~life in its perspective~

Good morning friends and family, this time not from along the Western Slopes of the beautiful state of Colorado, but rather from the "Air Capitol City of the World" in Wichita, Kansas.  Mike and I made the long journey from Montrose to Kansas together this time, having begun the trek shortly after school was out for me on Thursday.  I have to say right up front how nice it was to leave the driving to Mike while I sat back and navigated for him, well that is when I wasn't  extremely busy looking at the inside of my eyelids :)  I've made the journey so many times in the past 18 months that it has become a routine.  Once in the early days of last year, before Mike and I were even married, someone asked me what the most difficult part of the journey was.  Perhaps they expected me to say traversing over snow covered old Monarch Pass or even coming into and out of the deep canyons everywhere.  Hey it could have even been the long flat stretches between the state line of Kansas and the towns of Dodge and Garden Cities.  But now I remember, with a smile on my face, what my answer to them always was....

"The most difficult part of the drive for me, you ask?  The worst part?  Well that would be the 600 yards it takes to get from Mike's front door to the end of the drive way when I have to leave and go back to Kansas each time."

It shall soon be one year that this whole odyssey began for me, this unbelievable life changing event called "getting married, retiring, moving away from family/friends and home, all in one fell swoop."  Just a few days remain before we celebrate our official first year together.  As I sit here this morning typing this blog post to you, I am most thankful for the growing and changing that has occurred for me thus far and I would dare to say shall continue on in the days, months, and years that shall lie ahead. 

Even though I have always believed that what ever should happen to us in this life is always just a part of the "plan", I still had a hard time even imagining why things happened as they did last summer.  If a person could die from loneliness, homesickness, or the desire to have a "do over" and make different decisions, well then I would have been long gone by now.  I will never forget those early days and the struggles that would result because of that.  Holy cow, it's not a secret friends, I wasn't sure I'd even make it more than a few months before I would say "enough".  The idea of Mike and I actually reaching our first wedding anniversary on May 21st just didn't even seem plausible at times.  But unless something happens (and for the record, it won't!) we WILL make it in just a few days more. 

We made the nearly 670 mile journey here to celebrate with the rest of the Renfro Family the graduation of our niece Sarah.  It will be a quick trip with our turning around just as soon as the ceremony is over and heading back west towards the mountains.  But it is a trip well worth it because high school graduations come only once in this life.  This morning we are heading out to visit some of my favorite places here in Wichita.  I intend to go  to the Spice Merchant and pick up enough of my favorite teas to last a while and head over to Gander Mountain, the place where I often met friends to go shopping for things to enjoy the great outdoors with.  Mike has never been to either of those places and as I told him about them, I remembered something kind of strange.  I told Mike that the last time I had gotten the chance to go over to the Spice Merchant was on the 12th day of January in 2013.  He had a strange look on his face that I would even remember the date but I explained to him how it was that I could recall so quickly a date so "out of the blue". 

I had checked my email prior to leaving that Saturday morning long ago and saw that I had received a "friend request" from Facebook only a few minutes earlier from some guy that lived in Montrose, Colorado.  His name?  Mike Renfro.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Have a great day family and friends out there.  For everything that you have done on my behalf, no matter how great the world would deem the importance, I will always remain most beholden.  By tomorrow evening we will be back home again in south western Colorado.  When school lets out for the year on this Wednesday upcoming, I will return back to the Sunflower state for a few days more.  By June 1st, my life will continue on deep in the Rocky Mountains of the Centennial state of Colorado.  Whether I am here or I am there or anywhere in between, God is always with me.  I can live with that :)

Although it's not exactly like writing my name in the clay soil of the state I now call home, at LEAST my name was planted into the soil of the Riverbottom Park in Montrose for our field trip on Thursday.  It looked kind of good to see it there that day, a sign that I am exactly where I was intended to be at this point in my life. 

A trip to Pueblo last May, a couple of weeks before we were married.  I have grown to appreciate and enjoy that city along Highway 50 between Hutchinson and Montrose.  It's a great location to stop and rest for the night rather than making the long trip all at once.

Now I am an Olathe "pirate" and very thankful to be looking forward to year number 37 of being a teacher come the next school year.  It's back to first grade once again for me and I think I will make it just fine :)