My Husband, the World Traveler!

Recently, David had to go on a trip for work to Europe.  Tough job, huh?  He was invited to sit on someone's dissertation defense committee in Vienna and, not so reluctantly, agreed to go.  Then, he realized he also had colleagues in Amsterdam and Zurich, so he went there to give talks, too.  And, well, since he had to be there over the weekend, he even got to go snowboarding in the Swiss Alps.  He was gone for just under two weeks, the longest work trip of his career thus far!  (This is, of course, not counting the time he did a fellowship in Santa Barbara for four months!)

Lots of people ask me how I manage when David travels.  The truth is not very well.  Fortunately, God always manages perfectly!  The reality is that God pours out His grace upon me moment by moment to enable me to do all that He has called me to!  He calls David away for work, and He supplies me with everything necessary to function without him.  God has also blessed me with wonderful friends and family who check in on me, visit, bring food, even babysit! David's travels would be unbearable without God and His people!

Practically speaking, I do switch to survival mode whenever David travels.  My mission becomes nothing more than to keep my kids (and myself) alive!  Even so, during this last trip, we still had  a few "That really didn't just happen!" moments:

• Upon waking in the morning, Jonathan pulled his diaper down and pooped in his crib.  (This never happened with any of our other kids.  Jonathan thought it was hysterical.  I was beyond grossed out!)
• The handle to Matthew and Jonathan's trike snapped off.  (I did manage to fix it myself after a trip to the hardware store!)
• Maggie wore out one of the training wheels on her bike. (I couldn't fix this one myself, but I let her ride a bigger bike with training wheels!)
• Matthew found my lukewarm coffee (survival mode means caffeine is permissable), tried to drink it, and instead spilled it all over himself and the floor!
• Our frog died.  
• I dropped an almost-full, Costco-size, glass container of salad dressing on the kitchen floor while I was trying to get my ravenous crew fed!
• All the kids slept past 7 am!