On the Road Again...

Three weeks after our last road trip, we loaded up again. This time, we headed for Florida to visit my brother Shane and his family. We stopped at a nature center in Chatanooga, Tennessee. This is Amber posing with a red wolf statue. After driving through Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, we made it to Panama City, Florida late Saturday night. We stayed in a hotel, so the kids didn't get to see their cousins until we met them for church on Sunday, they were all so excited.

On Monday after school the kids played until dinner while Chris and Shane went golfing. After a lesson about the true meaning of Christmas, we made graham cracker nativity scenes. Here are Andrew, Clarissa, and Emily working on theirs.

Jared loved that aside from Emily, the Hansens have all boys. He spent all his time playing with Alex.

Although the weather wasn't warm and sunny, it was still much warmer than it had been in Virginia so we took every opportunity to go to the beach and just walk, play wave tag, collect seashells or play in the sand. Amber usually chose playing in the sand or chasing seagulls.

Clarissa, Krystal and Me playing wave tag. It's a very fun game when you're fully clothed. The somewhat stormy weather made for some great waves!

Clarissa loves babies, she especially loves to make them laugh and Jaden was always smiling and laughing. I held him often and enjoyed every minute of it, he's just delightful.

We discovered that it was pretty crazy and loud with eight kids running around the house all the time, but that if we gave them a creative task to do, they quieted down and usually stayed put. Thursday night we dipped pretzels in chocolate and butterscotch and decorated them with sprinkles. Unlike the nativity scenes, we made sure the ants didn't get these so that we could eat them. Yummy!

Another creative task was decorating the Christmas tree. Everyone helped. Here are Krystal, Andrew, Clarissa, and Emily watching Shane put on the finishing touch.

Thursday was cooler but sunny so we went to the beach again. This time we went to St. Andrew's State Park. It was beautiful. It was even warm enough to take our shoes off for this walk on the beach.

Andrew, Krystal, Clarissa, and Jared playing wave tag. They got soaked!

We didn't see any alligators at the alligator lake, but Chris found this really cool star fish on the beach.

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures from Friday, we were all in the hotel room sick with a stomach bug, NOT FUN! We still managed to have the Hansens over on Friday evening for swimming in the "hot pool" and pizza at the hotel. After sad goodbyes, we tried to get some sleep and headed back home on Saturday, still feeling a little under the weather.

On the way home we stopped in Columbus, Georgia at an art museum that had an awesome children's center. The girls put on dress up and did a little show for us on the stage. So, in spite of getting sick, we still had a great vacation, enjoyed a break from the cold, but mostly we are really glad that we got to spend some time with Shane and Brooke and their wonderful kids. We love you guys!