Vacation...in the tub

I don't know where time goes...I really don't.

It was just March and now Easter is over and we are already starting to make plans for our son's May 1st birthday party!!  I mean...plans for Spring Break were made and then lived out in what seems a total blur now...sitting here the Monday morning after everyone has returned to the state of "normal" and I am once again alone in my house.  (...ok I do admit some joy over that last part there about being alone in my house...)

Quick summary: I went on the most amazing vacation during our Spring Break here in Cali.

Ok, actually...I went on two.

In one, we took the car...in the other, I simply cracked the cover of some amazing books.

The car vacay was fun...

Two days of Universal Studios with the best family on earth:

Here, we are in rows 3 and 4...we were only a bit scream-ish

Nope...we had NO idea when the picture would be taken...

Seriously, I was too scared to even breathe, much less scream

But...we not only survived the two days of screaming in the sun...we added a day of the zoo to the end of our vacation.  Now, in hindsight, I do think that the zoo would have probably been better placed as Day 1 due to the fact that half the layout is UPhill...and not a one of us had the energy to move faster than a pack of snails...  It was fun but at the end of the day, we all resembled this little guy:

The book vacay, tho, was just as intense and captivating.  After reading Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs...I was won over.  I mean it ~ the woman has my reader's heart in the palm of her hand.  So much so that I purchased the first three books in her Scotland Lowlands series from Amazon...and then proceeded to devour all of them in less than a week!!!  What can I say??  I'm a sucker for biblical stories retold in a living, breathing, historical fiction kind of format.

These books tell the story of Jacob who would later become father to the nation of Isreal....but first became husband to two wives after his uncle tricks him.  Fleeing the anger of his brother (after stealing his father's blessing from him), Jacob (named Jamie in this story) ran to his mother's family for safety and a wife.  He falls in love with Rachel (here she is called Rose) and makes a deal with his uncle to work for 7 years for her hand in marriage.  His uncle agrees, but on the night of the wedding switches Rachel for her older sister Leah (whose is called Leana in this series).  Jacob wakes in the morning to find the "wrong" woman in his bed and is forced into an agreement to work another 7 years for the "right" wife...and spends all that time trying to please the two women now bound to him. 

For the sake of the time and place setting of her story (late 1700's Scotland), Liz changes a bit of the storyline to make it current but she worked very hard to keep the faith of the hearts alive...and I found myself unable to walk away from the compellingly woven story...and I have to admit that I even wept like I knew these people in the last book.  (...Yes, yes...sissy la-la strikes again...)  You know I must've liked them cuz this was a review I didn't have to do...Liz is just my kind of author as she compels me into her pages while using the story to push me back towards God.  :)

*sigh*

Ok, ok.  The deep, dirty pile'o'laundry calls my name, but I just wanted to check in with everyone and say that I hope that your Spring Break was just as fun as mine...altho I hope you have more energy left over cuz, sheesh!!!  I am going to have to nap every day this week to make up for all that walking and sun!!! :) 

Missed you all muchly...

Looking up as always...