Renée, Samuel, and I made it back from a [short] 10-day vacation to our friends’ farm in upstate New York. Renée found awesome tickets online for the trip, so it was too good to pass up. (We’ve been looking for an excuse to go back and see our dear friends, the Dunns, since May, so this was the perfect fit.) After getting up at 1:45am Albuquerque-time to make our 4:35am flight, we arrived back in Albuquerque a little after 12:00pm and got to rest for the rest of the day.

We were sad to leave our friends, however. We had so much fun while there. We learned how to milk a cow, which is not as easy as you may think. We also got to participate in a turkey slaughter, which was both gross and intriguing at the same time. (For all you hunters out there, it is decently gross to gut the turkey, but not horrible.) I got up on a 25 ft. extension ladder with a hair dryer to melt off a thick layer of ice on their satellite dish for their Internet connection (only to realize later that the real reason that the connection wasn’t working was because the send and receive cables were backwards). I also braved -24° windchill to help chop up a tree that had been downed from the previous week’s ice-storm (which also left 3/4″ of ice on the ground). We also celebrated Greg’s 40th birthday (and in Jewish tradition, when you reach 40, you’re an elder) and gave him lots of gag gifts, as well as the real gift of Carcassonne (Renée and my new favorite game). The rest of the time we spent hanging out in the house with the Dunns, working on schoolwork with the children, and watching Samuel adjust to his new environment: learning to interact with nine other people, learning to climb up and down stairs, and learning to say “thank you” in sign-language.

While we have fun with the Dunns, we are also always so refreshed. It is so relaxing to be on a farm away from the busy city life we’re used to and enjoy simplicity. We celebrated the Sabbath together and enjoyed reading God’s Word as a family, meditating upon what we read, and then celebrating our commonality in Christ together over meals and prayer. Renée and I feel spiritually nurtured and poured into by our conversations with Greg and Kirsten and love discovering the truth of Scripture with them. I guess this just means we’re going to have to plan another trip out to visit their family.

I think we’ll wait until it’s just a tad warmer, though.