Home Again!

Well, we made it! Just under 4,000 miles and we're all still in one piece! ... well mostly. I, Shelly, have a pesky gallbladder this is hollaring to be removed ... so that is on the agenda for this week. Still waiting to get into the doctor. Hopefully they can do laproscopy and have me on the mend before ya know it.

In the meantime, we got 4 major pieces of mail!!! .... we are SO happy to have in our hands all three passports and our FBI clearance. We are just waiting on CIS approval. That along with some other items needing re-notarized, we are making headway on the great paper chase.

Our trip was overall wonderful, even though Shelly had several days of not feeling well. We all made it through with not catching any nasty bugs of which we are always grateful for!

We were able to stop in St. Louis and see Shelly's brother and his wife. Their "hospitality on the road" was amazing! They met us at the zoo for a very warm and wonderful time. (Little did we know that would be one of the cooler days on the trip!!, the rest was usually 100 and higher.) We then went to the hotel they had gotten for us complete with a large outdoor pool where the boys swam for hours!, while we got to enjoy a great visit. They brought pizzas and homemade brownies. Naomi could not be happier that Aunt Susann remembered her favorite food! - chocolate. :) That visit ended way to short and it was time to head on to TN.

We enjoyed a very warm stay in the Great Smokey Mountains. Now, we knew we were going "to a house in the mountains", but we had no idea how literal that actually was! Let's just say David did all the driving and Shelly did not always keep her eyes open. Ha. We will be forever grateful to the Cross family for opening up their home to us.

After a week there, we treked on down to Georgia ... just to see if we could find any hotter temperatures to enjoy. Just kidding. (It WAS hotter there, by the way.) Our time with the Reimers family was so wonderful. Even though we got to stay over two nights, it ended all too quickly. It was such an encouragement to see a family raising up all their little ones to the glory of God. We will treasure our time with them for a long, long time.

Then it was time for the LONG trek back to ND. It went remarkably smooth ... other than 20 miles of a NASTY storm near Omaha. Thankfully we never had to dive into the ditches to escape the tornadoes. The temp went from 101 to 67 in less than 30 minutes! High winds and heavy rains that followed made for some unpleasant driving. It was almost strange to drive today without the sun beating through the windows on us. Boy were we grateful for A/C all this trip!

We enjoyed time away as a family to really reflect on our lives. It was a long-overdue trip. We're anxious to get Shelly's surgery over with and onto our fall plans. We'd appreciate your prayers through this time. We have boxes of supplies sitting here ready to be put to use for the Stamp a Child Home project as well. They may just have to sit a few days. :)