We've Arrived!

I'm sitting in my mom's house and posting from her computer.  It's been a looong week, but the Lord was very good to us.  The Hawkins arrived a week ago today.  It was really neat to get caught up on all that the Lord is doing in B.C.  I can't believe it's been over 2 years since I was there last.  Time does fly quickly these days... 
  On Saturday Scott took the Hawkins around, showing them the surroundings and things about the house and church that they would need to know while we were gone.  There was a bit of a white out that day, but everything went quite well.  I was able to finish the packing and prepare the food for our last potluck the next day.
  On Sunday we arrived at the church to find that it was cold.  The furnace had quit again!  At least it was only -15 this time.  Scott called the repairman, but we still had the main service downstairs.  I can't remember if I mentioned it, but our kids all started getting sick a couple days before and Sunday they sounded awful.  Noses running, hacking coughs, red cheeks, etc...  Our church family was soooo kind.  I was planning to keep the kids downstairs and away from people, but they were actually volunteering to hold each of them and spending extra time with each of them.  God is sooo good and we LOVE the people that He's brought into our lives there in Kindersley.  Most of them were there that Sunday morning and it was a very nice farewell service.  We left after the afternoon service and drove to Moose Jaw.  Along the way we stopped in Swift Current for gas and some supper.  The kids requested Humptys and did very well.  The music in the restaurant was hymns on the radio.  That is VERY unusual these days.  On our way we saw the town that Corner Gas is supposedly filmed in.  I've never watched it, but Scott mentioned it as we were passing through.  I have pictures of most things that I'm talking about, but I think I'll do most of the writing and then do a VERY LONG Picture Post.  We stayed at a very nice Super 8 in Moose Jaw.  The next morning we drove through Estevan and saw where Preston has been working, the kids thought that was really neat and wondered if he was still there:).  It wasn't much farther til we crossed the border into N. Dakota.  We didn't have any trouble there.  They did have us open the side doors and show the contents of the roof top carrier, but it really didn't take long, since we were the only ones there.  Our first stop in N. Dakota was at a gas station.  Our GPS wouldn't hold a charge for some reason, so we purchased a couple maps along the way and went off the one we'd printed at home.  We went to a Railroad museum in Minot and the kids loved watching the trains run, ringing bells and touching other things around the place.  The man was very kind to open it up for us.  It's only open on Saturdays, but if you call and he's there, then he lets you in and shows you around the place.  We also went to a Military surplus store.  The boys were in awe of all the canteens, boots, uniforms, etc... I think they could've spent several hours there, but it was time to move on.  We stopped in Jamestown, N. Dakota for the night.  There was snow along the way and it was quite windy, but the Lord kept us safe and brought the storms each day AFTER we'd passed through the area:).
  Jamestown was a bit of an adventure.  We got a suite at the Super 8.  You could pour your own batter for the waffles and we made a run to the Super WalMart at 6 am!  The sunglasses and tennis shoes, plus Jessie the cowgirl were all special purchases that they'd been looking forward to.  I wish that I'd taken pictures of them talking to other people at breakfast and also the staff.  They thought that everybody would want to hear about where they were going, all their siblings names and ages, what they had to eat in the car, etc....  It was so funny. Some of the people thought it was great and others would ignore them.
  Day 3 was driving to Minnesota to go to the Mall of America.  There was a bit of blizzardlike conditions and bathroom emergencies while driving through the city, but we made it there and there weren't any accidents:).  It was HUGE!  We had some specific places to go to and thankfully they were all in the same corner of the mall.  The first stop was the Rainforest Cafe.  At first Garrison refused to go in.  He was afraid of the dinosaurs at the Calgary zoo because of the noise and this was the same kind of situation. We'd talked about it before and he really wanted to go.  Once we got him to touch the elephant, he realized that it was not going anywhere and really enjoyed being in there, even if he did leave his sunglasses on the whole time:)/  We went to the Underground Aquarium, which was really amazing!  We could have spent an hour watching the jellyfish, but the children wanted to see what else there was.  They were saying "Wow, neat, cool and amazing" a lot.  Caleb would peek out from under the umbrella of the stroller every once in a while, say, "I scared, I not like it" every once in awhile, but once we got to the tropical fish and turtles he perked up and looked at everything. Kiersten slept through it.  After that we went to Old Navy for the hats and the boys ended up picking out pjs too.  Kiersten had totally slimed my sweatshirt with cheese sauce from lunch, so I got a sweatshirt too.  We rode the escalator, and I think it was the first time for the boys, that they can remember anyway.  I think they also went on some in Edmonton, but that was a long time ago.  We were starting to get a bit tired, so we headed out around 3. After we left the city I drove until we arrived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was dark, but we were able to get a room at the Beaumont Hotel. It was by far the fanciest place we stayed in, but the price wasn't much more than the other.  Unfortunately on the drive there Elyssia cried off and on for about 4 hours.  She said that her head and her ear were hurting and we thought she had an ear infection.  That night she tossed and turned and kicked and moaned while sleeping.  I didn't get much sleep, but when she woke up she was just fine.  We don't know what was causing the pain, but we're thankful it didn't last any longer.  The breakfast was AWESOME!  They had biscuits and gravy, eggs, all kinds of toast, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, cereal hot and cold, hot cocoa, fruit, etc.... No, I didn't eat all of it, but between the 6 of us I think we tried just about everything there.  There was even one of those luggage racks on wheels. The kids rode on top of the luggage going to and from the room to the van.  We watched a dog training show and learned all kinds of helpful things.  We pondered taking the kids down to the pool early in the morning, but kinda ran out of time, maybe on the way back:). 
  After checking out, we headed to St. Louis Missouri.  For the record, these cities are extremely LARGE and scary to me.  Scott drove through most of them and did really well.  I was praying a lot of the way and thanking the Lord for allowing us to live on the prairies. I've come to LOVE and APPRECIATE them in a while new way on this trip.  When you get more than 8 lanes of cars zooming around at 70 mph or more you start to feel like you're in the Pixar cars movie.  Cars zooming in and out around you and many of them not bothering to signal.  St. Louis ended up seeming pretty mild compared to Louisville, Kentucky and Atlanta, Georgia.  We went up into the arch in St. Louis and it was wonderful to walk there by the Mississippi river in the sunshine.  To stretch our legs and see the kids running, jumping, laughing and having a great time.  We went up in the arch and explored the Levee Mercantile.  We're heading home that way and hope to stop for the Riverboat ride down the Mississippi.  Try some Cajun food, etc...  We were so busy exploring that we even forgot to eat lunch!  We prepared some sandwiches while driving in the car for a lot of the meals and added fruit and some milk or water to round it off.  Occasionally we bought chips or a new candy to try, but all of us ate far less than usual while traveling.
  The next stop was supposed to be at my friend, Michelle's house in Louisville, Kentucky.  We went through Illinois and stopped for gas.  We thought it would be easy to get food for supper there and head out, but it ended up being about an hour that we were there.  Scott tried his first Catfish sandwich and LOVED it!  We bought miniature pecan, apple, cherry and lemon pies.  Each on cost $1.  The pecan and the Lemon were really good.  When we arrived at the border of Kentucky it was dark.  We had directions, but ended up going around the city. When we called her she tried to explain things, but we still couldn't find the turn off.  We drove out to the town of Shelbyville, which was halfway between Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky.  They met us for breakfast the next morning and the kids hit it off right away.  I don't know if it was just like old times.  We each had several kids in tow and we didn't discuss many books:)  It was really neat to reconnect and see our kids interact with one another.  We hadn't seen each other since we were about 12 years old.  It would have been nice to spend more time with them, but I've very thankful for the time that we did have. We left at 10 am.  A later start, but one we'd tried to plan for.  What we didn't plan for was getting a little turned around in Tennessee.  It worked out okay though and we only lost about an hour.  We stopped to get some food and find a place to have a picnic.  The kids were really looking forward to that.  We stopped at the Museum of Appalachia.  If we'd had time it would have been nice to stay there for a couple hours and do the tour.  They had a really nice gift shop and part of the interior was used for Daniel Boone's house in the tv show.  When I went in there was a guy sitting in a rocking chair next to the fireplace snoring:))).  Another thing that I loved along the way was hearing all the different accents.  I don't think I could keep them all straight, but they are interesting.  We ate our lunch and let the kids walk around the parking lot while Scott and I took turns looking in the store.  I took lots of pictures and will post some of them on the next post.  We weren't sure if we'd make it to Atlanta before dark, but after calling Christina we decided to try.  The speed once we got into Atlanta was crazy!  I kinda wanted to close my eyes, but that doesn't work when you're supposed to be reading signs and looking for exits for the driver.  We stopped close to Christina's exit due to some sort of traffic jam and spend at least 30 minutes just sitting there.  We did the story of Ahab and Naboth's vineyard and tried to figure out if the backs of the cars were happy, sad, scared, etc...  By the time we got moving all 4 were asleep.  We got to mom's house in decent time and Christina and the kids were there to greet us. It was really neat to see the cousins together and we have a lot more reunions to look forward to.  I think Jason and Nathan should be back by tonight.  They were traveling back from a concert last night.  Today we've spent most of the time getting organized and feeding the hungry children.  Mom is at work, but we'll see her around supper time.  The kids are so happy to be here and LOVE going outside without all the winter gear.  I tried to write down funny things that the kids said along the way, but I'll save those to post another time.  After the pictures...