Back Home in Houston

Back home from an Alaskan Adventure. The trip was fabulous! I was thinking last night how much anticipated this trip has been and after returning home there isn't a let down that it could have been more or better. It was the best! I will try in the coming days to write about the week. The above is one of my favorite pictures. We decided on the first night the scenery was too beautiful to close the curtains at night. Really, only whales and distant cruise ships could see in. I woke up to see the moon and a passing cruise ship in the far distance. I woke up Dena cause I knew she would not want to sleep through this. I think we took pictures every night. When we were in Alaska, there never really was a dark night. The sun didn't set until 10:15 and sunrise around 4:00 am.
We had sunny days in Juneau, Hubbard Glacier, Ketchican, and Victoria. Only in Sitka did we have a misty, overcast day.
I will tell you we had quite the adventure getting to the ship. The day began for me at 3:00 am. Roy took me to Dena's around 4:30 am. We decided to use a town car service to take us and then pick us up at the airport. Our pick up was scheduled for 4:45 and it was getting close to 5:00. I gave him a call. He was waiting for us at the wrong address, but he was quick to find us and get us to the airport. The flight was uneventful and everything going smoothly until we got to Sacramento to find out our flight to Seattle was going to be late. Finally the flight arrived and the crew on this Southwest flight was a fun and engaging crew. They sang to us and helped keep up entertained so as not to worry about missing the ship. In fact they radioed ahead to the Seattle airport that our luggage needed to be unloaded immediately and they were true to their word. We picked up our luggage and were on the bus in 10 minutes. I was the last person on the ship that day. For weeks before the trip I had been praying, asking God for His favor. Sitting there in the Sacramento airport Dena and I continued to pray for God's favor. He is so good and surrounded us with favor as a shield. Psalm 5:12 This was the beginning of a week filled with God Stops, Moments and Delight. Each time we heard the phrase that sounded something like, wow, we have never seen anything like this before or how unusual a site was, Dena and I just looked at one another and smiled.
Last night as our plane began making its descent into Houston, the pilot announced that the airport had been closed and he thought we would be circling for awhile. Then he said, it has now reopened. We arrived and saw a double rainbow...I looked at Dena and smiled. What a welcome home from the Lord.