In a very unexpected turn of events....

we got to see Troy for 2 days this weekend. He mentioned to me on Thursday night that he was out of school Monday, and Friday morning, I started wondering if I could find a cheap plane ticket for him to come see us. Thanks to Cheap Tickets and lots of online searching by me and his mom, he was on his way to Arizona early Saturday morning.

Being the crazy parent that I am, I told the kiddos that we were taking a little homeschooling field trip that was a surprise....and we went to the airport. We ate lunch, walked around looking at everything, watched planes take off and land, and learned how to read the arrival/departure boards. They were having a wonderful time when we went to see where people got off the planes, and there was DADDY! I think that they were in shock and couldn't quite wrap their minds around it for a minute. Then they attacked him....lots of happy tears! I'm pretty sure that no field trip will ever live up to this one!

Saturday night, Troy's mom made a great dinner for all of us (our little family, his mom, his brother and his family) and we just hung out and visited. Yesterday, we went to church together, drove out to see the resort where Troy will be doing his externship, and then took the kiddos out for lunch.

In a strange twist at church (just one of those God things), we got a little taste of Portland, Oregon because the group Rescue was there to sing. They are an excellent acapella group, and they sang one of my absolute favorite songs, Before The Throne. We got a pre-release of their next album by the same title and let the kiddos listen to it in the car. They LOVED it....especially the part by Brandon Bell where he just does all of his different sound effects. (On a side note, he must have driven his poor mother crazy as a child....you would have to hear it to understand!) We ended up taking them back to church last night to see part of the concert, and Ian was THRILLED to get to meet all of them before the service. I think that it is SO good for my kiddos to see really neat guys, following their dream (in Ian's words) and doing it for God! What a great example.

We also learned yesterday that the pastor of the church we are attending here in Arizona is from Oregon....knew that we liked it there for some reason!:) All sorts of little reminders of home yesterday.

Well, this morning, I took Troy to the airport about 4:00 and he should be boarding the plane right now. It was defintely hard to let him go back, but it was such a blessing to be together this weekend......only 22 more days!