No more road trips till 2009!

This is a picture of my sister Cathryn's family, Rich and me with the kids and my dad and stepmom. We stopped in Tucson for a day on our way to Kingman, AZ for Thanksgiving.






And a picture of me and my sister, Cathryn.







I hadn't seen my sister since we went to Europe two years ago with my other sister, Theresa and our mom.

We decided to drive all the way through from Austin to Tucson (a LONG 14 hour drive)on Saturday (we were going to spend the night in New Mexico). That allowed us to spend all day Sunday at my mom's and not have to do any more driving until Monday when we headed out to Kingman. While at my mom's, we were able to have dinner with my sister's family and my dad and stepmom. It was GREAT to have everyone together for some rare pictures (my sister and I haven't seen my dad at the same time since I don't know how long!).

While in Kingman, we drove to Oatman, AZ on old Route 66. There we fed some wild donkeys in the street and watched an old west gun show. Then we headed off to Laughlin, NV to the mall to hit the Bath and Body Works outlet. :) The rest of the time we just kicked back and relaxed and Rich's parents home.

We are done with long road trips for 2008. The kids and I will be going to Corpus Christi in January with Michelle and Megan Williams to see Mandy. We also have another road trip planned to the Grand Canyon in May.



This is a picture of the kids with Rich's parents.

Packing

I think we are just about packed for our trip to Kingman, AZ. We leave in the morning and drive almost 10 hours to Las Cruces, NM. We got a hotel that will let us stay with the dogs. Then on Sunday, we drive for four hours to my mom's home in Tucson to see my sister Cathryn and her family, my mom, my dad and stepmom. Monday morning we will be back on the road again for about six hours to Kingman. We will start our journey home again on Saturday the 29th. We are all looking forward to the trip.

Field trips

We've been on two field trips already this week. Yesterday we went to the blood bank on a field trip with the kids' Forensic Science class. Now, the sight of blood does not bother me, but both kids were a bit wierded out by the whole thing. When we got to the lab where they separate the plasma from the red blood cells, we watched them squish the blood around in the plastic bags. I felt myself get very hot and felt like I was going to puke! I was so light headed and almost passed out. I couldn't believe it. I had to go to the bathroom during the field trip and wipe my face down with a cool rag! I guess I won't be donating blood any time soon.

Today I took the kids to the Apple Computer Store to make DVD's with pictures. I had set up this field trip and left with plenty of time to get there early. Traffic on the highway was awful and I got lost (this place is so new that it's not on my GPS yet). I was 15 minutes late for my own field trip. How embarrasing! Anyway, the kids had a blast and want to make more DVD's! They even got free tshirts out of the deal.

Finally, another update!

This picture was taken for AWANA crazy hair night. Hailey laughed all the way through dinner and forbade me from going out of the house looking like this. I went anyway and got many strange looks from the others who had merely spray painted their hair.

Austin had his 13th birthday last week and now we have a teenager in the house. Can't wait to see how that will turn out, although we are talking about Austin here (the sweet, compliant, soft hearted, repentant child). Although, when Hailey becomes a teenager, I suspect we'll be in for a real wild ride (since she's so much like me)!

We went camping a few weeks ago with the AWANA group (which meets at Grace Covenant Church)and had a great time. We are now checking out Grace Covenant Church again, since we serve there and are hanging out with the other believers there. Seem silly to attend a different church than where we serve and where we know other people. We haven't decided for sure yet where we will make our church home, though.

We are planning to drive to Kingman, AZ to spend Thanksgiving with Rich's parents. It will take us two days to get there. We leave on Saturday the 22nd and will come back on Sunday the 30th. Please pray for safety for us.

Recovered from Jet Lag and moving on

It's been almost a week now that we've been home and I can honestly say we've all finally recovered from jet lag. It took us all through Sunday or Monday to finally be over it.

We jumped back into life as soon as we returned. The kids had PE and I went to bible study on Thursday, followed by an exhausting trip to the grocery store to buy food.

We picked out a camper on Saturday, paid for it on Monday and will be picking it up this Saturday.

On Sunday, we went back to Central Baptist (I think we plan on making this our church home). We all tried out Sunday school classes for the first time and the kids came out excited and said they had fun. We had a "substitute teacher" as the regular teacher was gone, so next week we'll get a better idea if this class is for us. The music in the sanctuary during the service is still too loud for me, no matter where we sit, so I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll just have to wear earplugs.

It has cooled off here. Right now the temperature is 88 degrees and it will drop down to about 60 degrees at night. I am still loving the sun and warmth.

Rich has to go to Dallas next week from Wednesday through Friday, and then the week after that (Oct. 13-17) he is spending in San Antonio. My parents will be here that week for a visit.

Laurie

Rome, Dubrovnik and Venice

Pictures from Florence and Rome