Moving out and Canyon of the Eagles

Pardon me while I do some backtracking.  I know you're all anxious to see and hear about our adventures here in Malaysia, but I want to start from the beginning so I don't miss anything! 

Over the course of several months, my husband and I took care of all the details of moving overseas, cancelling newspapers, forwarding mail, selling two cars, renting our house, and sorting through all our possessions.  It was an exhausting list of tasks, overwhelming at times, and was made even more challenging towards the end by the additional stresses of a lice incident and a viral rash that my younger two kids picked up somewhere.  My sanity was hanging by a thread! 

During the last week before our move, we finally sold our two cars, hired a mover to haul our stuff to long-term storage, and then thoroughly cleaned our house from top to bottom.  Now officially "homeless", we had planned a family reunion outside Burnet, Texas to enjoy time with family before leaving the country.  Boy, did we need it!

Canyon of the Eagles turned out to be the perfect retreat for our group of 22.  Both sets of parents, and all aunts, uncles, and cousins were there, except for Rebekah and Keith (we love ya'll, too!) We took over six guestrooms, with views overlooking Lake Buccanan, and enjoyed time together hiking, swimming, stargazing at the Eagle Eye Observatory (saw Saturn's rings and a supernova!), and eating at the Overlook restaurant on the premises.  Service was much too slow for the number of small children we had with us, but the food was good, and the atmosphere was very nice.  We also enjoyed a trip on the Vanishing Texas River Cruise, which took us out onto the lake.  Normally, the cruise goes down the river but was unable to, due to extreme drought conditions.  Some of us also went on a day trip to nearby Longhorn Caverns and took an informative and cool hike through the underground cave system.  In the evenings, adults enjoyed Texas BBQ on the patio and danced to live music, while the older kids played checkers or explored.  One night, the younger set watched Lilo and Stitch under the stars.  On July 4th, Aunt Susan distributed red, white, and blue glowsticks for the kids, and they took turns throwing them up in the air to resemble fireworks.  The hardest thing was saying our goodbyes . . .

We'll miss all of our friends and family and hope to see some of you here in Malaysia!