Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Gratituesday: Sister Symposium

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I grew up without any sisters. Matt’s sister grew up without any sisters. Matt’s brother’s wife grew up without any sisters. Now that we are all married and a part of the same family? We all have each other.  As much as we love our brothers, having sisters in our adult lives has been such a special blessing.

Perhaps the biggest blessing of all is that we all love being together. Not all sisters-in-law are able to enjoy this, and the three of us don’t take it for granted.

This is a picture of us two years ago when we got together for our bi-yearly “Sister Symposium.”

Since they both live in California, I’m the only one who has to travel far. Therefore, they are kind enough to share my airplane ticket expense to make this get-together possible. We save more expense by staying in one of their homes so we don’t have to pay lodging.

What do we do during the 2-3 days we’re together? We talk, and talk, and talk. We shop (oh yeah!). We eat out. We go to the beach (this Nebraska girl’s favorite place to visit!). And we pray together: for our husbands, for our children, for our parents, for each other.

With our lives all so full and busy with working and raising families, it keeps getting harder and harder to get away and find time to spend together like this. But never once have we regretted the effort it has taken. Our time together as sisters is always rich. This week is no different.

I’m so grateful to be spending time with my sisters this week. What are you thankful for?

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Gratituesday: Coppinger Sister Symposium

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I am blessed beyond words. Not only did I marry a great man – part of my marriage package includes a great set of in-laws.

As a part of this prize package that I acquired upon becoming a Coppinger, I received two sisters-in-law: Matt’s sister, and Matt’s brother’s wife. Blessing upon blessing – all three of us get along.

Actually, to simply say that we “get along” may be an understatement. Our relationships are so much deeper than that. We laugh, we cry, we pray, we share…and oh my…we shop.

Which is what the three of us did for several days together last week. Don’t worry, we did much more than shop. We laughed, we cried, we prayed…and we ate cheesecake. It was awesome. Our get-away time together is something we started probably around eight years ago (none of us can remember exactly). Since the two of them live in California, and I live in Nebraska, we rarely see each other. Therefore, we’ve been intentional about meeting up for a long weekend every two or three years.

We now lovingly call our get-away time the “Coppinger Sister Symposium”. Sounds so much more fun and official than just a simple “sister weekend”, don’t you think? ;)

I flew to L.A. on Wednesday, and the fun began. (As did the lack of sleep. There was too much fun to be had!) 

Here we are at Malibu beach one evening. Oh my word – I couldn’t get over the beauty. And joy upon joy, with bare feet in the glorious sand – I took off for a short run. Walking and jogging on the concrete of Nebraska may never be the same again after the exhilaration I felt during and after that run. Wowza.

Oh, and we saw dolphins! And as we watched the tide roll in, we sat on a blanket and shared – praising God for our marriages and children. The shopping, the partaking of awesome California food (can you say fresh strawberries?!) was all wonderful. But that time together on the beach, I will be gushing about forever.

I came home tired, yet incredibly refreshed and encouraged. I thank God for putting these wonderful gals in my life. (And a big shout-out goes to our three husbands who willingly and sweetly took over in our homes while we enjoyed our “CSS”.)

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3,800 miles, 64 hours, Foot Funk and an Elephant

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That’s how many miles we traveled during the past three weeks…3,800. 

I never mentioned that we were going on this big, long trip until after we got home because I always feel a little bit funny announcing to all the internet that our house is home alone. But now that we’re back…I get to fill you in on the details! We drove all the way to California and back and lived to tell about it. We were able to visit many in Matt’s family and see so many great friends along the way. It was just wonderful!

Here is our family with Matt’s grandma!

We loved everything about our trip, but wow is it great to be back home! That’s a very long time to be gone and 64 hours is a very long time to be in a van. 

And did I mention that one of our boys’ shoes got wet somewhere along the way, making for some strong foot funk all the way home? It is very much time to work the newspaper treatment on those shoes. If it wasn’t the only pair of shoes he had with him on the trip, and if they weren’t his new Christmas shoes, and if I weren’t very opposed to littering, and if I wasn’t afraid of them smacking the car behind us…I might have tossed the offending shoes out the window as we drove down the interstate. 

Foot funk aside, and even though we were in the van for what felt like forever and a half…it truly was a fabulous trip. (Oh, but I might advise that you not stop for bean loaded burritos when you have a van full of boys and a 12 hour trip ahead of you.)  The boys traveled wonderfully, meaning that there were only a few times I had to holler something toward the back of the van like, “If that sword touches the back of my neck one more time I will grab it and snap it in half.”

Yes, because of course, we do travel with swords. They are a Coppinger traveling necessity.

I didn’t really threaten to snap his sword in half (out loud). That would have just been mean, and no matter how many times the sword gouged me in the face while I breathed in the foot funk, I would never be that grumpy. {cough}

Matt and I listened to a couple of books on tape, which was a great way to pass the miles. I highly recommend Quiet Strength, by Tony Dungy. Even though he was an NFL coach and talks a lot about football in his book, and even though the only thing I know about football is that some big men in helmets make big piles of themselves all over football fields in an effort to get a funny shaped ball across a line…I loved this book! Tony Dungy is a Christian who lives his faith while leading a team. The book was inspiring and encouraging. 

I have to give kudos to Matt, the great van packer. When driving to California from Nebraska with six people at Christmas time, one must do some strategic van loading. There were backpacks and gifts and suitcases and food…and on the way home…there was an elephant.

It weren’t no small elephant neither.  Nor was it stuffed so that it could be squished.

Matt’s Grandpa Coppinger had traveled to Ghana, West Africa doing mission work many times during his life. Often, he brought back a beautiful, hand crafted wooden elephant. They were all different sizes and they were all beautiful. Matt was even able to travel to Ghana with his grandpa back in 1994. (Matt and I went to Ghana together in 1995…Ghana is a very special place to us.)

The last time we got to see Grandpa was Christmas of 2008. He died just a few months later. Each grandchild has been privileged to receive one of these special elephants. We were thrilled when Grandma showed us the elephant she’d picked for us to take home – one of the biggest of the bunch. We were a little bit uncertain about how we could make it fit in the van, but we figured that if Grandpa could bring a huge elephant back on an airplane from Africa, surely we could get it from California to Nebraska.

Matt packed well…and now that elephant is sitting right in our entry way.

I have more to tell you about our trip…but right now I’ve got to go finish airing out our mini van and stuffing newspapers into sneakers. Stay tuned for more tales from our California trip. 

Don’t worry…the other parts smell much better.

Did you do any traveling over the holidays?

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