Furlough 2008: Back to OK

We definitely took the long way from Athens to Oklahoma City! We spent one night in Frisco with our friends Ron and Georgia Freitas. Ron and Georgia work for Continent of Great Cities--they helped recruit us, train us and have been taking care of us on the field. We seem to have a routine now when we visit them: the boys go for a LONG bike ride and Georgia and I go to Ikea. A perfect day for both of us. We also got to drop by the CGC office and say hi to the rest of the staff. The new office is definitely an upgrade from the old Abilene digs!

From Frisco, we made the long and perilous journey to Denison (okay, so it was neither long nor perilous but I was just trying to jazz things up a bit!) where Basil and Rachel McClure live. Basil was one of the ministers at Mayfair when we lived there so he's been our minister, mentor, coworker, friend and personal chef. Any time we get to spend with them is an incredible blessing. (Well, the one negative aspect is that every time we see them, their boys have grown up so much that we feel incredibly old!)

We rolled into OKC in time for church on Wednesday night and spent a couple of days with the old Mayfair gang. The timing was perfect for Jackson to go to the Fall Carnival. It was so different being on the "mommy-end" of things!

Then we headed back up to Blackwell. We spent a week hanging out with the fam. We took Jackson to the pumpkin patch and then on Halloween, his grandma Debbie got to take him trick-or-treating.


That weekend, Uncle Matt arrived from Delaware. This was our big chance to see him and we used it as an opportunity to take some new Quirey family pictures.

After worshiping with the crew in Blackwell one more time, we went back to OKC to finish up our time. I've got to say, I think we could be in Oklahoma City for our whole furlough and still leave feeling unsatisfied! There are just too many people to see and some very dear people that we just can't get our fill of!

We got to go to Homecoming at Oklahoma Christian on our last weekend. I got to see some of the old Honors Program gang and Jenny and the kids came down from Nebraska to see us one more time. (Jenny, you're still my hero for making that trip alone with three kids!)

Our time on furlough was such a blessing. Furlough is always a mad dash for us and doing it with JT in tow was even more work, but it is always worth it. We love getting to see our friends and family, make new friends, worship with those we love, eat familiar food and enjoy a little down time. Our next furlough will be in 2010 and I'm already looking forward to it!

I did it! I finally finished blogging about furlough! You didn't believe I really would, did you?