Let the Good Times Roll

We made one more stop in our crazy, two-week trip to the states: 

New Orleans!

Some of you may remember that last year on our way to the states we stopped off in Amsterdam for a few days to visit some dear friends. Well, those same friends are living in the states this fall, so we decided to arrange another little meet-up. However, this time, since we were meeting on the same side of the ocean where all the grandparents (a.k.a. babysitters) live, we made this one a parents only trip!  

We just had two short nights in town, but we crammed them full of fun...and food! I mean, how can you not enjoy eating in a town like New Orleans? We savored every bite of gumbo, shrimp creole, jambalaya, red beans & rice, bread pudding, and of course beignets!

We were a bit amused when the trip was over to see how many photos we had taken of us eating!

This meal was amazing...

 and this one... 

 and this one wasn't too bad, either!

We did take a few non-eating pics, like this one of me and Ashlie by the river...

and this one of the guys. I'm pretty sure their expressions mean, "Please can we go in one more cute little shop in the French Quarter? Please? Please?" They may have had their fill of home decor stores, but they never hesitated to follow us into the candy stores. In fact, they often led the way. I think Jason made it a personal mission to sample all the pralines in New Orleans and decide which was his favorite. 

One afternoon, we rode the trolley out St. Charles Avenue and admired all the beautiful old homes. Then we rode it back into town and picked up our shopping and eating right where we left off!

We had such a great time being with good friends and just relaxing for a few days before we made our trek back across the ocean. It was a perfect end to another whirlwind trip to the states. 

Sweet Reunions

When they weren't smiling sweetly or making silly faces for family photos (see previous post), our kids were soaking up all the precious time with friends and family. Uncle Andy got to hang around a few days longer than the other aunts and uncles, so he got in some extra niece-and-nephew time. 

They loved story time...

and ride down the hill on the skateboard time!

After a few more days at Mimi and Papaw's, we headed to Mississippi, where we got to see even more friends and family. We visited Gran one day and spent some time at her house.

Lee Anna was so excited to give her the vase that she had hand painted for her!

Here are the kids, ready for their meal at Gran's. As usual, she fixed way more food than we could possibly eat. And as usual, it was delicious!

Gran gave us our Christmas presents while we were there, and Sawyer's gift included a frisbee. It got a good workout that afternoon in the yard, as did we!

We also got to visit Grandmother and spend some time catching up with her. It was wonderful to see her!

Here she is with three of her many great-grandchildren. 

And the kids got lots of good playtime with these sweet friends!

It was such a blessing to get to go so many places and see so many special people. We are grateful!

Say Cheese!

Our first weekend in the states was a big family weekend. Everyone was in town to celebrate Papaw's retirement. Since the whole crew was there, we seized the chance to take some family photos. The whole tie-wearing thing sort of started out as a joke, when I told Jason (who wanted to wear one) that there was no way either of my brothers would be wearing a tie for the pictures. Well, the next thing I knew, both of my brothers came in wearing their ties (having been prompted by my silly husband, of course). By the end of the day, even poor Jesse the dog had his tie on.

We took lots...some serious and some, well, not-so-serious.

I love this crazy family!

On the Road Again

Well, we've done it again...gotten so far behind that it's just too intimidating to try to catch up. So instead I'm going to just abruptly jump ahead to our most recent trip, in hopes of just starting fresh and getting back into the blogging groove. You can just guess what we did between the beginning of August and the end of October!

Late last month, Jason and I had the incredible opportunity to attend a conference in Austria. It was breathtakingly beautiful. See?

This is the view from our hotel. We felt like we were looking at a postcard scene. We had to drive about three hours from the airport to the hotel, and the whole time we just oohed and aahed at the scenery. The trees blanketing the mountains were all changing color, and it was just delightful. But it was a good thing we enjoyed the fall scenery on the first day, because by the second day this was what those hills looked like!

 We got snow! Beautiful, peaceful, lightly-falling snow almost every day we were there. We were in heaven!

We took a few early morning walks around the town. This gorgeous church was just down the hill from our hotel.

And here we are with those beautiful snow-capped hills behind us. We wanted the kids to see that Mom & Dad were really in the snow!

Where were those kids, you ask? They were having adventures of their own! Before we left for Austria, Mimi and Papaw flew over to visit us, and we spent a fun week enjoying our city. Then, a day before Jason and I needed to leave, we packed the three kiddos up, and they headed to America with Mimi & Papaw! They spent the week at Camp Mimi, as Papaw likes to call it, and then we flew to meet them when the conference was over.

As always, they were super excited about getting to see Jesse the dog! They were also pumped because Halloween fell during that week, so they got to experience that American-style for the first time (though we have had some overseas Halloween fun in years past). 

Mimi made these amazing costumes for them. Aren't they perfect?? They were still wearing them when they picked us up at the airport later that night! We were very excited to be reunited with our little pharaoh and Cleopatras, and they were excited to show us their huge stash of candy!

It was a wonderful week! I'll be back soon with more about the next part of our trip.

Green Grass...No, it's Astroturf...Oh Well, Close Enough!

And here is the next installment of our "Catching Up From the Summer" series: Beach Vacation!

This past June, while the big kids were still in the states, we got a disappointing email informing us that the hotel where we had vacationed for the last six years would be closing immediately. We didn't even have time  for one last trip! We were all sad about not being able to return to a place that holds such special memories for us, and we weren't really sure what we would do when it was time to take another vacation.

Fortunately, we didn't have to figure it out for ourselves. Some friends called in August inviting us to join them at a new place that none of us had been to before. We were able to work our schedules out, and just a few days later we were driving up to to a beautiful villa with its own private swimming pool! It didn't take the kids long to test out the water!

It was a lovely 3-story villa with a separate apartment on each floor. There was no one on the third floor, though, so our two families had the whole place to ourselves. It was a perfect set-up. And yes, the beautiful green "grass" on either side of the pool was actually astroturf, but we didn't mind a bit.

From our second-story window, we could see the gorgeous blue sea across the street. On the second day, the dads walked over to check it out and discovered that they could walk out just a short way and see all kinds of beautiful fish with their snorkels. From that point on, we all took turns making snorkeling trips to the beach. Neither Lee Anna nor Sawyer had ever snorkeled before, but they were big fans of it by the end of the week. Lee Anna was very nervous before her first trip, but she cautiously made her way out into the water, glued to her Daddy's side. Once she realized that there was so much to see, however, she forgot all her fears and could not get enough. She came up from the water more than once just to exclaim, "Oh Daddy, it's WONDERFUL!" 

Sarah Claire didn't get to snorkel this trip, but she did enjoy the pool time. They had a collection of fake lily pads to use as decorations in the pool, but Sarah Claire thought they were way too fun to just use for decoration.

One morning, we took the kids to visit a local aquarium.

  They loved pointing out all the fish they saw!

The windows had these little ledges that Sarah Claire perched in so she could be up close to all the action. She just sat there and watched while Sawyer and Lee Anna raced around from tank to tank.

So while we're still sad that we can't return to our old favorite spot, we're glad that we were forced to try something new. We had a wonderful, relaxing week with lots of sunshine, good food, laughter and relaxation. Hmmmm...I think it's time to go back!

Roll On 18 Wheeler

Well, it's been a day or three since we posted anything here. We've got a good bit of catching up to do. We'd like to keep things in chronological order, so that means we need to start by backing up a few months...so here goes!

Some time this summer, Beth and I took a little trip to the north coast. As we were going, we took a few pictures to highlight the differences between this highway and an American interstate highway. This first one isn't that out of line--just a farmer carrying some peppers to market in the back of his pickup. Okay, so he may have put one or two more sacks than the truck was designed for, but still, it's a truck with peppers in it. 

Same deal with this next one: it's not crazy to haul some coiled up tubes in the back of a Chevy, but he might have put a few more on there than he should have. 

But then it gets a little strange. We couldn't tell if this next one was cow bones, palm branches, or some combination of both! 

These office chairs looked a lot funnier in real life. Imagine those wheels that are sticking straight up also spinning wildly in the wind! 

You might see a truck carrying scrap metal in the States. But he might pull a tarp over the top, or at least throw a rope or two over the pile to keep things in place. And yes, there's a guy sitting on top of the heap, too.

Here comes a cell phone tower, on a truck made for carrying two-by-fours! Where's the red flag that's supposed to be tied on the back? 

 And is this a sliver of a really big satellite dish? Or maybe a drainage pipe? Who knows?

Box springs! A huge stack of box springs headed to a mattress factory! At least he tied them down.

Ceramic toilets and sinks. Packed in with straw. 

We weren't sure that little rope was enough to hold that tailgate up against the weight of these hoses, but it seems to be doing okay. Really, most all of these things are also transported by trucks on I-10, but trucks in the states have closed trailers so we don't see what they're hauling. And they can't overload them and stack them up twice as high as the truck. 

This next shot was a little concerning. We were headed north, and started seeing a line of southbound trucks on our side of the divided highway on our right! They just made their own service road out of our right lanes to avoid going a long way to turn around. 

 Now this will communicate in any language! See, everything's not that different. 

Look closely at the stickers on the back of this one: Somehow this Chevy is powered by Windows XP! I guess the spell-check feature was turned off. 

As soon as we started home, we noticed a pretty strong showing of tomato trucks (no, it's not the first time we've seen lots of tomato trucks on this road!). So we started counting. In two hours, we passed by 158 trucks full of tomatoes! It takes a lot of tomatoes to feed 20 million people who all want tomatoes and tomato sauce at every single meal! 

Yes, there's an app for that. Just click on the plus every time you see a tomato truck and let the phone keep track for you. 

And that was our road trip adventure. Stay tuned for more catch up posts coming very soon!