Day 1: Travel – Car breaks down, get towed back home.  Buy bus tickets for following morning

Day 2: Travel – Get there, get groceries.

Day 3-4: Settling in – Getting used to surroundings, convincing myself to leave everything back home and to embrace the rest, reading reading and more reading, going to the beach morning and afternoon.

Day 5-12: Resting and Having Fun – It was amazing I actually started to relax and enjoy myself and the family.  The beach was AWESOME!  We took a day trip to “Mundo Marino” a Sea World type place in the area.  The Elledges came down for their vacation in a house next door during the 2nd week so we enjoyed going out with them and playing card games.  I read read and read.  Rich and I would play Bachi on the beach (“Bocho” here in Argentina, but the beach version is played with wooden discs).  It was relaxing and a blast!

Day 13-14: The complexities of real life start settling back in; thoughts of what needed to be done, who needs to be visited, conversations that need to be had, cars that need to be fixed, money that we don’t have, schedule for the coming months, how are we going to get Chi to school now, what to do with the kombi, how can I keep bettering my language skills…these thoughts and anxieties and more start creeping back in and weighing me down.

Evening Day 14: Can’t sleep as I’m preparing to go home.

Day 15: Travel Day – The Dunlevys come for vacation to take over where we left off.  They allow us to use their car to go home (we’ll be back in a few days to celebrate thanksgiving, after which we’ll take the bus back home).  Taking the car is alot easier than taking the bus with all our luggage.  Thank You Nate and Deb!!!  None-the-less the next 2 hours are the some of the most anxiety ridden 2 hours I’ve had.  With the rest we just had in mind and realizing what lies ahead I begin to dread returning to the grind.  We get home, the house is really dirty.  As we enter the house all we hear is crackling as we walk.  Oh, there’s a gazillion dead ants all over the floor…at least they are dead.  Amazingly I get energized, Tara doesn’t.  But, by the end of the night we get settled back in, sit down to watch a movie, and are ready for life to begin again.

So, here I am the day after returning and I feel good, ready to tackle life again with gusto.  I know I would not have been ready if it had only been 1 week, actually I feel like I could have used another (seriously).

The people here call “Vacation” “Quince Dias” (translation 15 days), I now know why.  The actual time period involved is 15 days, not 2 weeks.

I grew up in rural southern Maryland (now it resembles more of suburbia as compared to 25 years ago when I first moved there).  I grew up playing outside and exploring the woods with my brother and best friend.   I loved crabbing with my Pop-Pop, I loved playing in the fallen autumn leaves with my brother, I loved eating the fresh veggies from Nana and Pop-Pop’s garden, I loved the smell of fresh cut grass and walking in barefeet on it, I loved the smell of summer nights by the Chesapeake Bay, I loved chasing lightning bugs and hearing crickets and frogs, I loved sledding around barbed-wired fences just to get a good slope, I loved skiing with my family, I loved listening to the ice-covered trees falling in the woods, I loved smelling wood burning stoves on a crisp fall day…….I could go on and on.  I love nature, I love being outside and being in awe of what God has created.  God continues to awe me with his creation……I love it.  There’s a thrill and an exhilaration in seeing something so magnificent…something you’ve never seen before and then just worship God for what he has made.  I was really needing some time out of the city…I needed a rest, a respite, a reminder of who God is.  This past weekend, Brian, the boys and I made our third attempt to see the Botanical Orchid Garden.  We finally got there, and it was more refreshing than I ever thought it would be.  It was beautiful and amazing and incredible to see God’s creation here in tropical Costa Rica.  The plants and trees and flowers are so colorful and enticing.

“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.”  Psalm 62:1-2

I love living in the city, but it’s important for me to have days out in nature to be reminded of why I’m living in the city…..it’s for God’s purpose, it’s for his people, it’s for his glory.  It’s important for all of us to have time away from our busy lives to be reminded of why we do what we do and for who we are doing it.