Heavenly Homemakers

We just rolled back into our driveway after driving over 2,000 miles, visiting with 100’s of people, sitting in the van for millions of hours, and eating a few too many French fries. I am so hungry for raspberries, I could tear up a little. Bring on the fruits and veggies to settle my traveling tummy.

I have lots of pictures to share with you from our adventures from last week. Are you ready? Here goes…

Our first stop was St. Louis for a Meet and Greet. I can’t tell you how awesome it was to meet these ladies, visit, and pray together. (Karen, I’m so bummed we didn’t get a picture with you before you left!)

We left St. Louis around noon Wednesday, and headed south toward Nashville. Along the way, we stopped to have dinner with dear friends from college. Three hours was not even close to a long enough time slot to catch up and visit.

I did manage to get some baby snuggles in while I was there. As you can see from the picture below, God has decided that none of us will be raising girl children. :)

We tore ourselves away from our friends and finished the drive to Nashville. There, we stayed with a lovely elderly couple – distant relatives I’d never met. I regret that we didn’t get any pictures with them. They were so sweet to let all six of our long-legged family crash at their place during our stay.

Thursday morning we got up and headed to our Nashville Meet and Greet. It was a wonderful visit, making me wish again I could drive to every city and country to visit with allllll of you! These Meet and Greets are awesome.

From there, we headed to our family reunion. Our boys had so much fun getting acquainted with cousins they rarely see.

It was especially fun to see the teenage boys hanging out. It reminded us so much of our generation when we were their age. How in the world did we all become moms and dads of teenagers ourselves, when it seems that it was just a few weeks ago that we were the teenagers???

Here is my generation of first cousins, standing with our Nana. Wish they could have all been there. We talked fast and furious in order to catch up with everyone. :)

Somehow, we were able to get our entire group rounded up for a photo. Priceless.

Actually…here’s part of the crazy that led up to the group picture. I can’t stop laughing when I see it, but that might be because I’ve been in the van way too long the past few days.

You should be impressed to know that I took my first “selfie” while on this vacation. I’ve never felt the need to take one before now. While sitting with Nana, I grabbed my phone and took a shot. Not too bad, eh?

Love this beautiful lady. She is my mom’s mom. I have loved connecting with her, especially since my mom died almost 10 years ago.

After tearful good-byes, we got back on the road Saturday evening, making it back to St. Louis where we stayed the night with cousins. We loved worshiping with them on Sunday morning before heading home.

The biggest issue with our final stretch of the trip? Figuring out how we could watch the U.S. vs. Portugal World Cup soccer game. Missing it was not an option. :)  We finally made it to Lincoln, an hour from home, just in time for the second half of the game. We hit a Culvers, which had a TV. We ate ice cream and screamed at the TV. Of course, by that I mean that we sat quietly with our hands in our laps each time anything exciting happened. I would have worried that we were disturbing other patrons, but they were enjoying the excitement right along with us.

I kid you not – I bought a large order of green beans from Culvers before heading out. Who buys green beans at Culvers? This girl, apparently. I was desperate for something green, and I hadn’t eaten ice cream so I was hungry. By the way, Culver’s green beans are delicious.

As we rolled back into town, I ran into the store and loaded my cart with fruits and vegetables for this week. I was so super hungry for raspberries and planned to buy loads of them. Unfortunately, all the raspberries I found were moldy. So, you better believe that I’ll be running to other stores in our area tomorrow on a mission to find raspberries. In the meantime, we have lots of other yummy food to eat on.

When we walked in the door, I cracked up to see our living room floor covered with boxes. We have a young man living with us this summer, so as boxes came in, he pulled them into our house for us. My Amazon Subscribe and Save order came in, among a few other boxes of food I’d ordered. The boys have been opening them, and later this week I’ll show you pictures of what’s inside. You know you want to see my case of toilet paper.

Since I just arrived home and don’t have a menu plan created to share with you this week, I thought I would instead share a few pictures throughout the next few days of the food we decide to eat. Sound good? Here’s hoping I find raspberries!!!

Here’s to a great new week!