We're Back! First - my apologies for what I am calling the extended vacation from blogging... I last blogged on Christmas Day 2007 and haven't updated anything since - largely due to the crazy, crazy 2008 we have had here. The blog pics will point some of this out. I know you will cringe to see me actually quoting a literary figure here, but I feel like invoking Whitman when trying to sum up the last seven months of our lives. He said, "Do I contradict myself? / Very Well, I contradict myself. / (I am large, I contain multitudes)." Life has been rather contradictory for us - containing multitudes of positives and negatives - sometimes experienced with frightening rapidity and frequency. Great successes - disheartening setbacks, much-needed reconnections with family, and sad separations from other loved ones. In having a conversation with my brother-in-law recently I told him that it seems more and more to me like life is becoming less black and white, and the decisions I am faced with and the value judgments I have to make are less and less cut-and-dried. I rarely get the kind of answers I used to - the definite "yes" and "no's" that were once quite common. I can't decide whether this is somehow a spiritual failing, or the Lord trying to teach me understanding, compassion, humility, and faith in intuition. This sometimes spiritual vagueness seems to be an apt metaphor for what our family seems to have collectively experienced over the last little while. Striving to keep faith, move forward, choose good, and remain hopeful in spite of success and setbacks - trusting we're on the right path even when the light seems somewhat dim. It's a struggle, It's all good - we are pleased, we are tired. 
Because of this, we desperately needed a much anticipated VACATION! Which is what we just returned from. Rather than beginning with the happenings of last spring and working forward, I've arranged a series of blog entries that tells you what we've been up to most recently and then looks back over the last seven months. (This is in keeping with the already established chronology of the blog - which for some reason seems important to preserve - OCD? probably...) . We just returned from a long, long vacation out West. I start with vacation photos. We spent ten days in Island Park, Idaho where my parents have a cabin. Most of our family were there (we missed Aubrey, Matt and most of their family - but Claire was with us! Hi Claire!), and we spent ten days in God's country (I mean that - He certainly must love it more than any other place on earth - you can sense it in the sunsets, the smell of water and sage, the row after row of lodgepole pines). The Tetons to the Southeast, the Henry's Fork of the Snake outside your front door (with lots
of big fish to catch - although the whopper you see pictured below is a poor representative), Yellowstone a stone's throw to the Northeast - bliss in landscape. If I thought I could support my family catching fish there I'd give up grad school right now and move us all West - no kidding, deadly serious. After the time with the Bradfords in Island Park, we traveled to Salt Lake just long enough to meet up with Tiff's fam and head to Vegas - from God's country to the City of Sin! (Probably a much more appropriate place for the likes of us hooligans!). We went for a family reunion with the Summerhays family - and it was awesome. This was the first time we have been together with all of this side of the fam since Frank and Alora were married two years ago. It was so nice to be together. We spent most days lounging around the pool, playing with kids, making sand critters (I haven't shown you the obscene ones - after all what happens in Vegas...) and Adam spent his nights with lady luck at the roulette table (just kidding - its a felony to use student loan money for anything other than school purchases, and the stupid roulette guy wouldn't let me bet food stamps...). Tiff was able to see baby Kate (Cory and Jesica's little one) for the first time, and some much needed bonding and connecting occurred. We went without any preconceived plans of what we were going to do in Vegas, and that proved to be the perfect way to reconnect. We love our family - it was so good to be with all of you and we hope to see all again soon!!!Before moving on to the real Vacation photos, I would like to interject one last note. We arrived back to Iowa grateful to be among old friends that love us, and new friends we already feel deep affection for. In arriving home, we've been humbled -
seeing that the challenges of the first seven months of the year seem pale and miniscule compared to some of the challenges those around us have been asked to deal with now. I think if there is one motto/creed/thought that I will be holding onto over the next little while as our little family struggles with the vagaries and inconsistencies of life - and watches/helps those around us with the vagaries and inconsistencies of theirs which are unquestionably deeper and more painful - it is that sometimes in life, "all things must fail" (and I believe this to be true...all things are subject to breaking down, running foul, misfiring, failing to connect even in the moments when we most need them to), but I know that the other half of this motto is true - unquestionably true - that "charity never faileth," and that this charity is the "pure love of Christ" which if we emulate brings us happiness and peace even when all else seems dark and unsure - which is why Tiff and I will keep trying to "cleave unto charity" - the love we have for you, that you have for us, that Christ has for all of us - until we reach that time and place where everything is made sure, and life's failings of all kinds simply don't exist anymore... We Love You!
