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Giving The Farm a Taste

The Journey to Colorado Grandparents

Tying Up Loose Ends

The week before we left on this road trip Zak and I were crazy-busy getting everything together to leave, but we also ended up having several meetings that we each (or both) really needed to attend.  It made for a full week of juggling schedules and kids, but also some amazing contacts that I haven't gotten to tell about until now.  I thought I would give some of the highlights...

Zak and I both got to meet with Esther, a lady from the Sexual Assault Resource Center.  We wanted to talk to her about resources and also to let her know about what we are doing at Agape in case she needed to use us as a resource.  As it turns out, she told us that the "spiritual recovery" section in her resource book is completely empty and she was so happy we had come to offer support!  She also gave us an incredibly complete listing of resources for us to use!  It was a great meeting.  I look forward to spending more time getting to know her and picking her brain for information.

Zak got to meet with Deputy Keith Bickford who had recently contacted Agape to ask if he could refer some people to us.  When they arrest Johns for prostitution solicitation he needs a place to refer them for healing from their sexual addiction.  He wanted to know if we would be able to help with that.  How cool to know that the police department is reaching out to a local church for healing.  Isn't that what we are supposed to be for our community--a place of healing?

The most amazing meeting I got to attend was a meeting held by the Council for Prostitution Alternatives, a meeting for recovering prostitutes.  WOW!!  I hardly know what else to say.  Fortunately I have had a few weeks to process what I saw and heard, but I still have a lot of work to do to understand what all went on in that meeting.  I went with Danna, our new fabulous intern who is leading our human trafficking ministry.  The ladies were very welcoming to us and really seemed to appreciate our interest in being there.  We have been encouraged to come back and also to give these ladies a call and befriend them during the rest of the week to help them reintigrate with society.  Just like many other forms of abuse, they have been isolated from the rest of the world and this keeps them locked into their addictions and the slavery they have come to know as every-day-life.  So, a date for coffee or a trip to the mall with a girlfriend is something quite foreign to them right now.  I look forward to being able to do this when we get back to town. 

The highlight of this meeting for me and what still brings me to tears when I think about it right now is that when I get back I get to start teaching a yoga class for these ladies.  Their present yoga instructor has just recently moved and they were needing someone to fill that spot.  I told them I am not certified, but would love to lead a yoga/stretching/pilates class if they were interested.  Lila eagerly accepted my offer!  This was just another moment of hearing God saying, "I have been training you for this ministry for a loooonnnng time!  Trust me!"  What an amazing opportunity!  Now, I better brush up on my yoga.  I hear they are a lively bunch! :)

Lazy Sunday

A lazy Sunday afternoon in Tulsa, OK. 98 degrees outside, 72 degrees inside.  Just what we needed!

Good Little Travelers!

When we started planning this month-long road trip I almost started to develop hives in anticipation of keeping a three year old and an eight month old strapped down for hours at a time.  Well, we have realized that the [near] hives were completely unwarranted!  Koa and Caspian have both done SO well with traveling so far.  When we made our impromptu 12 hour drive into Stafford, VA I think we were pushing the limits just a bit, but neither of them seem to be holding it against us. 

Koa is still most fascinated with his Legos and asks to get his "playgos" out every time we get in the car.  We did reveal another gift we had gotten him which is a dry erase note book for practicing letters, numbers and shapes.  We didn't think ahead of time to establish a rule that he is not really supposed to draw on his brother, but Caspian didn't seem to mind all that much.  Now that we have clarified that the markings seem to stay where they belong and he asks to draw on that almost as often as the Legos.  I am still in shock that we have made it the full distance across the country and have only pulled out those two items.  There have been a couple of other small things and snacks here and there, but other than that Koa has been pretty easy to entertain.  The strawberry fruit snacks that I made and left stuck to the parchment paper for him to unroll and pick off have been a big hit.  They are all gone already. 

Koa has had a lot of people to read stories to him along the way and that has been a lot of fun for him.  He is also getting more and more interested in reading to other people.  He had a little friend at Full Bubble, "Lilily" (Lily), who is about six months older than him and he read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to her several times.

Caspian...well...he has his toes.  So, who needs toys (or snacks) when you have toes.  This is definitely a month of changes for Caspian.  The folks in Portland are not even going to recognize him when we get back.  He is in the process of getting three teeth at once.  He is now a pretty proficient crawler (although he looks a little like Gollum) and is getting better at cruising all the time.  He gets brave once in a while and tries to see if he can stand by himself.  He gets really thrilled by the couple of seconds of success before his bottom meets the ground again!  He is also working on talking a little bit.  He has been saying "Dada" for a while now actually directed at Zak.  One day he said "Mama" right after one of us said it, but it was only one time, so it might have been a fluke.  I think he says "thank you" ("tay-tu") and we think he said "dog" when we were at Becky's house (they have two adorable dogs that both the boys loved!).  He has been working on signing a little bit here and there.  When I say, "More, please." he will give me his hands to help him make the sign.  He occasionally signs "daddy" when I do it first and he has signed "bird" (after me) when we were watching the birds in Grandpa Hunt and Grandma Myrna's yard in Colorado.

When we were in Paris for Full Bubble I would usually take him up to our room to nap during the day.  If we were downstairs and he started to get tired he would snuggle into my chest and act like he was going to sleep, but then he would sit up, wave his hand "bye-bye" and then snuggle in again.  He would do this until I took him upstairs to his bed.  If I didn't "listen" he would get progressively fussier about it.  He got pretty "spoiled" while we were there about getting to go to his own bed and sleep in a nice dark room by himself.  Now we have to fight it out a bit when there is no bed available and he has to go to sleep in my arms.

On Sunday Caspian went to his very first Bible class at North Stafford while Zak and I taught the adult class.  He learned that you cannot live on rice cereal alone, but the Word of God is a necessary part of the diet.  Pictures are being posted, as I type, of his Bible gnawing. 

Caspian has also been using the potty pretty consistently.  If we give him the opportunity and he needs to go he will go shee shee and poo-poo in the big potty.  We're not trying to get him out of diapers any time soon.  We are just giving him the opportunity to get used to using the big potty and he seems to understand the concept just fine.

We just discovered how far behind our photo albums are and submit a public apology to The People.  Sorry.  We (Zak) will get right on that.

Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Oh My!

The Zumwalt Ohana has a special gift.  On Monday we left Troy, IL at 10:45 AM.  We had 7 hours and 15 minutes to drive 5 hours.  We were 15 minutes late. 

At the half-way point, Sikeston, MO, we had planned to stop and have lunch with Zak's Uncle Benny, Tutu's brother.  We met him at Lambert's, home of the throwed roll, and had a VERY filling lunch.  While we ate we visited about some of the Eason family history.  This piqued Zak's interest and Uncle Benny offered to take us to see the house where he and Regina had grown up, the church where they worshiped and Zak's parents were married, and the graves where their parents are buried.  We had a great time visiting with Uncle Benny and following him all over town.  We were very grateful for all the information he was able to share but we were sad to miss meeting Aunt Patsy since she was visiting her new grand-baby.  Maybe next time.

When we left Sikeston we headed through Kentucky to Paris, Tennessee where we spent the week attending a retreat at the Paris Landing State Park.  This is the same retreat we attended last year when we were en route to Portland as we were moving.  This year it was a less emotional experience due to the difference in circumstances, but it was still a great experience with some of the world's finest people.

We left "Full Bubble" (the retreat) on Friday morning with the intention of driving half way to Zak's parents' house in Virginia.  We stopped in Nashville at a park to have lunch and visit with our friends, Kaitlin and Gran Jean.  I love how we are reconnecting with so many friends in parks all across America! 

Since we had that little rest, when we got to our stopping point for the day we didn't really feel like stopping (we didn't actually give the boys a vote, so that statement may not represent the entire family) and decided to drive a bit further.  At some point it seemed like it would be more hassle to unload the car and check into a hotel then it would to just drive the rest of the way and get in super late (again not consulting the smallest members of the family).  So, we drove straight through and got in around 3 AM.  We have spent the day resting at the house and getting ready for the presentations we have to do tomorrow at the North Stafford Church of Christ.  Please pray for us that it goes well and we present the message as God would have it.

Illinois Or Bust!

So, we left Grand Junction Friday morning around 6 AM and headed across the pass along I-70.  We had to keep the ginger handy because Koa has a tendency to get sick on windy roads.  This time it was a success.  He never actually got sick since we were a little more proactive than usual!  Yea!  When we got to Denver we got to stop in a park and see a friend of mine from high school, Hobby Chapin, and his son, Jayden.  Koa and Jayden played together and we had some brunch and then hit the road again.

We lost an hour going from Mountain Standard Time to Central Standard Time which was a big bummer.  We might have kept driving, but decided to stop in Hays, Kansas (which, it turns out, is about 40 miles from the exact center of the US) and make an early evening of it.  We had been promising Koa we would stop at a hotel with a pool and we wanted the boys to have time to play and be able to get to bed kind of early.  We found the cheapest hotel in town with a pool and also found some barbecue to fill our tummies.  The boys both had a lot of fun at the pool.  Caspian is quite the natural for a baby who has never been in a pool before.  I guess the water birth really did make a difference. ;)

We got up early again and hit the road to head to my sister's house in Troy, Illinois.  As we continued through Kansas Zak pointed out that we were driving through Leavenworth.  We have some friends in Hawai'i who were from Leavenworth, so I took a moment to text them and let them know that we were driving through their hometown.  They responded with, "We are headed to Kansas City from West Virginia" (note: they still live in Hawai'i).  We continued the texting conversation until we realized that we were literally going to be passing each other just outside of Kansas City.  We were looking for a park to stop at for lunch, so they were kind enough to exit the highway and find a park just a few blocks away and then give us directions and we met them at the park.  We didn't get to visit for very long because they were on their way to pick up their son at the airport.  What a strange, small world this gigantic country is!

After our lunch in the park and a few twirls on the merry-go-round we strapped everyone back in and headed on to Tyler and Becky's house.  We took one brief bathroom break we finally parted ways with I-70 just outside of St. Louis and got to their house around 4 PM.  Alec and Sam were bouncing on the trampoline when we got there.  They came to greet us and then immediately included Koa in all of their ambitions!  He was happy to have two boys to run around with for the next two days!  They had SO much fun together playing baseball, soccer, bubbles and jumping on the trampoline.  Once the sun went down and they lost the baseball "in the woods" they came inside and played with a remote control car until it was pretty late.  The boys all slept together on the floor in sleeping bags. 

After church on Sunday it rained for quite a while, so the boys all napped a little and Becky and I took the opportunity to re-stock our cooler and she took me to Kohl's to get a belt since I desperately needed one and she works there and gets a discount.  That evening we attended a surprise birthday party with them.

Can We Stop Driving, Yet?

We officially arrived at our first "real" destination last night at 11 PM.  We are in Grand Junction , Colorado visiting Zak's grandparents, Hunt and Myrna, and his aunt and uncle, Rose and Mike.  Zak's parents will be here tonight as they landed in Denver and are driving over the pass as I type.  So, it will be a regular family reunion before we know it.

Yesterday as we were driving to GJ we barely stopped long enough to make some sandwiches for lunch to eat in the car, so we thought it would be wise to have a stop planned that would allow the kids a chance to get out and play a little.  There is a children's discovery center in Salt Lake City called Discovery Gateway that provided the perfect opportunity to do that.  Our membership to OMSI has a reciprocal agreement with many locations around the country and we are able to visit them for free.  It was even just a couple of minutes off the highway right on our way.  Just as we suspected, the kids were very ready for it!  I don't think I have ever seen Caspian show so much excitement over anything!  He was so excited to be down and playing that he even took the opportunity to start crawling!  Koa ran from one thing to another and even had a little girl over for a date and fixed her dinner in the little kitchen area.  He was very upset when we interrupted his "date" with the news that it was time to go. 

We pulled out our traveling kitchen in Price, Utah and had dinner at a picnic table under a tree there.  Tuna sandwiches or salmon with crackers and cream cheese were on the menu along with lots of fresh fruits and veggies and a couple of cookies for desert.  The iced coffee I made to bring along gave us the extra boost we needed as we drove the rest of the way into Grand Junction.

Koa and Caspian are both being properly spoiled by the Great Grandparents and there will be more spoiling to come, I'm sure!  Anyone volunteering to do grandparent detox when we return?

We're Off!

Off we go on our month long road trip, or as Koa likes to call it, "our adventure".  Zak preached at church on Sunday morning and then we left the house around 3:30 PM.  We had hoped to head out a little earlier, but it just didn't happen.  

Now we lay our heads down to sleep at a Days Inn in Jerome, Idaho at 2:45 Monday morning Mountain Time.  The boys have been troopers.  Although, Caspian let us know in no uncertain terms that he is NOT a big fan of being in the car seat for that long!  I made Koa a desk that he can use in the car and we got him a few new surprises to reveal along the way.  So far he has been perfectly entertained by his "new" hand-me-down Legos (Thanks, Hunter and Caleb!).

We packed a full cooler and "pantry" of food and drinks so we won't have to eat out much along the way.  We plan to pull off on the side of the road and have picnics and play some baseball or Frisbee or whatever to work out the kinks and extra energy.  We'll see how the plan goes...