Our South Carolina Trip

Well, it's going on a month since we got home from SC, but I finally got all the pictures posted. The girls had fun with me making the slide shows. I have some other pics on my phone. I need Kris to help me with how to get them off. :-) I'll post those later. There are pics on there from our day at the Simpsonville water park with LaDean and the kids. It was exciting being able to have them closer to Greenville. Kurt wasn't able to come the day we got together, but the girls sure loved getting to see their cousins and aunt again. Me too! :-) Praise the Lord--we just found out this last week that Kurt and LaDean's house in Atlanta sold, so maybe now they can look for a house in Anderson, where they are living now and have been since Jan.

We really enjoyed being able to see my family for a week. We actually were gone from home for 9 days. Kris was a very lonely man in an empty, quiet house. We drove down to SC on July 5. I was determined to do the trip in one day. Well, after 15 hrs, we finally got there. From my house to my parents' is 12 1/2 hrs. of driving time. When you include two meal stops and three other bathroom stops with two kids, one teenager, and a grown woman, well, it adds some extra time. The other person who came with us was Krystyn Bradley. She is 17 yrs. old and one of our babysitters. Her family has become like family to us since we moved to MI. Krystyn is the 6th of 9 children! She was willing to help me out with driving and taking care of the girls when they needed stuff in the back, since Kris wasn't able to come. What a help Krystyn truly was! She enjoyed being able to see a new state that she'd never been to before, and she fit in well all week with the family. Now she knows why I am so crazy! Ha ha :-) She learned quickly how to dish stuff back to my dad, and we all had fun. We ended up breaking the trip up on the way home. We left on Thurs. afternoon and only went up to Lexington, KY. We got home Fri. around dinner time.

While we were in SC, we got to go to our old church, Grace Bible Church, and see several friends that we miss dearly. We did the water park, which was a blast. We went to downtown Greenville for a day and met with Holley VanDenBerg and her kids at Spill the Beans. It was good for the kids to meet before the VanDenBergs moved up here. Their kids don't know anyone here, so that gave them some familiar people to look forward to seeing once they arrived in Midland. More fun stuff. . . the girls had a rectangular, good-sized pool that my parents bought for them and put in the backyard, so they could get relief from the SC heat and humidity. That was fun! Krystyn took the girls to my parents' neighborhood park in the sub. while I went to Starbucks and caught up with a friend for a couple of hours. We went to the Barkers house and swam in their very nice above ground pool one day. Sarah and I were like kids again. hee hee We made quite the "wave pool" with rafts, and the girls cracked up at that. We got a whirlpool going too. It was pretty fun! Of course the highlight of my week was spending time with my nephew, Jonas. I had not seen him since the beginning of Jan. He was a different baby, that's for sure! How fun though to see how he has changed and developed over these many months. We had a blast celebrating his first birthday with a party at my mom and dad's. We also enjoyed going to dinner at Sarah and Joe's one night. It was great to see Jonas in his own environment and watch him at home. Olivia's highlight was seeing their dog, Daisy. :-)

My parents both had things going on with them that were keeping them from feeling normal before and while we were in SC. It was good for us to be there with them and try to cheer them up. :-) My dad is recovering from surgery that removed a tumor off of his leg (thankfully, benign!), and my mom had a bad sinus infection that sent her to the doctor for a second try of antibiotics while we were there. She got a shot too, and she began feeling better before we left. We had not seen my parents since the beginning of the year either. I feel so badly that they don't get to see the girls more. They are sad not to be closer and see them growing and changing. Thank the Lord for technology that keeps them up to speed better in this day and age. It was good for us all to be together and enjoy a great week of catching up, having fun, and loving on each other in real life! We hope to go back at the end of this year/beginning of next. Until then, back to sending pics, talking on the phone, etc. Well, that about does it for the update on our vacation down south. I am sure Sarah will inform me if I left anything out. :-)