Today was a Disney World day, dawn to dusk. We dragged our tired bodies to the Animal Kingdom park by 8am to be near the front of the line for rope drop (I say that so casually like I knew what that meant before yesterday), and 12.5 hours later we exited, having experienced enough thrill rides to continue feeling motion while laying down for a couple days. We were all so proud of Keegan for going on everything, even though he wasn’t so sure ahead of time, and having a great attitude of, “that was really scary, but also really fun.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about patience the past couple days, knowing that this trip is going to provide an abundance of opportunity to practice the virtue: living in such tight quarters for so many months, having to wait for a brother using the bathroom (why do boys take so long in there?), experiencing travel delays, and on and on. My hope is that if we talk about it from the beginning, and keep it in mind as something to focus on, that we’ll all grow in our patience throughout our travels and make this an even more enjoyable experience. We already had so much practice today, as anyone who has ever been to a Disney park should agree. In fact, before we even left our place this morning (which is a 3rd floor unit with no elevator), I had to run back up from the. car to our room 3 times after we all loaded up to leave–twice because we kept forgetting things, and then because I left something in the room that I had previously already brought down the first time. Whew! Already sweaty and out of breath before leaving our parking space, I was thankful my family showed great patience in that moment.
To our Bear Creek friends: we are deeply saddened and mourn with you after hearing today about the death of our friend, Victoria Wong. Our prayers go out for Will, Alex, Abby, and the rest of Victoria’s family. We’ll also be praying for the local community in your support of the Wongs and helping provide for their needs.
Michael , You have a gift of expressing yourself openly and honestly with words that describe a picture that I can visualize. Thank you. Know that you are helping us think of our similar experiences to look on them with grace. We will grow and hopefully we gain patience for the “next time” we need it. (because we all know there will be a “next time”) :=)
Lorinda
That was very good writing dad. I love the little lesson about patience. Great job
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Love this piece about patience. I am confident you will have many occasions to practice this virtue! I was excited to hear how much fun you all had at Disney and that Keegan was a trooper. I never had any doubts! Enjoy your next adventure! Love you all so much!
Your sister,
Amy
Our family went to Disney World three times and one of them was just after Christmas and before the New Year. The line was so LONG and that my younger daughter was still in the stroller. While waiting in line, I learned to talk to people who lined before, behind and next to me and the some of the conversations were really interesting and many times I ended up laughing with other tourists and the time flew by much faster! You’re wise to reflect on patience and I believe that it’s one of the characters that we all have to develop in our life time. God bless you and your family!
Thank you Ching-Ching! We were just talking about how nice it is to connect with people around us — whether other travellers or locals… We talked with a couple 2-3 days ago (woman was German; man was Icelandic)… we were in a pretty unpopulated part of Iceland and they lived there… It turned out the woman’s aunt lives in Olympia, WA! So fun putting those connections together.
Hi Michael & co,
I enjoy reading all of your updates and seeing the pictures; I know I’m not the only one living vicariously through you as you travel the world! Maybe we’ll have a group viewing of the blog this week 😉
Safe travels and keep blogging for us!
Sincerely,
Parker
Shoutout to the Reserve Rally-ers from a coffee shop/book store (Bókakaffi) in Iceland!!! 😁