Category: Vacation

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Senior Year Reflection

Some days I wish I had a telepathic thought converter that would take the thoughts that I have and transfer them to a document. It would definitely make writing my blogs so much easier. It seems like I have all these thoughts and experiences that fly through my mind’s eye in a day, and I don’t want to forget any of the details of what I think or remember.

As I move through the seasons of the year, it triggers these memories of the life I have lived and the emotions that flood my being are something too much to communicate or even try to express in any way, so most time they are just held in. Until the right moment presents itself to release them. For me, that is most times when I’m alone, or with my amazing wife, Chrissy.  I think perhaps I do this because it’s a safe environment for me to be me.

One thing I am discovering is that the more I do write, the more I’m letting some of the inner me out. The hard part is that even those who know me are perhaps are seeing a different side to me that most may have never known or seen. This is actually a bit intimidating and at the same time, freeing.

So, what’s with all the self-reflection and such? Over the last few months, Chrissy and I have been through some difficult times…the kind of things that cause everyone who goes through them to question everything, and that is okay. It’s actually has made us think and talk about things that we normally don’t discuss, and that has been good. In the mist of all this, life just keeps going on. It hits me now that we have plans that we have made and committed to rapidly approaching.

For example, a trip we have planned with our entire family is coming up soon. This may not seem to be a big deal, but somehow, we have grown our family to a total of 12 people and I’m sure there will be future additions to that number. Still, that’s a lot of people, especially to go on a trip with! This trip is one of those special trips that Chrissy and I really wanted to have happen. See, this year we have a high school senior in our home. Now, yes, we have had this before- 3 times before to be exact.

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The first child graduating was difficult and thinking about all that goes with your first born moving on to the next phase of their lives with all the unknown things and hopes and dreams you have for them and that they have for themselves. Then they move out, get married and all of a sudden, you’re a grandparent. Whew, looking back that was pretty quick, and before we knew it, we had 2 more graduates, another grandbaby, and another wedding, followed by 2 more grandkids. Talk about a blur. That brings me to the moment of reflection over the final of the four. The baby of the family.

Then it starts to creep in. This will be that last time you will be doing this senior thing. Not only that, but what you have done for the last 27 years is going to change a bit, because all the kids are soon going to be out on their own. Oh, sure they may linger in the nest for a bit longer, and that is all cool. No rush on our part.

What I think is the hardest part is remembering what you have done or not done and not being able to change that at all. If you stay in that place too long, you can start to second guess all you have done and whether or not it was the best for them.

A friend has a jar of marbles on his desk representing the number of weekends he has left before his first-born graduates. This was pretty cool to watch his countdown, but unconsciously I was having my own countdown without the marbles. I lost all mine after kid 2 or 3. (I feel a bit like the Lost Boy “Tootles” from Peter Pan, he lost his marbles too.) I believe that I almost have not wanted to think about this season of life coming, but here it is.

I want to say that I am so very proud of all my kids, what they are doing, and who they are becoming. I’m so impressed with the people they have become and are going to be. People full of God’s love and kindness, people who have courage as well as integrity. One of the best things has been to see how they take care of each other and hold each other accountable to the level of what it really means to be a “Hunter.”

For you Si-guy, my daredevil, the world’s most okay-est barista. I can only start to say how proud I am of you and all that you have accomplished. I am very excited to see where you go and what you do in the coming years. As I have always told you kids, whatever you want to do you can accomplish, just be sure to lay your plans out before the Lord and let Him have the final say on your endeavors. Follow him and walk in His ways. Always keep Him the most important thing in your life.

Stay humble and teachable. Be observant, always seeing what others do and don’t do. This will help you make wise choices. Be bold and passionate about what you believe in, especially when others try to steal your joy and passion about what you believe to be right. Let their words and intentions build you up in a positive way, not letting them destroy or devour you. Those who try to bully or humiliate you are only trying to bring you down to their level because they have a desire be like you in some way, but since they are struggling to make it where to where you are, they try to pull you down to where they are. Be merciful to them, show them love and grace in their ignorance. Still, beware not to fall into the same pit with those you secretly look up to also.

Gather friends to walk with you on this adventure; choose friends that you can trust, ones that will edify you and that are strong in your weak areas, so that they can join you in obtaining your goals. This makes the achievement of the goal you set so much sweeter because you have others surrounding you who genuinely care about you and what you’re working to achieve.

When you outgrow others, don’t be bitter, but be full of compassion and understanding. Stay gentle with an open mind. Keep good boundaries and hold firm to them; good boundaries can protect you from strife and heartache. Breathe deep, experience life and all the beauty that God has place in it for you. Be kind to others and most times they will be kind to you. Always remember where you’re from, and that you are a Hunter, and more importantly, you are a child of the King of Kings.

Always remember:

 

God loves you more than anyone.

Love him more than anything or anyone and love those around you as yourself.

Always be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Do everything that you do for the glory of God.

Your Mom and Dad are proud of you and love you more than anyone ever could!

 

I believe, if you have more than one child, the last is always the one you reflect on the most. You also hope you did all you could to help them be the person God showed you that they could become. Being parent is hard, but it can be the best thing you ever do. Then you become Popz and Abi, and it gets indescribably better!

 

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Shorts on the Ground

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Over the past few weeks I have been feeling a bit nostalgic, so like any dad who feels like reliving the past, I went out to my garage. Now, why would I go to the garage you may ask. Great question! I went to the garage because, if you know me for any period of time, you will know that, no matter where I live, I have a magic garage.
Side Note: I have a reputation for keeping things. I’m not a hoarder, but I could be. My garage holds some of the most amazing treasures. I had a friend that used to say “Whatever you need just ask Butch to see if he has it in his garage.” Yes, sometimes I did have things that people needed or we needed for ministry. I didn’t get the title of Kid Ministry MacGyver for nothing. That, my friends is another story itself, for another time.
So, I went to my garage and found a box of old video tapes that held our family history. Looking though these tapes made me realize that we could have had a video on America’s Funniest Videos every week for an entire year. It also jogged my memory of our first video camera and the time we took it on vacation.
Our oldest son, Ben, was just turning two. This would have been our first real family vacation. So, Chrissy and I decided to go back to the place where we spent our honeymoon, Assateague Island, in Maryland, close to Ocean City. Since we enjoyed the area so much, we wanted to go back to the place where we created some very special memories camping on the beach.
Side Note: Honeymooning on the beach sounds super romantic, and we thought so too, when we planned it. Let’s just say, sand plus newlyweds in a small pup tent on a beach teeming with wild horses while a hurricane heads inland creates a situation that could test even the strongest of marriages. I almost forgot about the pesky state bird, otherwise known as the mosquito
Back to the vacation. We made plans to vist Assateague Island for a day while camping on the mainland at a nice wooded campground in Ocean City, that sprayed for mosquitoes.
Packing for our big day at the beach, I kept in mind that this was our two-year-old son’s first time to the ocean. All the things that my mom had warned me about ran through my head. “Watch out for the undertow, when you were a baby you got rolled so bad that you had sand for days coming out of you.” And Chrissy’s Nanny, “Don’t forget to put a lot of sun screen on.” With all these voices in my head, I could hardly hear myself think. The biggest thing in my mind was making sure we had the cameras, the regular one and the video camera too.
On this special day, I thought to myself (louder than all the other voices), “I want my boy to have a great time at the beach. He needs a boogie board! Yeah, he’ll love a boogie board!” I really don’t know why I thought that. Still, we stopped on the way to the beach at a small store to buy the cheapest styrofoam boogie board I could find because things were tight on this vacation. Once I had boogie board loaded in the car, we were set to go. Whoo-hoo off to the beach! On the way into the beach area, we saw the wild horses, this was a plus. They just roam anywhere and everywhere they please; it’s very cool! We even have a picture of one sticking its head in our car window!
Finally, at the beach, we grabbed all our stuff and headed down to the water to pick our spot for the day. It was great, the sun was shining, temperature was perfect with a nice cool breeze blowing. As the wind blew off the waves, it picked up salt that you could taste from the mist of the crashing waves, it was a gorgeous July day. The best part was that the beach was not very crowded.
We did all the things you would imagine parents doing with their child at the seashore for the first time. Ben loved playing in the lapping waves of the ocean. Chrissy took pictures and occasionally, we would use the camcorder to capture some priceless moments for our little family.
After a while, I took the boogie board down to the water for Ben to ride. I placed him on it, sitting down. I don’t know what I expected to happen, but here’s what did happen. A wave came in and knocked him right off. Epic dad fail on this one, I thought. So, I marched my sand-covered, squalling son up to his mother, so she could comfort him. After all, I had just let him get tossed around by the ocean tide.
So then, me being me, I decided to show my son that boogie boards could be fun. I said, “Ben, watch Daddy do it!” I grabbed the boogie board, and ran down to the water. I waded out into deeper water and waited for just the right wave to roll in. I looked out to see if Ben is watching, and I saw Chrissy getting the camcorder ready.
And then it was now or never; the water sucked back and I knew it was going to be a big one. I readied the board and jumped as high as my short legs would take me and landed on the crest of the wave! I remember thinking, “This is awesome! I’m riding a wave! Yes!”
I jumped off the board just before the wave crashed down onto the sandy beach. I ran up to Chrissy and Ben, out of breath, and exclaimed “I did it!  Did you see that! I was great! Yeah baby!”
Chrissy said, “Sorry, I didn’t get it you’ll have to go do it again.” I now believe she secretly knew what would happen next and just wanted to egg me on to make sure it happened. I was, oh, too willing. I was like a dog playing fetch with his favorite ball. You know right before the dog’s master tosses the ball, he’s so excited to get the ball. Yup, that was me.
So Chrissy readied the camera, ben sat playing at her feet. I galloped down to the edge of the ocean with the boogie board over my head like I was some champion surfer ready to rip some gnarly swells. I made my way through the crashing waves out quite a bit further than before. I positioned myself, and waited for the perfect wave.
I could see Chrissy recording as I waited for my dream wave. I waved to her with a thumb up. I was ready for this epic moment. Just then the water powerfully pulled quickly past my legs sucking my feet into the sand. I looked over my shoulder this was a huge wave! It was quickly rolling towards me, building momentum. Higher and higher it went.
I bent at my knees and with all I had jumped into the air at just the right moment to be caught on the top of the wave. Cowabunga dude! I was riding on top of this wave! The rush of water around me was exhilarating, the adrenaline was pumping though my body. It was like the rush you get when riding a smooth roller coaster, but a 100 times better. The wave was accelerating, and with every foot it got closer to its crashing destination.
Then, just before I could jump off the boogie board, the wave took me by surprise curling under me only to drop me, fast and hard head-first onto the shore. I hit the sand with an audible crunch. I was involuntarily rolling through the water, gasping for air. I could feel my heart pounding. I clawed at the shifting sand to get my balance and pull myself up out of the water. I shook off the water from my head and wiped the salt from my eyes. I could feel sand in places you never want to feel sand.
What seemed like an eternity only took seconds. I crawled to my knees. Still being pummeled by aftershock waves. The tide rolled out enough for me to get to my feet and somewhat get my bearings.
I desperately looked for my wife on the beach. I thought to myself well, that was definitely spectacular! Though blurry eyes, I saw Chrissy laughing hysterically all the while frantically tring to get the camera lined up with where I was now standing. I waved to her laughing all the while trying to get some forward motion going.
There are those times in life when things happen, and you know you just came through something that could have had disastrous results, only to realize the worst had not hit yet.
That is when I felt it. The cool breeze and water lapping bare skin in a place, well, a place that should have been covered. I looked down and terror struck me to the core only to realize that my swim trunks were gone. I quickly threw myself down into the shallow water. Fumbling around like a fish out of water. I was flopping around as I tried to grab my shorts that had luckily got hung up on one of my feet.
I quickly maneuvered my other leg into my swim shorts and pulled them up, filling them with even more sand in the process. I embarrassingly looked around to see who else had caught an eye full of me in all my God-given glory. To my surprise, I didn’t see anyone running in horror or pointing and laughing, well, no one  except Chrissy.
Side Note: Thinking back to this experience, all I can think of is the You Tube song, “Pants on the ground, Pants on the ground, look’n like a fool with your pants on the ground!” That was me. I was a naked fool!
My attention then turned to retrieving my white Styrofoam boogie board. After paying good money for it, I wasn’t going to lose this thing. Right at that moment, I felt something smack me in the back of my legs. I turned to see what it was– it was a piece of Styrofoam. I bent over and grabbed it for a closer examination. It looked like a piece of someone’s boogie board, I wondered who broke their boogie board.  As I look down the beach, I saw 2 more white pieces being pushed up on the beach and it sadly occurred to me that it was my boogie board.
I gathered my wits, picked up what was left of my pride, and retrieved the rest of what was left of the board. I than sheepishly slogged up to Chrissy and Ben. Chrissy was reviewing her newly captured footage of my major wipeout. She looked up at me, snickering all the while and said “This is going to get us 10,000 dollars!” Then she disappointedly said, “Oh no! I missed you losing your shorts! I guess I just couldn’t find you in the camera. Darn, that would have been awesome,” she said. We both laughed, and I sat down to nurse my wounds.
Not only did I lose my shorts, demolish a boogie board and hurt some of my pride, I also had bright red welts across my chest and under my chin where the board had hit me when it exploded under the impact of the wave. I was a washed-up man.

Life has always been an adventure with the Hunter Clan– even at the very beginning!
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Frogs, Frogs, and More Frogs!


Frogs, Frogs, and More Frogs!
Well, I have been thinking on this all week! Now it’s time for one of the Hunter Clan’s Stories that frequently get repeated around the dinner table on Sunday evenings.
I have to start out by saying I totally understand fears and phobias. If you follow my blog, you will find out about some of my own craziness soon.
 Today, I need to focus in on the love of my life, Chrissy. If you have ever been around Chrissy for any extended amount of time you will learn that she has a very high dislike for things the slither, hop, or wriggle quickly across the earth.
The two creatures for Chrissy, that evoke a blood curdling shriek with dancing and prancing around, like one of those African tribes men doing a rain dance, followed by a full-blown panic attack, are frogs and toads.
I think this behavior stemmed from a childhood experience of  watching  her mom rescue a frog from a snake’s mouth. Chrissy watched as her mother took a garden rake and slammed it down on a poor un-suspecting snake enjoying a plump froggy dinner. The rake hit the snake behind the head, and  I’m told the force of the deathblow forced the frog from the snake’s mouth and projected it across the yard.
This traumatic experience has left a scar which makes her absolutely disgusted by amphibians. Then again, it could have been the so-called toad farms that her brothers kept in the window wells of the house. Either way she can’t stand these creatures.
One last bit of information you need to know before the story is that Chrissy is an amazing mom and whole-heartedly believes in homeschooling. She has homeschooled all four of our children. With that said, sometimes her fears will be overcome for the sake of an investigative learning experience. This can be an awesome thing, but then again it can bring on some of the most horrifying tales to be told.
One summer we had been given an amazing gift of a week in a friend’s family cabin in upper Wisconsin. We had just started a new ministry months earlier and money, well, it was tight. At this time vacations were unheard of for our family. To sum up vacations for us at that time, I will borrow some lyrics from one of my favorite artists Family Force Five, “Never heard of vacation, I think they give those away on the radio station.” Yup, that was us.
The cabin was located on a remote lake in the middle of nowhere. If Walgreens was going to have a store on every corner, they must not have heard about this place; even the closest Wal-Mart was about 75 miles away! This was not off the grid, this was beyond off the grid. It was fabulous!
We had our 4 kids and two dogs, our sweet Dalmatian, Lily, and a dumb Doberman named Maximus Decimus Meridius. (He was named after the main character from the movie The Gladiator, and that’s another story all together– “Are you not entertained?”) Anyway, we called him Max for short.
 We packed up all our necessities in our newly acquired GMC Safari van. (By newly acquired, I mean we were blessed by another family with the van as a gift.) Again, to say that we were tight would be an understatement. We were so tight in the van that I had to stop the van and get out to change our minds on what direction we were going. That didn’t matter to us. We were on vacay! WhooHoo!
When we arrived, it was amazing. We were on a lake- we had a row boat with a 20 hp outboard on it. The kids were like, “Awesome, we can tube!” We also had access to 4 wheelers and acres of forest to explore. That week we explored, fished and hiked. If we could do it, we did. We even did some schooling with the kids. It’s great when you can teach kids without them knowing that you’re teaching them. If I remember correctly, it started out as a contest. Who could catch the biggest bullfrog?
Then once the frogs were caught, we had a brave lesson on amphibians by Chrissy. I don’t remember who it was but I believe it was Jonah and Silas that kept the contest going throughout the week.
The week came to a close with wonderful memories and many adventures– all great stories to tell. I do remember one of the kids asking for a box as we were packing the car. I found one for them in the craziness of packing the van back up for the 6-hour trip home. I had no idea why they wanted it or who needed it. I just assumed that Chrissy needed it for something. Little did I know we were going to be secretly transporting four huge bullfrogs from the Wisconsin cabin to Chicago.
As with most of our family adventures, we left behind schedule, but figured we would make up time once we reached the interstate highway. Boy, we couldn’t have been more wrong. The first part of the trip was great. Kids were calm, the dogs we settled, the 4-40 air conditioning was on.
Side Note: This is a very special high tech type of AC. It requires four windows rolled down and maintaining a speed of 40mph. The breeze flowing through the van cooled us down nicely. In other words, the AC didn’t work great, and having the windows down was better.
Like I was saying, the first part of the trip was great. Wind in our faces, music on the radio, kids and dogs mostly zonked. Chrissy was doing what she does on trips, she was reading something.
Side Note: Not much will ever interrupt her. I mean, the kids could be setting off fireworks in the back seat and she would be oblivious. Okay, perhaps not fireworks but something close to it.  Like Silas teasing his sister, trying convince Tori that the  snow crab claws that he pocketed from the Chinese buffet will make great hair barrettes.  You get the picture.
Then we were coming up on the Illinois/Wisconsin line and traffic started to get heavy. We were used to this but then we saw the cause– road construction.  From that point, it was stop and start, and even a few sudden stops. Finally, traffic opened up, and we were flying, going down the road with the flow of traffic. That is when I heard from the back seats some sort of commotion. I looked in the rearview mirror to see the kids frantically looking at each other with panic on their faces. Nuts, I forgot to tell you about the camcorder.
Side Note: On this trip our oldest son Ben decided that he would document the family adventure with our camcorder.  He was doing interviews, surprise tapings, and so on. Everyone was getting somewhat annoyed with him.
Okay, so looking in the mirror, I thought, “Great, what did you do now, Ben? Our eyes met, and I knew right then that something was wrong. The dogs are moving around the van, agitated and excited. Three of the kids begin anxiously searching the van floor for something. All I see are feet and legs in the air. All the while, Ben is recording. He has this sheepish grin on his face. It’s the kind of look that kids have when they know something big is going to happen, and they want to be a part of it, be it good or bad.
Don’t forget, Chrissy is focused on her book in the front seat. I turn my head to look back at the kids and ask, “What’s going on?” when I see it. Remember the box that I gave the kids while packing the van? Yeah, it wasn’t for Chrissy. I see the open box holding one of the huge frogs that the kids had caught at the cabin. I immediately ask, “What are you doing with that? At that moment I hear someone yell, “I was just checking on them!” That’s right it was plural, more than one. The rest well… the rest is is now known as the Frog Incident of ‘04.
The kids started loudly blaming each other and the dogs started going nuts. Meanwhile, Chrissy is still reading, totally oblivious to the situation. And we’re still traveling with the flow traffic.
Then some one yells, “I found one,” and I hear a loud “CROAK.” Then “Oh, there’s another one!” Then “Grab Max!” “Lily’s going to eat them!” “Wow! They’re fast!”
Finally, all this commotion broke through Chrissy’s reading focus. She looked at me and said, “What is going…” Right then midsentence, I saw a bullfrog stretched out like it was making an Olympic long jump, fly through the air into the front of the van, smack into the windshield, only to turn around and launch itself over Chrissy’s head. I remember yelling “Noooooo!” while trying to drive straight and grab the frog all at once.
The van was shaking with all the commotion.
The look of sheer horror on my beautiful bride’s face was terrifying, even to me. I have never seen anyone remove a seatbelt so fast in all my life, all the while screaming. She hurled her book at the rocketing, ribbiting creature– only to hit me with it. Watching her try to escape this frog, reminded me of cartoon characters trying to run but not going anywhere. The legs are moving, but they have no forward motion. She flew out of her seat and wedged herself up on the dash of the van.
It was only by the grace of God that we didn’t crash. Of course this is all happening in slow motion. Jumping frogs,  screaming wife, and next thing I saw was the camcorder flying through the air. It landed with a bounce on the passenger seat where Chrissy was sitting. I’m yelling, half laughing, “Get those frogs!” The kids are scrambling, yelling, grabbing frogs. I have a hyperventilating woman on the dash of the van.
I can only imagine what people were seeing or thinking as I tried to get to the side of the highway. 
I pull the van off to the side of the road, the side door flies open, and kids pour out with frogs in hands raised over their heads like they just won a major competition. I get out and run around to the other side of the van. Open my wife’s door and peel her off the dashboard.
I was sure that I would have to give her CPR or call an ambulance. I gave her a bag to breath in and out of as she sat on the edge of the van seat, in a somewhat catatonic state. I thought this would take years of rehabilitation and family counseling to recover from this one.
I somehow convinced her that the frogs are all accounted for, and I promised that we would release them on the side of the road.
After calming everyone down and reloading everyone back into the van, we had a talk about how we needed to respect all living things by leaving them in their own habitat.
We then discovered the camcorder on the floor between the front seats still recording. I remember that we were all so excited, because we had the video that was going to win us $10,000.00 on America’s Funniest Home Videos. But, after reviewing the tape we discovered that our budding videographer didn’t catch much video of the event. The only thing he caught was the audio of the whole ordeal. Which was very funny. Unfortunately, I can’t find the tape to share even the audio now.
So, this has so many life lessons and applications. The biggest thing the kids learned was, if you want to see mom freak out, just trap her in a small space with a scared amphibian! That friend’s, is the story of the Frogs from Wisconsin.

Don’t forget to comment, share your thoughts, and subscribe. Watch for next week’s story. “Turkey Breast, Not Turkey Roll!”