the snow. We watched a movie about a swamp man and then all went to bed. This morning we were eager to get up and see how much snow had fallen when we were sleeping. The Honduras mission group called me on their stop in Huston to ask how much snow we have. The cars are buried but it isn’t 3′ more like 15″.
We have cut the boys’ hair, makeup practice, kids yoga and kick boxing on YouTube, and the kids have made their own edible snow concoctions as well as face timing most of our family members.
It seems like now at 5:00ish pm the snow has stopped. The next two days are forcasted to get above freezing during the day. I am curious as to how much time it will stick around.
I have four shifts left in this assignment and only one stands between me and a mission trip to Honduras. Well that and a predicted snow storm. I have heard anywhere from 10″-33″ to fall before my departure time on Saturday. I know I can do this up coming shift, but I am curious as to how the whole snow storm bit will play out. It is all in Gods hands and I’m ok with that, he has the best laid plans anyway.
Other news is, we have been so looking forward to Chuck and Donna (Grandma and Grandpa Owens) visiting this weekend as well. As much as it pained us to do it, we called them and recommended they see if they can get the flight cancelled and refunded. We don’t want them to get stuck in Denver or DC where they are predicted to have not only deep snow but flooding to follow. Caleb has decided that he won’t celebrate his birthday this year(1/28), or at least until the 31st (when I’m supposed to be back home). He said, “I’ve never celebrated my birthday with out Grandma Owens…” Poor guy.
On a positive note, we are getting stocked up on snow cream ingredients and hot chocolate in preparation for the snow, and we don’t have to solve our “we have no furniture for guests to sit on” dilemma.
Despite snowy roads we have made it home from Indiana in time for me to go back to work. I love snow and would like to be somewhere with a short commute to work that has a fair amount of snow, but when we were looking at a nine hour drive I was praying it would hold off. Thank you for the prayers for traveling mercy. We stopped in Charlston West Virginia for the night, getting us to Charlottesville around 2:00pm.
There are hundreds of pictures from the funeral that I could look through for hours. I am posting a few of them that I have saved all though they are all worth posting. I would like to think we took advantage of all the time we were given to spend with Grandma, but it doesn’t mean I don’t wish we could have just a little bit more time. 
Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding photo, 50th anniversary photo, and 65th anniversary photo all taken in the same place. The last picture taken about a week and a half before grandma passed away. The funeral was held on their 65th anniversary.
I took a few photos of the yard at their house. I remember that the yard at my Grandma and Grandpa Sherman’s house has never ever been even close to how I remember it. So I wanted to capture it as it was so I could remember it better.
Going out for breakfast the morning of the funeral.
Lynn making spring rolls for the funeral.
Grandma and Grandpa liked to invite new people from church over for banana splits. We celebrated her life with banana splits.
Picking up the urn… Chillaxing with the family after an emotionally draining day.
A popcorn fight with Sam at the backyard fire pit. I love all my family, and would love to have them close all the time.
When I was in Cali for the funeral it was decided that the best course of action would be to head back to Southern California for our next assignment. This flying solo thing is a new and scary adventure for my grandpa as he and grandma had been dating since the 8th grade and had been attached at the hip that entire time. The next week I was offered a job at San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital in Banning CA and although it will be a bit of a commute it is close enough that we can stay with Grandpa and help him get his to do list done of all the things he wants to do to the house to have it ready to put on the market. I know it is not an exciting new place, but it is where we need to be and to be honest I can not wait to hug that sweet man again. How lucky am I to get to be his granddaughter.
This is now the 4th time over the last two years we have gotten together with my cousin Micheal and his family. Really the 4th time in my life that I remember. It was so weird because in my head I knew that we have barely known eachother but it really felt the same as hanging out with the family we have known our whole lives. This trip we just did life with them. The food pantry, family game night, rootbeer floats, singing to Cora who’s birthday was today, Sunday morning church service, and a potluck lunch. A little snow was thrown in the mix of all that so Eve is convinced that it must be Christmas. It couldn’t have been a more perfect way to spend this weekend. The problem is that Oregon is so far from Indiana, and with only a few weeks left in Virginia it will be the last time for a long time that we are all together. Thank goodness for FaceBook and text messaging, and next time we get together hopefully we can do some camping or hiking. Happy 14th Birthday Cora!!! Goodbye for now Micheal, Kristen, Cora, Olivia, Naomi, and Josiah we will be missing you guys for sure.
We just happened to be in Muncie on the right day to volunteer at the food pantry with my cousin and his family! We all had our separate jobs, Chad was at the front door, Hannah and Naomi were at the bread station with me and I didn’t get to see what everyone else was doing. It was a great way to spend the morning. We all had so much fun. I only have one picture because I didn’t know what I was allowed to get picture of and what I wasn’t. Here are the girls hard at work.
Our girl lost her second front tooth last night and is sporting a new look today. 
Yesterday before we left the Creation Museum Eve started talking to a young lady who worked there. She asked if she liked the Insectorium and she had. Eve informed her we were coming back tomorrow (now today) and asked if the young lady named Jessica was going to be back tomorrow. She said she was, she had to because she was supposed to bring donuts (I’m guessing maybe for all of the school groups that were going to be there). Eve exclaimed that she loved donuts and that her favorite kind were the powdered ones. After a while we encouraged her out the door as it was closing time. Well this morning we found Jessica again, she had brought donuts in for sure and a special package of powdered ones just for Eve. She told her she had a five year old daughter too and when she went to get the donuts her little one also had picked out a package of powdered donuts for herself. No wonder she and Eve hit it off so well. She has her own energetic little five year old at home. We went down stairs and sat in the booths at the pizza kitchen which is closed for the off season, ate donuts and looked over the speaker schedule for the day. Deciding on a plan to go through the main exhibit one more time then catch the guest speaker for the day before stopping at the bookstore and heading on to Indiana. Sorry if there are pictures that are the same. I took more pictures of posters this time through. 
The presentation by the guest speaker of the day was different than the one yesterday on global warming so we were bummed to have missed that talk but the speak today was very good and went into more detail about fossil records and dinousour bones with soft tissue found in them. He answered a lot of most asked questions and was available afterwards to answer more questions. We talked to him briefly about one of the books he had described in his presentation and then headed to the book store to get a few things before heading out. It was only two and a half hours drive from the museum to Muncie Indiana where we are excited to get to spend a little more time with our family there before this assignment is over. We tried White Castle sliders for a late lunch. Chad was the only one of us (I couldn’t try them) that liked them. We can say we have tried it now, but we probably won’t try it again. We arived in Muncie around 4:30pm. We adults visited and the kids played pretty continuously until 11:00pm. I had left my phone on the kitchen table to later descover that in the time that it was unattended by me some cute little girls had found it and made good use of the camera. 
As we drove from our hotel to the museum I couldn’t help but feel like we were nearing the end of a several year pilgrimage. Wanting to visit the creation museum after taking little Caleb and baby Hannah to listen to Ken Ham speak in Beaverton. Man’s attempt to explain the existence of our world and universe with out a divine being had made for some interesting theorys but with creating so many more questions than answers. Just because you can make it sound good doesn’t make it true. Now we have visited a lot of museums and national parks and of course they are all required to take the millions of years theory as their stance. It was refreshing to visit a museum that is consistent with the biblical account of creation. The main two hour exhibit takes about two hours to walk through. It took us longer and we may go back through it today. There is so much reading that I found myself not taking many pictures. 
Evolutionary vs. Creation family tree. 
The Garden of Eden
Adam naming the animals
The tree of life
Can you see the serpent above Adam and Eve in the tree? 
At about 12 school busses long and 10 school busses wide what an amazing project. Below people who mocked Noah for building his big boat on high ground are realizing the consequences of rejecting God’s warning. 
A video about the Tower of Babel 
The Insectorium (I know I took too many pictures here but insects are amazing). I loved watching Caleb pour over the cool bugs too.
The Dino den.
Stegosaurus selfie 
After the Dino den we headed outside to the petting zoo.
The boys got into a snow ball fight on the way back.
We finished the day with a few multimedia shows that were awesome. Sorry for the picture overload.
One of the things that people are most curious about us is often in regards to our housing, furniture and stuff in general. I guess I understand that because in general as Americans we really do like stuff don’t we? Most of the time I feel like we are being at least mostly successful at giving our kids a more rounded world view and experiential education in relation to history, science, U.S. Geography and culture/sociology. But this week where the kids have been running a little high on energy and just being kids has caused our not-really-meant-to-last couch (it may have been two weeks ago we lost the couch, it’s valour surface made it difficult to attempt to patch) and living room chair (already patched once) to pop from their rough housing. (Really how long do you think this blow up furniture was meant to last?) also the kids have managed to pop Eve’s air mattress and break a ballast in Hannah’s (we have had those air mattresses for about a year). All the furniture that leaves us with is our double high queen bed that we have had for a year and a half, a card table and a cooler to sit on. Now the floor is comfortable and we could buy some more furniture, but we have three weeks left and we don’t spend much time in our apartment so it doesn’t really even make sence to do that. Though it is days like this that I wonder if we are just crazy or are we still doing what is best for our kiddos.
My hope is that out of this they will learn how few things we actually need to survive vs. how many things we surround our selves with. Although… A real couch and chairs at the dining room table are a few of the normal household items that I may never take for granted again.
Owens Endeavors 