It's been a long while since I posted a furlough memory. Here we are, in one of our many "classrooms" along the way.

Taking school on the road was a real challenge to us. Sometimes we did school in the van while traveling, but it was so much easier to be able to spread out somewhere (usually a mission house or hotel room), like at this house provided by a church in Ohio.

We inevitably fell behind in the curriculum during our year of travel in the States, but I must say our children learned so much more from our experiences and the places we visited. The school of life, as they say.

Visiting the House of Representatives, Capitol building in Jackson, MI. I do not remember this man's name, but he is not a tour guide. He is an actual representative who was straightening his desk right after a session had dismissed! He was so kind as to explain to our little group the process of passing a law, as well as some of the things that were done during that day's session.



This is our family at the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH. They have some fascinating exhibits on flight history all the way back to the Wright Brothers, including a model of their first airplane, as well as planes from all eras of flight history. Aside from the two children who passed out in their strollers, we all learned a lot!

So many photos from other places we visited along the way were lost when our computer crashed, as I mentioned before. But the memories and lessons impressed on our children will never be erased. There is nothing like visiting one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood homes while reading her series of books about her life, and seeing where some of those adventures took place!

That's real (FUN) education. :o)

Another big event that occurred during Furlough 2007 was when our oldest child had to get glasses. Jessica was having trouble reading road signs that we could see well ahead of time. Walking past an eyeglass store one day, she did a free quick-test, which verified our suspicions that her eyes were weakening. Getting her a pair of glasses was such a relief to her...


Something about glasses on her face made her look so grown-up!

If you wear glasses, do you remember when you first put them on? I do. And I loved them. I loved being able to see everything so clearly! If I was ever called "four-eyes" I don't remember it, because I was just so thankful to have those wonderful glasses. Of course, that was back in (ahem!) the '80s, so those BIG lenses were popular.

The most important thing that happened during our furlough was when Joseph told his Dad that he wanted to be saved. We were in a hotel room, getting ready to leave for a missions conference when he insisted that he needed to ask Jesus to be his Savior. Daniel spent some time discussing it with him, then they prayed together. I could identify with the peace on his face afterwards:



Matthew 18:2-3 "And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

My husband made a wonderful discovery today. He found in his briefcase a jump drive containing several photos from our furlough in 2007! Let me explain why this is so wonderful. Toward the end of the furlough, our laptop crashed, and we lost a lot of valuable information, including a year's worth of family and travel memories in the form of digital photos. Daniel's discovery of the old jump drive had us all gathered around the computer this evening, viewing photos and reliving fun memories...

I'd like to post several of these, but there are simply too many to do all at once. So I will be posting a "Furlough Memory" once in a while, and I hope you all will enjoy them as much as we do!

We did a LOT of driving to churches in at least ten states. Sometimes we were soooo tired of travelling, but most of the time we made the best of it, and many sweet memories were made with friends and family along the way!

Here's The Driver:


Nothing like a good caffeine boost to keep you alert on the road!

And here's The Navigator/Entertainer/Referee:



We make a great team!