Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Whirlwind Road Trip

The last weekend in April, Brandon was able to ask off for two days so we could join his family and extended family down in Florida for the celebration of his grandpas 80th birthday.
Thankfully, we decided to split up the trip down there and drove half way to Charleston, SC on Friday and the rest of the way on Saturday.
With two small kiddos it was a good idea to split the trip in half. The 6 hour drive took us about 8 hours total. It was so nice to take our time and stop when we wanted/needed.
Isaiah kept talking about going to "Charlies house"! It was so cute to see how excited he was to go on a road trip. 
He would ask us when we would go on a road trip and we would have to keep telling him we were *on* the road trip right now! The most common phrase we heard was "I don't want to go home!!"-and we had to assure him that we were not headed home for several days :)
Saturday morning isaiah slept til 7:30 which is an hour and a half more than what he normally sleeps to on any given morning so that was a nice little surprise. :) once we ate breakfast at the hotel we got on the road again.
We were blessed with very safe travel mercies and escaped heavy rains and tornado watches and warnings.
We arrived at Brandon's aunts house where we were graciously housed and fed for the next two nights!
We had a great time catching up with family and just being out of the car!
Sunday we went to church and then the party followed immediately after. It was held in a screened in pavilion which made for a beautiful breezy afternoon protected  from the downpour that ensued half way through.
It was a wonderful time celebrating Howard's 80 years of life. So glad we were able to be there for it.
It was also nice to be in summer type weather for a day :)
The day went by quickly and once the festivities were over we headed back to our abodes and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.
We headed back home early on Monday morning around 6:15 and spent about  17 hours on the road. It was a long day and the kiddos did so well. When we had about four hours left they started to just be over the whole road trip thing. Who can blame them??
One of our stopping points was the beach-isaiah was so thrilled and it was the perfect place for him to stretch his legs for a little bit :)
This was James' first experience of the ocean :)
It was a nice little stop and I'm glad we did that.
We found a great little coffee shop for our next real stop which was more than worth it. The kids needed more attention and time to stretch since we were doing so much in one day!
The kiddos did so well considering we spent about 16 hours on the road coming home-we had about an hour or so near the end that was just screaming and whinning, but man, they really did well :)
Needless to say, we were all so very glad to be home!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Book Review #5

The Barefoot Queen

I had no idea what this book would be like when I got it and quite frankly it was not my favorite.
This is a story from the view of a freed Cuban slave and her best friend who is a gypsy set in the 1700's and the book was slow going. I had a hard time connecting with the characters and the goings on.
I can see how this story would appeal to some, but for my taste it was a bit too dark with it containing many scenes of abuse towards the women in this book. The way the abuse and violence was written was in a very casual manner and that just ruined the book for me.
The Barefoot Queen is definitely written very well-just suited to a mature audience and one who doesn't mind reading graphic portrayals of that type of scene.