Day One

The day we have been waiting for for two years is finally here!  We chilled on Easter taking a day of rest so we had a few last min.  Things to pack and get the car loaded.  We pulled out of our driveway just before 11:00am which was better than we expected and only forgot the water bottles as far as we know (they made it as far as the garage).  They are totally replaceable.  We decided to diverge from our normal route across Oregon and turned toward the east and the Bend area.  We made a longer day of day one because the kids have been to Idaho a few times and we want to save our slower days for when we are covering new territory.  We pulled in to our friends house in Emmett around 9:30pm.

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We Are Off

Yesterday we finally took off for our first assignment.  Heading down to Farmington new Mexico.  We made it all the way to Emmett ID.  Got to see some beautiful views and observe the changing scenery.  Hope to have a lot more fun as we continue our travels.

~Chad

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Support!

Yesterday we had our going away party.  It was a sendoff of sorts where friends and family came to see us off and to wish us the best of luck.  It was good to have so many people there and to see that we have such a great group of family and friends that are supporting us in our grand adventure.  We want to thank all of you so much that were able to make it.  Also to thank all of you that could not make it, but sent your love.  You all will be greatly missed.

~Chad

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This is our new Home Away From Home

Our first contract is on the Four Corners Navajo Indian Reservation at Shiprock Northern Navajo Medical Center. We will be living in the near by town of Farmington which is the town at the end of the video.  The kids are very excited and have already decided on a few places we have to visit like Mesa Verde and Four Corners National Monument.  We would love other suggestions and have recently received the Farmington New Mexico 2014 Official Area Guide that has listed quite a few day trip ideas.  We love you all and thank you for keeping us in your prayers in this major transition.
– Sarah

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Great Wolf Lodge

Yesterday, we came home from spending the night up at Great Wolf Lodge.  It was awesome.  we had so much fun. We went up there with Sarah’s family (Paul, Debbie, Jeremy, Suzanne, Jayson, and Stephanie) along with our whole family.  We went up Thursday night and were able to stay and play at the park till late Friday night.  It was our last time to really get together and spend time as a family before we take off on our trip.  Thank you to everyone for the great time.

~ChadIMG_5655

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Preparations

Getting us all in one room and our house ready for roommates.

Phase

  1. Take down Caleb’s big loft bed
  2. Triple bunks in Caleb’s room in closet
  3. Empty Girls room/sort all kids stuff
  4. Move our bed in/sort our stuff
  5. Sort the garage/purge/ get down to 1 shelf

Still working on phase 4&5 but almost done.

Next: Big Hoorah at Great Wolf Lodge

~Sarah

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State Licenses and a Quick Trip to Cali

Chad has always been a good husband and father, but now he is proving to me a good manager of my craziness. Seriously, I don’t know what I would do without him!  It turns out that getting licensed in other states can be quite an involved and at times overwhelming process.  The two states we are currently trying to get licenses in are Washington and California.  It appears that a large percentage of L&D travel nurse jobs are in CA so it is more for insurance purposes that we are getting it rather than a  desire to go there first. The kids and Grandma and Grandpa as well as a scheduled mission trip to Honduras for Chad in June have led us to look for assignments that are within a 4 hour drive from Salem to start us off.  We do not know what doors will open and so we could end up anywhere. In an attempt to get our CA licenses as promptly as possible we made a quick trip to CA and in the nature of our big trip we took the kids and mixed in some fun too.

We went all the way to Sacramento so we could see family as well.

The kids love their Aunt Liz & Uncle Al, Thanks for hosting us.

~Sarah

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Honduras

Honduras seems like so long ago now that it was longer back than our departure date is forward.

If you ever get to go on a mission trip you should.  Don’t think that you don’t have any skills to offer.  Take the opportunity and just do it.  Our trip this last January brought a group of 18 people of various skill sets together for the common goal of bringing some basic health care to needy communities in rural Honduras.  We had a doctor, a Labor and Delivery Nurse, a retired RN, three good spanish speakers for translators, a 15 year old that taught the older kids origami and had a whole line of littler kids hoping his next demonstration would be theirs, three people coordinating activities for the children, a former CNA and a student planing to become a nurse.  Practice (for the student) to use their new found skills to take names and get blood pressures.  Someone to coordinate meals, the team leader, three more people who helped maintain lines, and were runners and a lot of other important things. We ranged from 15 years old to 75 with a even spread in the middle.

The day would start off after making breakfast and packing lunch.  We would pile into two 15 passenger vans with all of our supplies and drive the bumpy but scenic roads to the villages.  We would set up, arrange tables and chairs, and start taking names and blood pressures at 9:00am.  We saw many patients, 670 total in our 5 days of clinics.

We came away feeling like the Honduran people, their smiles and thankfulness, blessed us so much more than we could have imagined.  We went to give them a gift and didn’t expect such a big blessing in return.

~Sarah

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Home Alone

Today Sarah is leaving for Honduras.  She will be gone for 10 days on a medical work and witness trip. I will be home alone with the kids continuing my job as the homeschool dad.  We will greatly miss mom (Sarah) while she is gone and our prayers will be with her.

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Weekend With Grandparents.

This last weekend grandma and grandpa Owens called us up and invited us to go the beach with them.  The kids were very excited, but unfortunately Sarah had to work and was unable to join us (she was greatly missed).  So I loaded up the kids and the dog, and meet them in Lincoln City.  We spent a little bit of time at the outlet mall, where the girls got some new  shoes.  (Thank you very much grandma, they were greatly needed.)  We ended up going on south to Newport.  The next day we spent the morning down on the bay-front.  Caleb was most excited when he say Ripley’s believe it or not museum and grandma told him that we were going to go through it.  It was exciting to see all of the oddities that were there.  The last day we spent some time at a nearby park.  It was a fun and relaxing weekend. Thank you very much for everything Grandma and Grandpa. We Love You.

~Chad

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