Miami!

We left from Chicago this morning at 10:50 (delayed by 1 hour as per normal O'hare operating procedure) and got into Miami at 3:30pm. We are nicely settled into our hotel room - had a great dinner and are getting ready for bed. We are all tired, but are looking forward to meeting with everyone at LAM tomorrow and Thursday.

When I am a little more awake and have more time I'll update with something a little more substantial. Thanks everyone for all your prayers.

Let the packing begin

I was smiling as I read again my last post because of the shear enthusiasm in the post for leaving to Costa Rica, but clear neglect at remembering how much is involved in the actual process of moving. Do not get me wrong, Christy and I are pumped to go; however, I think we are both just a little pooped from our exhausting 1.5 weeks of travel and beginning to pack for the trip.

We just got back from a Illinois to Richmond to Michigan whirl wind tour that was great in that we saw lots of friends and family, but exhausting as we drove well over 30 hours getting to Richmond, Detroit and Spring Lake. While in Richmond we had a chance to connect with folks from the church including lunch with our old small group, time of prayer during Thursday lunch hour and play group time for Christy and the kids. I also had adequate time to hang out with many old friends from Capital One on Friday during lunch and in the evening on Friday afternoon . The last thing I did while in Richmond was take my little girl and get about 3.5 inches chopped off of her hair. You can see it in the attached picture. Special thanks to Todd and Nancy Behrens who let us crash at their place the entire trip there. We had a great time with them playing in the backyard, sharing meals, and having the kids play together - their child Brandon is only 4 months older than Sammy. I lovingly taught him how to saw 'Go Badgers!' which both his parents loved as they are die hard Florida Gator fans (see Brandon wearing orange and blue - 'his' favorite colors). They could be mad, but hey, they have multiple national championships in the last two years, so lets be reasonable.

While in Michigan we had an opportunity to stop for a day in Detroit and see my mom's parents and my fathers dad. We had a wonderful time of sharing over breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa 'T' and also enjoyed watching Elizabeth build a fort with their pillows up in their room. Although my Grandma Meyer continues to slow with age (he is over 90) we enjoyed walking around his building and looking at the birds and fish with the kids. I also beat him 2 of 2 games in Cribbage which is a feat given his massive amount of experience. In his younger years if you did not count points for yourself on the board, he would take your points (aka - cheating in most cultures). Luckily though, he did not do that this game or else I may have lost one of the games.

Lastly, we had a nice stop at my parents place in Spring Lake, Michigan where we had the nice surprise of having both of my brothers and their wives come and visit. As time goes by, it is a rare opportunity that we get everyone together, so it was nice to visit with everyone. Kristen and Jon (my middle brother) are due in May - it is sad that we will not get to meet our niece until she is probably crawling. However, we left them with a small something - two army duffels full of little girl clothes :)

Christy parents were kind enough to watch the kids for a majority of today we managed to get a fair amount of packing done. I was telling Christy that my back hurt this evening and I could not figure out why - until I remembered that I was weighing myself on a scale and then picking up large bags and weighing myself again (in an effort to get our bags to as close to 50 pounds - the airline limit - without going over). Usually I would first weigh when the bag was at 20 pounds, then at 40 pounds, then at 60 pounds, and have to reweigh at least four more times per bag to get it under 50. It looks like a small tornado went through our place (Christy groaned when I showed her I was posting this picture - but it is the reality), but we are making progress to getting all packed up. You can see five bags all packed which you can see in the picture. We can check 8 at the counter, carry on 4 more, and have an additional 4 'personal' bags - which I am sure we will have all. It will be a site to see for sure.

Please pray as we continue packing that we would quickly and efficiently get everything we need for the trip into our bags. Also pray for our patience as we continue on this journey. Lastly, pray that we would not forget why we are going and also that the Spirit would continue to be there long before us working in the lives of those in the language school and at La Palabra.

Less than six weeks!

Christy and I realized while we were in Colorado that we had less than six weeks to go before we leave Illinois for the next year. Madness. Packing has not started yet - but we are trying to get all of our final paper work done. This includes signing up for language school, getting the kids enrolled in their equivalent of school, getting on Latin America Mission's payroll, getting our taxes done, etc. Six weeks feels like a long time, but we will also be in Michigan and Richmond for a combined 2 weeks - so we really only have about four weeks left. Christy's parents have offered to watch the kids as much as needed for us starting in early March (after our trip to Richmond and Michigan) so that we can get all of our stuff packed up and leave the condo we are using in a state that they can have visitors stay here without tripping over kids toys and books.

In between getting forms filled out and finishing up my two classes at Covenant (I'm done with one and hope to be done with the other by this Friday, 6 credits out of 60 completed for the degree!) - we've been busy with the kids. They like to do various activities like riding in their laundry basket cars, work at the computer, and play racquetball with dad. I've posted a couple pictures for everyone's entertainment.

The first picture of Sammy I have titled 'Sammy MEYER' because this is one of the first pictures of him that I think he REALLY looks like a Meyer. Given the powder blue shirt (which was in style during the 70s and now is apparently again) - this could easily be a picture of my middle brother Jon. I think it looks very similar to many of his baby pictures. My mother also tells me often that he acts and looks alot like Jon did. Hmmm....oh well, I guess he didn't get my brains (everyone at Capital One is snickering because I was barely in the bottom tenth decile of smartest people there) but Jon is 3'' taller than me so maybe there is hope at baseball or some sport like that.

We bought Lizzy some 'computer games' last time we were at International Aid - a low cost store that missionaries can shop at. They are less games and more learning activities. The most interesting thing so far is that she can now type her name...well....LIZZY...on a computer keyboard. I've attached a picture that Christy took of her working away on a real computer. As neat as it is to see this as a parent - it is still a little crazy too. My 3.5 year old daughter using a computer. It still makes me have a 'WHEN I WAS A BOY...' moment as I think back to the 286 Packard Bell which we got when I was just entering middle school.

The last couple pictures are of Elizabeth and I playing in the Racquetball court. The picture of me is one that she proudly took. It took a couple shots but she managed to get my entire face in the picture. What I notice here is not so much the goofy face or the beard, but the wrinkles under my eyes. Mind you, not that I care, but it is a reminder that 30 is around the corner, kids make you age fast, and life is short. When I was recently looking at my passport photo that was taken right before Christy and I got married, I no longer say 'Hey, I look a little different' but rather think 'I hardly can tell its the same person'. I imagine these thoughts will accelerate between 30 and 40 and even more so between 40 and 50. C'est la vie. I've also included a picture of Elizabeth triumphantly holding a racquetball at the mercy of a racquet. All in all we've had just a wonderful time in Wheaton. We'll miss having our play time like you see in these pictures, but we are eager (if not a little nervous) about getting down to Costa Rica.

Its late and I promised Christy I would watch the kids tomorrow morning so she could sleep in (it is Valentines day you know) so I'm heading off to sleep.

Leaving you with a little racquetball...Elizabeth style...

Yet another medical call

We have been up in the mountains since Tuesday and overall having a great time. On Thursday afternoon one of my old friends from Capital One, Ben, came up from near Denver to spend the afternoon with me. Since neither of us had ever tried it before, we got some snow shoes and went on our way at about 2pm up the mountain. Our first mistake was deciding to hike by foot up the ski slope to ski lift that would take us higher up the mountain directly in front of a snowshoe / cross country ski park at Beaver Creek. This absolutely destroyed us, and toward the top we stripped off hats, gloves, and jacket layers because we were sweating to death. Instead of waiting a second and putting all of those things on, we jumped onto the ski lift to take us up. This may have been (probably was) the coldest 13 minutes of my life. My hands holding my metal poles and metal snow shoes, jacket unzipped, no hats on, sweat freezing on the head, in windy 15 degree temperature. By the time we got off the lift I could not feel my ears or two of my fingers - everything else just killed. Luckily, there was a little warming hut which we spent 10 minutes in before we went on our way. We ended up hiking to an overlook point which you can see a picture of to the right. I brought my camera with, but I admit to being to cold to ever use it. Ben however is much more tough (manly?) than I and took several pictures. All the pictures here were by him, and many I think are great quality. The birch trees were so amazing against the the snow as you can see to the left. As we were coming down the mountain (we had to hike all the way down as the ski lifts close at 3:30) - it was about 5:30 and the sun was just about set. We figured we were probably just 2 of maybe 10 or so people on the entire mountain. We speculated that someone might be nervous about us coming back at all, and sure enough my father-in-law was there to great us when we finally came into sight (he had been keeping an eye out for us). I'm not sure how far we hiked that day but it must have been several miles. It gave us a great time to catch up and just enjoy some of God's beautiful creation.


On Friday morning Christy and I both decided to try our hand at something new - snowboarding. Step one was simply learning how to put the boards on and navigate enough so that we could get off the ski lift without killing ourselves or others. Getting on the ski lift and debarking was a success. When we got to the top of the hill, we strapped the boards on and headed down the slopes. My first 150 feet involved me heading down the mountain doing 360s uncontrollably. I was not doing this on purpose or riding any 'edge', rather just free falling on the board down the hill. Christy and I both fell about the same time, and then realized another problem. Christy was expending so much energy trying to stand up while attached to the board, that it made learning how to snow board nearly impossible. After about 1.5 hours and 1/3 of the way down the mountain, my mother-in-law offered to take Christy to a place called 'Zack's Cabin' for lunch so she could recharge, while my brother-in-law Jonathan and I finished down the hill. I think we both thought it was fun, but agreed that we might need a few runs on the bunny hill before we tried another run on the full sized mountain.

Tonight (Saturday) we also had more excitement. Right after dinner Sammy got bit by one of his cousins on the cheek - he has a perfect welt on his face with 8 top teeth and 8 bottom teeth showing. Needless to say he was not thrilled. Shortly after that situation was calmed down, the kids were playing out in the family room. Lizzy was spinning with her cousin Luke (a common activity) and while doing circles, Lizzy tripped over a pillow and went head first into the floor. She started crying so I ran over to pick her up - however - when I did her eyes rolled back in her head and she started to throw-up. Christy's mom called 911 to get an ambulance...while she started talking though Lizzy came to and was coherent. I told her to wave off the ambulance (I figured we would just watch her for 20 or 30 minutes and she how she was reacting) but they said they would come free of charge just to make sure she was okay. Over the next 30 minutes we had a public safety officer, a fire man, 2 EMTs and one representative from the hotel come into our condo. I must say though, I'm so glad they came. The EMTs were GREAT and showed that they really cared about our little girl. They checked her head and spine, monitored her breathing, heart rate, circulation in her hands, eye function and other things to make sure she was okay. They stayed with us for 30 minutes to make sure things were okay - and offered to take her to a hospital if we would like. In the end, we elected not to have her taken to the hospital because she was acting very much like herself (laughing, playing, giving the EMT man a high five) - but we did keep her up for another 1.5 hours just to make sure she did not show any symptoms of head trauma. We will keep a close eye on her breathing and energy levels over the next day to make sure. Although it was really scary, praise God that she was okay.

We are hoping you are all doing well and your week has not involved any ER visits or ambulance calls! Christy and I we just saying last night how amazed we were that we are flying to Miami in 6 weeks and Costa Rica in 7 - crazy. Pray for us as we continue traveling quite a bit with the family (Virginia, Michigan and Baltimore) and gear up to go. Please do let us all know how you are doing.

Rocky Mountain High

It has been quite a crazy couple weeks to say the least. Last week I was in St Louis at Covenant Seminary where I was taking a Christian Education course during their residency period. The class was truly wonderful. There was a diverse group of folks ranging from full time MDiv students to retired military to business men and woman to....well...me. The class was very interactive and the teachers did a great job keeping the class interesting by actually using many of the different tactics/ideas they were teaching in their own lectures. I met many people that I will likely keep in touch with in the future. All that I have left to do now for the Christian Education course is to finish up the final project.

During that week I was gone, Christy took the kids up to Michigan to hang out with my mom. What started off with a fun filled Monday went down in flames quickly as Elizabeth, Christy, Sammy, my Mom and Dad all got sick. My mom took Lizzy to see the new Veggie Tales movie on Tuesday - and about half way through she said she wanted to go home. Later that evening, they were having dinner and she fell asleep on the floor underneath the chairs. Then, when she woke up as folks were finishing dinner - massive amounts of throw-up everywhere. As much as I felt bad that I was not there to help - I was very happy to be in St Louis for the remainder of the week :-)

I got home late Saturday night and Christy and I had about enough time to finish the laundry before we flew out of Chicago to Denver on Monday early afternoon. We stayed at Christy's sister's (Bekah) house on Monday night as I-70 (the highway to get up to the mountains) was shut down due to ice/snow/wind. This worked out okay though as Bekah and her family had just flown in from Ethiopia that day, and we had an opportunity to meet our new nephew (Miles) who they had just adopted.

We drove up to the mountains on Tuesday (the weather was much better) and made it to Bachelor's Gulch where we are staying. The first thing that caught my eye this year was a little slip of paper placed by the phone (you can see a picture of it to your left - simply click it to make it larger). It exposes a dichotomy that I have long been confused of. The cheaper a hotel is, the more you often get, and vs vr. For example, if you go to a Days Inn, you probably stay for about 30 to 40 bucks a night, get all your phone service paid for, get free Internet and I bet you might even get a continental breakfast. When you come to where we are staying, it is quite expensive, however, to make a local phone call costs one dollar. To make a long distance phone call is a $16 dollar connection charge, a prevailing per minute charge for sprint and a 99% surcharge on the bill. I just do not understand.....I guess the corporate philosophy is that you charge more simply because you can. However, I can think of very few industries where this model actually works. People get mad about payday loan lenders charger 100% interest....I think if you put this hotel's telephone fees into a APR, we'd be in the thousands!

Anyway, after musing over the phone bills for a while. we decided to explore the natural beauty that is Colorado. Actually, Sammy was watching TV (see to the left). The best part about that picture is that the shades are drawn....majestic mountains outside and we like dark rooms. The other fun thing we liked to do was play with the EXIT sign on the floor out in the hallway. Oh well, maybe we'll start working on exploring a little more than just the hallway and the room. I think I'm going to go snow shoeing tomorrow (which should be an amusing exercise in futility) and probably log in some skiing or snow boarding later this week.

I hope you all are doing well and we'll be in touch.

Quite an adventure

Well, another blog, another 2 weeks. I really do apologize for taking so long to update this in between updates. I wish I had a better excuse, but...even now I can not think of one. We have already had a pretty busy January. I was able to fly out to Phoenix and visit my long time friend Kenn who I went to UW-Madison with and have been close with every since. I flew out on Wed and got back Sunday morning. We did everything from eat out almost every meal, played pool, bowled (I managed to get into the 130's...not to shabby), solved Halo3, played alot of call to duty 4 and watched my beloved packers get to the 2nd largest game in the NFL. Quite alot accomplished by anyones standards. All in all, it was a great trip, however, I did lose my voice well out there due to a nasty cold that I think everyone in Christy's extended had since Christmas. Also, I think Christy got slightly less excited about me being out there every day I spoke to her on the phone. Needless to say, she was happy to have me home to help out with the kids when I flew in on Sunday afternoon. This week has been good as I've been spending time preparing for my residency down in St Louis at Covenant Seminary (writing papers and reading multiple text books) while Christy has spent her free time sewing everything from baby slings to cloth diapers. You do not have to cry for me yet; however, I am going to take the Amtrak (coach) from Chicago to St Louis on Monday morning. We'll have to see how this all turns out....I think it will involve me getting up at 6 to take a Metra downtown Chicago, and then taking a smelly, old, cramped Amtrak train for 5.5 hours down to St Louis - topped off with an overpriced cab ride to the hotel. I'm not holding out much hope...but, maybe it won't be as bad as I have it in my head. One interesting thing that has started happening is that the kids will pretend to have 'nap time' together. I'm not entirely sure where this has come from....at first I thought maybe Elizabeth had naps at preschool (which I would wonder why we pay them anything as she is only there for 4 hours a week) but Christy assured me this was not the case. I'm assuming this is just something that Elizabeth has come up with on her own - and Sam being the good sport he is goes along with it. Either way, they sure are cute when they play this way together. Even if it only lasts for about 3 minutes, it gives me hope that some day, maybe...just maybe, they will not hate each other. The jury is still out on that and we will have to wait and see.

Another exciting happening occurred this morning. There was a gentle cry...which turned into a big cry....from Elizabeth's bedroom. I hear Christy say....'Josh, you've gotta come here and see this - quick!' So, instead of coming quick I do the first thing any father would, grab the camera. I'm so glad I did, you can see to the left the problem Sam got himself into. In case you can not tell, that is legit the #2 that he managed to stick his hand into - so it is very stuck. We had to empty all the block pieces out of there, and get Vaseline all over his hand and the toy to pull it out. He looks just like me in this picture minus the vein running down each side of his forehead. As much as we wanted to comfort him, Christy and I were both laughing pretty hard this morning (and continue to do so when we see this picture). Ahhhh...the things you get to deal with when you have small children.

After the St Louis trip next week, our whole family will be going to Denver for about 10 days. It looks like our next trip after that will be Richmond, Virginia around February 20th - so hopefully we will get a chance to see all of you then.

Go Pack Go!

Happy New Y(ear)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! You would have thought with so much extra free time around the holidays I would have had more time to post - but it just was not the case. I found myself busy enough with kids, school work, and family activities. I hope you all had as nice of a time as we did over the last two weeks. We were able to spend Christmas morning with Christy's family (two sisters, brother in-laws, and the kids' three cousins) which was great. Then on Christmas day we drove up to Michigan to spend Christmas evening through Saturday with my family. During that time we were able to see my mom's parents and my brother and sister-in-law.

One of the gifts that Christy got (actually on her birthday on December 28th) is something I am most excited about. A couple weeks ago we played a game called Carcossonne with our small group from church and it was so much fun. I won't go too much into how to play it, but it is basically a tile based game that anywhere between 2 and 5 players can play. You use the tiles to build cities, roads and farmland - and based on the positioning of your men - you score points. One of the best parts is that as few as two players can go at it - I'm guessing that there will be some lonely nights in the first couple months of Costa Rica where Christy and I will tire of learning Spanish and will take a break playing this game. If you are ever looking for a fun but simple and quick strategy game, you should check this out. If you are familiar at all with 'Settlers' - it is similar but maybe a little more simple.

The most exciting thing that happened over the last two weeks was our adventure last night. On the left you can see a silly picture of Lizzy looking cute. However, if you were to pull back her hair you would see the aftermath of last night (see to the right). She was running around at Nana and Papa's and we think caught her foot on the rug and fell down next to their coffee table. Instead of a bump or a bruise, she managed to some how slice her ear about a half an inch at the end of her ear lobe, straight through. I assured Christy by saying, 'I think she is probably fine, I'm pretty sure we do not need to go to the ER' which translating Josh speak means - I have no idea how much the ER costs with blue cross blue shield, but I think Elizabeth's ear is not worth it. Luckily, Christy (clearly the smarter half) insisted that we go to the ER and I'm glad we did. (from Christy - Getting out the door and getting to the hospital was pretty chaotic with Lizzy crying and holding a paper towel fiercely to her ear...she was ready to bite off the head of anyone who tried to remove that paper towel hand for even a second. She helped break our tension a little bit, though, when she confided in me that her real worry about going to the hospital was that the doctor was going to take off her ear as a way to fix the problem. Once we assured her that they would not take her ear, she warmed up to the idea of getting some help.) Luckily they did not need to do any stitches (instead they were able just to glue it shut because the bleeding was not terrible), but the nurse and doctor said had we not come she likely would have had a pretty large scar across the bottom part of her ear. The one thing that hit me most yesterday while in the ER was the pain you feel as a parent when your daughter is squirming in pain. That has to be the single worst thing you can go through as a parent. I was almost feeling her pain and contorting with her - but still utterly helpless. Now...think how much worse it is for parents who have kids how are seriously ill, chronically sick, or worse yet end up passing away. I can hardly even fathom how hard that must be. My last thought before I fell asleep last night was, now think how hard that must have been for God to send his only Son. Certainly gives you pause, and makes you appreciative of the fact that we have a heavenly father who will stop at nothing to save his children here on earth.

On that note, its getting later here and I'm going to try and listen to a lecture for school or maybe get some more reading done. I hope your new years eve was relaxing and fun. We look forward to seeing many of you in the first quarter of this year before we head down to Costa Rica!