Safely Home from Pensacola!

Whew!! What a whirlwind trip we had! We left at about 4pm on Thursday afternoon and drove to Nashville, Tennessee to spend the night with Roger's good friend (MY good friend, too!!) Joe. He drove us around Nashville and we saw the incredible destruction that the flood caused. Wow.
It was dark when we got there and we weren't able to get any pictures.
We had a great time visiting Joe, however, and we were able to go out to dinner with him!
Bright and early the next morning, we left to drive to Florida. I guess bright and early isn't exactly the right phrase as it rained most of the way down there! It stopped sometime in Alabama and was a nice drive for the rest of the evening.
When we finally arrived in Pensacola, we got hugs from all the family. Little Kathy, who is 3 1/2, has decided that her Aunt Beth is pretty "ok"! I had a constant companion in her and felt a little bit sorry for her bigger sister Jenny who is USUALLY my buddy when we all get together. But I was able to spend time with just Jenny on Saturday as we played in the waves in the ocean!!
What fun that was! I'll have to post some pictures soon!
We all helped out getting Rob's graduation party together and was happy to meet some of his friends! Becca also met two of her online teachers from Pensacola Christian Academy! That was kind of fun for her! (we weren't able to continue with the online streaming but she had taken quite a lot of her classes online this fall!)

We went to Campus Church on Sunday morning and heard a message about the End Times. THEN we had another delicious meal at Roger's sister's house and then we went back to the college for the high school graduation. Rob was the valedictorian and we were really happy to be able to share in the big moment with the family!
We left soon after for Birmingham where we stayed Sunday night in a very nice HILTON!! (Really, those ads on tv about getting a lower hotel rate really works!! We got a nice room -the sign on the inside of the door said $265 a night!!- for only $60!!!) The kids and Roger and I played in the pool...we were the only people there! We reluctantly left about noon and drove the rest of the way home, making numerous stops. We must have "piddled around" too much because it was after 11p.m. last night when we finally drug ourselves through the door. It was fun, though, and we listened to books on tape all the way home. We tried to listen to Shakespeare but didn't have much luck understanding it. I think the traffic and the sound of the tires on the road was making it difficult to hear it well. We DID listen to Much Ado About Nothing with success! We always like that play and since we have it on tape, it was easier to follow along with the action! Roger and I also did a lot of singing, holding hands and acting silly together on our trip!

So today has been spent doing a lot of "once a month cooking" for the next few weeks and babysitting little Brody. I'm supposed to be cleaning out the van but I haven't made it out there, yet!

Thank you, Lord, for providing Your protection and fun for our trip!