Every kid dreams of being invisible. The power of invisibility is the stuff of science fiction and superheroes. Wouldn’t it be great to enter a room without anyone knowing you’re there? Or would it?

As the newcomer in town, I feel a bit like the Invisible (wo)Man. I walk into my children’s schools, the YMCA and yes even my church and I feel invisible sometimes, as though I’m out of phase with the world around me. It’s not that people intentionally shun me. No, it’s more that their patterns are set, relationships formed, and schedules booked. It’s hard to break in.

It seems there’s profound truth in that Cheers ditty, “Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name . . .” The thing about being invisible is that I’m the only one aware of the problem. Thus, I’m the only one who can fix the problem. That’s the tough part.

Yet as I wedge my way in, I find I’m really not alone. Other invisible souls gradually enter my view. Though I’m out of phase with the mainstream, I find I’m in phase with others I might not have noticed otherwise. So my invisibility is a gift, an opportunity to cling more tightly to my Savior, who is my comforter and who in turn challenges me to comfort others.

~Joyce

Today, we celebrate our one month anniversary in RDU, as many call it. We decided to rent a townhome in Morrisville until we feel confident the schools will work out for our children. Question: How do you fit furniture from a 2400 SF, two car garage single-family home into a 1700 SF, no garage townhome? Answer: When you figure out how to fit a gallon of milk into a quart jug, be sure to let us know. Until then, the answer is storage. At least, we didn’t have to unpack all our boxes.

We love North Carolina, but the move was a little more bumpy than expected. Our plan was to rent a furnished place until we saw the price tag. Yikes! We decided we could pay movers to pack and move our furniture again with the money we’ll save from one month’s rent! We moved into our unfurnished townhouse on August 8. On August 13, we learned our furniture was still in Seattle do to a snafu in scheduling. After several more delays and too many nights on air mattresses, our crates were finally delivered on August 28, just in time for the muggiest day since our arrival in town.

John is working hard to establish our business, Team Momentum, in the Raleigh Durham area. So here’s the honest truth – moving is tough. Finding a dentist, a good hair stylist and my way around the grocery store leaves me a little cranky at the end of the day. Have you moved lately? How did you smooth the transition? I’d love to hear!

Finally. I’m posting the conclusion to our cross country trip (two months after the fact) for those who wanted to know. We’ll get caught up soon.

Wallaces Do Whitewater?!

Call it a midlife crisis. I was looking for boat rides, nice scenic boat rides when it hit me. I’m not that old yet. I’m not ready to retire to Jungle Cruise status. Let’s go whitewater rafting. So in a moment of unbridled optimism, I made the reservation. The four of us would go rafting down the Colorado River through Arches National Park near Moab, Utah. Not the half-day trip. Nope. We want the full day adventure. Non-refundable . . . we know what that means.

As it turns out, this gamble paid off. We had the time of our lives. Samuel even swam in the 55 degree water. The scenery was breathtaking and the high water level meant we didn’t even have to paddle that hard. Samuel’s ready to make whitewater an annual tradition. We’ll see about that…

The Midwest

We headed for Denver where we celebrated the 4th of July with a day at Water World. “Didn’t you see the warning sign about whiplash?” John asked as I got off the Zoomerang with Hannah.

“What sign?” I answered trying to calm the muscle spasms seizing my neck. Who knew? The ride looked pretty harmless. I decided to watch televised fireworks from a horizontal position while John and the kids enjoyed the live version.

Next, we drove onto Kansas City where we experienced barbecue!! I do mean experienced. The aroma from the smoke drenched building spilled into the parking lot drawing us like ants to a slice of pie. During our tortuous wait for a table, we salivated as plates loaded with steaming piles of beef whisked past. I closed my eyes to enjoy the feast of smells while my stomach moaned, Oh, Seattle you were a desert wasteland when it came to barbecue but relief is two parties of four away!

Our waiter recommended burnt ends. The name and the description didn’t sound particularly appealing but when in Rome . . . What a taste sensation! Add the smoky hickory pit baked beans and my bliss was complete. John and I declared a new life statute. “Thou shalt not enter Kansas City unless thou feasteth on burnt ends.”

The kids enjoyed the day at Worlds of Fun amusement park and we loved the beautiful fountains. But for me, it was all about the beef.

Continuing eastward, we hit St. Louis where we toured the Gateway Arch and the St. Louis Zoo . I’ve never seen penguins so close. We capped off a wonderful day by visiting the Iron Barley. If you’re a fan of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”, you may have seen the Schnitzel & Spaetzle episode. No joke, the Schnitzel is to die for. We’re with Guy on this place. A big thumbs up!

Roots

From St. Louis, we headed for my old stomping grounds in Nashville. We toured the campus of my alma mater, Vanderbilt University, where my kids asked, “Why don’t you remember your way around Mom?” Something about twenty years and numerous new buildings left me a little befuddled. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the scenery and a trip to the Grand Ole Opry before heading to Atlanta.

It was the trip of a lifetime but good to finally unpack our van for a week.

Behold the Waffle Iron

Our plan was to hit Grand Coulee Dam on Wednesday, but our late departure called for a schedule revision. We had non-refundable hotel reservations in West Yellowstone and motivated by our mutual cheapness, John and I decided to make the long haul eastward. We lost an hour to Mountain Time and several hours to rest stops and running last minute errands in Spokane, as it was the last major city for days. We collapsed into our hotel room around midnight; sure we’d lost our minds for driving that far.

The next day everyone’s disposition changed, however. For it was the first day of Carbon’s Golden Malted waffles. If you’ve not road-tripped in a while, you’re probably unaware that some sales genius hit every family style motel in the country with a killer dealer on a do-it-yourself commercial waffle maker. Now hotel proprietors can boast an expanded hot continental breakfast. Throw in some hard-boiled eggs and you’ve got yourself a full American breakfast. Samuel quickly became the resident waffle-making expert. Within days, he was teaching puzzled vacationers the secret to a perfect waffle.

Did I mention Yellowstone is absolutely beautiful? We toured geysers, mud pots and waterfalls. We saw bison, deer, bald eagles, a bear, even a baby moose and his mother. Enjoy the pictures below.

Note: As of July 15, we are spending time with family in Atlanta but here are some highlights of the last month.

Getting Out of Dodge

Could it be true? We closed on our house, no hitches. God is good.

OK, we did hit one bump – packing. We bought the sales pitch – hook, line and sinker. Don’t rent a moving van. Try the convenient portable storage container approach. Here’s how it works. Some guy drops five (Five! Surely we won’t need that many. . .) storage containers on your driveway. For the next four days, you pack all your earthly possessions into the five (How on earth did we think we could fit all our stuff into five boxes!?) plywood crates. Now there are a couple of rules to keep in mind. No container can hold more than 2,000 pounds. Question: How many boxes of books constitute a ton of books? Answer: Far fewer than will actually fit into the storage container. . .bummer, guess we can’t put the kitchen table in that empty spot after all.

When packing, it’s important to remember that a truck/forklift driver with no particular attachment to Grandma’s china will lift the crate onto a flatbed truck, drive it to a storage facility, tuck it away onto some storage shelf three stories in the air, forklift it back onto a flatbed truck and then drive it 3,000 miles to another storage facility and . . .you get the picture. Needless to say, packing to prevent load shift is critical. Of course, I became far less concerned about our grill knocking into the television about 1 AM on our final night of packing. Thankfully, John persevered and strapped, cushioned and padded the final crate to withstand any kamikaze truck driver (we hope).

The next morning I realized I had inadvertently packed Samuel’s retainer. Where? In the very first box that went into the perfectly strapped, cushioned and padded crate, the one with bicycle tires jimmied to wire shelving bungeed to the grill which shielded the vacuum cleaner. We decided to make an orthodontist appointment when we got to North Carolina.

While waiting for the moving truck, we discovered several items we forgot to pack causing John to scrounge for space in the only two crates not pushing the weight limit. It’s probably best I had to make an emergency visit to the dentist for a tooth that really needs a root canal (we did a temporary fix) so I can continue to live in blissful ignorance regarding our wonderful packing job.

We had to call charity to take away several items we couldn’t fit, make a run to FedEx to mail the stuff we need but missed until the final sweep and beg our neighbors to take the remaining items, including our overflowing garbage. Never in our wildest dreams did we think it would be a problem to vacate our home by 9 PM. We pulled out of our driveway at 8:50 (a full ten minutes to spare).

Exhausted from the previous evening (three hours of sleep on the floor), we did well to drive to Ellensburg (about 90 miles east) where we crashed at the first hotel off the freeway. What a way to start a vacation!

Apparently my abulia has left me a little behind in my posts. So here’s the rest of the story.

At the end of April, we declared our house “good enough to sell,” despite numerous noble intentions left unaddressed. We listed our home and prepared for a long and grueling process given the current market conditions.

To our shock, we received a full price offer within three days (didn’t mention that detail in my last post-I was still waiting for the catch). All along, we’ve prayed for clarity, begging God to reveal Himself in a way that would cause us to declare, “Only God could do that.”

As I look at the sold sign in front of our home, I can’t help but conclude, “God did that!”

We are scheduled to close on June 25, if all goes as planned. The only contingency left is financing, which is not a slam-dunk in today’s market, so we would covet your prayers this week.

God’s mercy never ceases to amaze us. As it stands now, our family will relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina this summer. More details to come. We’re both excited and overwhelmed at the moment (deer in the headlights). If anyone has any Raleigh-Durham insights, do share!