We recently traveled 4,000 miles away and spent 19 days in one of the world’s greatest hotspots during a global pandemic. And boy, did we have the time of our lives! We’re currently on day 14 of a 14-day mandatory quarantine imposed by the state of Hawaii. We knew that we’d have to go through 14 days of 100% isolation in our home upon our return, and even though it has been long and hard, we’re all in agreement that it was worth it to get to travel back to our beloved Texas for a few weeks!
The Pacific Ocean
Air travel with four kids is hard enough without having to worry about masks, social distancing and constantly saying DO. NOT. TOUCH. ANYTHING. I admit that wearing masks on the plane was the part I was dreading the most. Turns out, it wasn’t a big deal at all. Our flight to Texas was a red-eye, so we all slept most of the way. Coming back we all enjoyed movies and really yummy, pre-packaged, boxed snacks! We felt safe the entire time, although our flights were almost full both times.
Lindale, Texas
The first five days were spent in Lindale, Texas with the grandparents. We really enjoyed just laying around and being lazy. We played games with Grammie, ate Blue Bell with Paw Paw, went to Hobby Lobby, played golf, and hung out with our dog, Tessie, who we miss dearly.
Poteau, Oklahoma
We drove up through Arkansas to see an old college friend of mine and then on to Oklahoma to visit our son, Matt. It was so good to see him, even if it was just for a little while. We were just missing Jake. I tried to FaceTime him while we were there but it was the middle of the morning in Okinawa and he was at work. Being apart is hard.
Gonzales, Texas
We had a long list of people that we wanted to see in our old stomping grounds, but somehow the time just vanished and we didn’t get to see everyone on our list. It was HARD to not give hugs and sit close with our friends, but our goal was to keep our family and others as safe as possible. This little Texas town will always have the most special place in our hearts.
Leakey, Texas
We headed out to the Frio River to spend 8 days at Alto Frio’s Family Camp. We had the best time resting, relaxing, playing, and teaching at the worship services each night. Chris and I team-taught about building a strong home by looking at the book of Ephesians. There’s still a couple of sessions of Family Camp available at Alto Frio and I highly recommend it! You can get more info here.
El Paso, Texas
It’s not like El Paso was just right around the corner – it took 6 hours to get out there and then another 9 hours in the car to get back to DFW. But when you’re sharing the same piece of Texas soil with your cousins, you can’t leave without making the trip! We laughed because we spent longer driving between El Paso and Dallas than we did flying from Dallas to Honolulu! Texas is BIG. But it was worth it. Chris went with his dad and his brother to play golf and shoot guns and the rest of us stayed behind to tie dye t-shirts, sword fight, play a million board games and watch movies. The last night we were there, the kids put on a play that they’d been working on since the moment we arrived. It was so good and really hilarious! Times like these make me realize just how far Hawaii is from Texas. Being apart is really hard.
My favorite parts
Besides the obvious PEOPLE that I loved seeing, these two things were my favorite parts of our trip. #1 The prices. We pay a good $10 per watermelon here in Hawaii, so seeing these babies for under $3 made my heart do a little flip-flop. And don’t even get me started on the price of milk. But even better than the grocery prices was the air conditioning!!! We all had a good laugh because we wore our jackets everywhere we went because all the buildings and homes were so cold! I told my mother-in-law she better not make it any warmer because we were loving being cold! Our Hawaiian home doesn’t have air conditioning and that’s been a really hard adjustment for us. So on our last night there in the hotel at DFW, we cranked that baby down to 68 and slept soooooo good.
My other favorite part was seeing Dr. Irving get some rest. He has been going non-stop for the past (I have no idea how long). I saw him cuddle his boy in church and snuggle his girls while watching a movie. I saw him take a nap on his mom’s bed and mow his dad’s grass. I saw him fall asleep with a book open on his lap and I saw him jump into the deep end of the pool.
Sorry, not sorry
Ladies and gentlemen, hear me say this. Your pastor is not super-human. He needs rest. He needs more rest than most people because he carries the spiritual burdens of a whole lot of people. This is true in any given year, but especially this year, your pastor needs a break. He needs to get away and play with his kids and hold his wife’s hand and jump in the deep end of the pool. And you know what made this trip possible? A couple of people in our church who said, “YOU NEED TO GO” and then they promised to make a way for it to happen. People like that are precious. People like that are life-giving. Be a person like that for your pastor!
So a big “Mahalo nui loa” goes out to all the people who made it possible for us to get away.
And a big “Thanks, y’all” goes out to all the people who hosted us on our trip. It was absolutely worth it and now we are ready to dig into Year Two in Hawaii!
