An American Journey: A Family's Trip Across The U.S.

                                         The Grand Canyon

Our summer road trip is in the bag.  Twenty-seven days, 8,100 miles, 18 states, one astonishing national park and a million memories. We traveled to Oregon and back in just under four weeks, one big family in one big van. At times our journey was a blur -- the 710-mile drive with just one stop on our last day from Franklin, Tenn. to home comes to mind -- and yet so many other times I wanted time to stop, the sun or moon to stand absolutely still in what seemed like a perfect moment. The few brief hours at the Grand Canyon come to mind. Plenty of other moments come to mind: An evening in the cool summer air of Kanab, Utah; the mind-boggling fireworks from a distant lightning storm lighting up the New Mexico sky; the view from Highway 89 where the Vermilion Cliffs jut up from Highway 89 in Arizona after we had touched the clouds on a 7,000-foot mountain pass.

                                          Kanab, Utah

The American West is absolutely alluring. The sky is so big and blue, the canyons are carved so deep into the earth and the mountains seem to kiss the sun. The landscape alternates between the staggeringly harsh and forbidding deserts and lovely and inviting river valleys. So many times I found myself thanking God for allowing me to take the trip and share it with my family. We enjoyed reunions with so many family members, friends and supporters of ours in our mission work with TEN3 (www.ten3.org) that were most often all too brief. We made new friends and acquaintances all across the country, often of people staggered by the amount of booths we took up at restaurants, or who we encountered during a picnic on the road, or at some other family excursion. Sometimes we spied them giggling as we spilled out of the van as they watched a seemingly endless supply of Sabo lads and lasses.

                                          On a farm near McMinnville, Ore.

Our great adventure has come to a close, but I am so thankful to God that He allowed us to enjoy this time as a family. We're at a point where our older kids are forging their own paths. We managed to enjoy parts of this trip with almost all of our kids and I'm very thankful for that. We'll tell the stories of our cross-country trip for years to come, sharing laughs about what happened when Seth hopped on the teeter-totter in Weatherford, Okla. Or how Gabe and Abram and their little brothers tried to catch steelhead salmon with their hands in a small tributary of the Clackamas River. We'll relive Judah's hurling incident in Dickson, Tenn., or chasing a bull down country roads in VanLeer, Tenn., or scrambling over the rocks atop the Grand Canyon cliffs. I can still picture the vineyards cascading down the cliffs of the Columbia River Gorge, the blueberries bigger than quarters in Grandma and Grandpa Young's back yard, and the sight of the range fire in the arid Eastern Oregon hills above Interstate 84 that had ranchers on ATVs herding their cattle to safe ground. And I'll always remember the countless smiles and laughter from a family having the time of its life.

Out Of The Mouth Of Ezra: His Best Quotes

In a family of 14 kids, it takes something to distinguish yourself. Each of our kids has their giftings in  various endeavors such as music, athletics, bug catching, eating, or even eyelashes (see Judah). But hands down the Sabo who has come up with the best quotes is Ezra, now 8 years old. We can sit around as a family and laugh about his humdingers, which roll off his tongue very naturally. Here's the list of our top Ezraisms, in no particular order. What's your favorite?

1) Ezra isn't a fan of thunderstorms, particularly when he was younger. He really didn't like it when someone would leave the door open while watching the show. One time he had enough and ordered the front door shut, barking: "Don't let the thunder in!"

2) The kids -- even our older ones -- all really enjoy playing the game "Town." It entails everyone having a profession and basically operating a town. There's a banker, a sheriff, a thief (it's always Ethan), a baker and a doctor and other professionals comprising Saboville. One time Ezra was apparently under the weather so he went to go see Dr. Claire. He walked into her office and announced, "I'm here to get fixed!"

3) We were at missions training at Serving In Mission when Ezra was just 4 years old. During one of his classes the teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Ezra thought about it briefly. "I don't know," he said. "A man or something."

4) Ezra and his brothers were running around the house with their shirts off. Julie wanted to know what was up with that and why they didn't have their shirts on. Ezra was incredulous. What kind of question was that? "Because boys just do dat stuff," he said.

5) There was a certain finality to the way Ezra went about things when he was 3 or 4. There wasn't much gray area, no wiggle room, nothing to be misconstrued. He explained it best this way: "That's just how it be's!"

6) Olivia was newly potty trained and happened to be taking care of business with the bathroom door open. Ezra happened to be running by and saw her in there going potty. As he zoomed by he hollered out, "Keep pushing Olivia!"

7) Ezra was very particular about how he liked his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches back in the day. It had to be just so or it got sent back to the kitchen. But the details could get a little fuzzy and something could get lost in translation if you didn't know what Ezra's instructions entailed, such as whether he liked it cut up in halves or quarters. Taylor was making him a p.b. & j sandwich and was trying to get the particulars. An exasperated Ezra finally announced, "I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with no jelly, crust off and I want it in halvits and pennies."

8) Ezra and other kids were arguing over who would get the first brownie of the batch Claire was baking. Claire wasn't going to stand for it and asked what they would say if she sent them to bed with no brownies. Ezra responded, "I would call you the unhappiness maker."

9) Ezra and his brothers and sisters were outside riding bikes after a thunderstorm. Something didn't feel right to Ezra, however, and he hopped off his trike. Lo and behold the seat was wet. He ran around a bit and then suddenly scrunched up his face. "Hey," he said, "who peed my pants?"

Go Fourth And Blow

In celebration of Independence Day, all eyes along the Atlantic seaboard are on Hurricane Arthur. It appears at the moment that Arthur is going to stay well offshore, which means things will be fairly normal for the holiday. If you count thunderstorms and horizontal rain as normal. The forecast still calls for plenty of wind and rain on the Fourth, making the prospect for enjoying the holiday less than tantalizing. Grilling some dogs and burgers may be a bit dicey and we're also in the market for rainproof fireworks. Maybe we'll just light them off indoors so the kids don't miss out. Just kidding!

Life out here on the East Coast the past decade is so different from Oregon. I remember out there in Corvallis getting a handle on the weather by looking to the west. If I saw clouds, it's probably going to rain. If I didn't see clouds, it might rain. If I saw a mix of clouds and blue sky, it might rain. Now when I lived in Bend or Prineville on the dry side of the mountains, I still looked to the west. But didn't figure it would rain no matter how many clouds I saw.

Here in Gloucester, though, I never know where the weather will come from. It could be a Nor'Easter, a hurricane or tropical storm sweeping up from the south, or a tornado or derecho bearing down on us from the west. I had never even heard of a derecho until we moved out here. Nor did I pay much mind to hurricane season. That's all changed. We've had storms drop up to 10 inches of rain in one day -- that's a year's worth in Bend and Prineville -- on us and a violent thunderstorm with 2-3 inches of rain in short order isn't unusual. We've had tree limbs go through our bedroom window at midnight in a storm, a tree fall on our neighbor's house in a tornado, a run-of-the-mill thunderstorm send our last grill cartwheeling through the yard and for good measure we've had an earthquake, an EF-3 tornado and thundersnow.

We had one hurricane blow through a few years ago at a time when we had two visitors from Oregon. Two friends also opted to bunk over at our house, for some reason they thought it was safer in a house where people are packed in like a jar of pickles, and so we had somewhere around 19, maybe 20 people in the house. I had them all stay toward the front side of the house away from the trees in the back yard. No one got hurt, everyone was safe and what I remember most is hustling over to our neighbor's house to help him out when a tree went through his roof.

I don't remember that type of stuff in Oregon. Nor do I recall any runs on groceries when bad weather was on the horizon. Out here, the mere mention of a hurricane, or snow, or any related natural disaster  sends people in droves to the store to stock up on water, bread, milk and eggs. It can get a little crazy and I hesitate to take to the kids to the store for those trips. It might get kind of dangerous. I guess it's all part of the adventure. As Ezra used to say, "That's just the way it be's."