Leaving the Orange Groves

The week came and went and we were soon leaving the beautiful orange groves of Valencia.  The sweet smell of their little white blooms would now be tucked away in our memories.   The orange trees are vast like our own corn fields back home yet they are harvested by hand.  Funny, back home I don't think much about where the oranges come from or the work that goes into growing  and harvesting them and then finally shipping the little beauties.  I will no longer cringe at the prices of oranges.  I will recall the efforts of the workers hunched under the trees, the crates and the farm trucks they loaded them in.

Thanks to Robert and Roxie who shared there home with us.

It was cooler in Valencia than what we had hoped but it allowed an opportunity for the girls to learn how to start a fire in a wood stove.  Annie especially enjoyed bringing the wood and kindling up from the garage and getting the warmth going for the night.

.The trails behind our house offered great hill work.  I walked the mile up to where the trail started, plugged in my ipod and began my interval work.  The trek had a slight incline with smaller rocks and I was able to move the quick pace I wanted.  The goal was to get my heart rate up, cardio going and blast my leg muscles until they couldn't go any more unlike going for a regular run.  This trail would offer just that. Sixty seconds up the trail the ascent became more drastic and the rocks got bigger.  My heart raced and my eyes jetted from left to right looking for the next safe step.  I stopped at two and a half minutes, looked back and just breathed, my head was light and I was seeing spots. This was only my first time up and I was ready to throw in the towel and go home. If I was going to get through this work out with out breaking my ankle or passing out from exhaustion I would need to focus intently on the path and my breathing.  I turned off my Ipod, took a deap breath and raced back down.  I was excited to see how much faster I could get down.  I beat my time by only10 seconds, but maybe that was okay since I was dealing with only 140 seconds.  This time I drew a start/finish line in the rocks with my heel to make it more official.  Back up I went, my body was tired so my mind had to go another place.  I looked at the large rocks pass under my gray Saucony shoes that had been white 2 months ago.  I thought of the wonderful times we've had as a family traveling and the unexpected struggles that we experienced.  It's the times that have been hard that we put our focus on God and saught his counsel.  Just like a rocky trail, your focus has to be dedicated.  The rocks became smaller and the path flattened so my confidence in myself became fuller and I began to look out towards the groves and it was then I tripped, barely escaping a full fledged fall.  There it is.  When I take my eyes off of Him I stumble.  I must keep my eyes on Him always, not just when I have big troubles.  I thought my morning run was complete after my third time down but then the my inner coach hollered at me, "Is that all you got, you're still walking and breathing, get back up that mountain!"  So, that's just what I did. 

Good-bye lovely Valencia