This was a quirky summer, vacation-wise. We had hoped to go to Mount Rushmore, but then our transmission died. So we put our travel budget into repairing our van and opted instead for a visit to my parents' cottage on a little lake in Michigan. That's a view from the dock.

I love going back to the cottage because it's full of family making memories. Steve and I were newly dating the first time we visited there. My parents had just bought the place and invited the whole family, new boyfriends and all, to see it. We made the 45-minute drive amidst trees set ablaze by autumn colors.

We went back to the cottage after our wedding (sans family members) for part of our honeymoon. A few years after that, we visited again, this time in the dead of winter, on January first, to retreat and pray and plan for the coming year. Steve wrote about our planning time there a while back in "Goal-Setting and the Lake Effect."

The cottage has been a place both of quiet retreat and boisterous celebrating. Last summer the whole family, including 12 grandkids, converged on the tiny 3-bedroom house. We had to borrow the next door neighbors' place to have enough beds for everyone!

In our quiet times there, we've dreamed up some crazy schemes, and some not so crazy ones. That first New Year's retreat we talked about buying a house and having a baby. We also brainstormed a little thing called Boundless. In all three of those categories, God did exceedingly, abundantly, more than we could have asked or imagined.

We launched Boundless and watched it soar. Our first baby was born and grew. And three more followed.

Now we're selling our home and planning another retreat. We're packing up the kids and going back to dream it all up again. As Steve said in his announcement over on the Boundless Line,

After 13 exciting and life-shaping years at Focus on the Family, Candice and I are leaving to start a new chapter.

Turning 40 this summer stirred up a lot of questions for me and Candice about how we should spend the next season of our lives. We still feel a strong calling to serve people in their paths to marriage and family. But we now have a distinct sense that we should do more discipleship as a couple the way that our mentors did for us years ago. And so we're taking a step of faith and expanding our humble little FamilyMaking.com site as an umbrella for a variety of ministry efforts focused on helping people to grow closer to God on their path to marriage and starting a family. We hope this independent initiative will still give us opportunities to connect with the Boundless audience in the future.

Before we get too deep into this venture, however, we're planning to head back to the cottage up in Michigan where we first dreamed up the vision for Boundless (see "Goal-Setting and the Lake Effect"). We're looking forward to a long overdue sabbatical — an opportunity to reflect on God's goodness over the past dozen years and to then expectantly follow His lead into the next season of our lives.

You can read the rest of Steve's post here.

We hope you'll join us on the journey.