Crave The Wave: July 2010

That's right! We went on our 1st family vacation this last week. We left Monday morning for Waco and stayed in Waco until Wednesday, drove up to Ft. Worth for the night and came back Thursday to eat with some friends before we drove home that night. (We decided to drive home that night so that the kiddos would sleep for the long drive back. Teagan did. Gauge slept about 2 hours and then stayed up watching for hotels all the way home.)

Right before we left, while we were filling up gas at the Sam's Club, Chris and I shook on that we would be ducks for the week and let everything roll off our backs. Well it worked! :) I think taking on the attitude to be laid back and not worry about anything such as naps and eating and all that made for a really fun trip. (Good thing I'm learning early huh? I'm sure my kids would appreciate this mentality more often at home too! ;) )

Anyhoos we did stop at Van's for some killer breakfast (which I totally want to enter them in for Diners Drive Ins and Dives!) and then kept trucking until Buda so we could let the kids run around at Cabela's. Layne, they were super interested in the animals from Africa and kept saying "These animals are where Aunt Layne and Uncle Jon are!" :) We finally made it to Waco about 3:30ish. We had dinner at the Pizza House with Chris' friend from work and his wife and little girl and also drove by our old house and Chris' work, to which his boss actually walked out when we were turning around and he tried to get his job back ;) Then it was back to the hotel to see how sleeping would go! First night I had to sleep on the floor with Teagan. Second night I had to start off down there and then moved to bed. Third night they slept together on the air mattress fine and dandy. I believe they were POOPED! They really didn't ever nap but occasionally would fall asleep in the car so we would try to drive around for a while.

Tuesday we got up and went to the Waco Cameron Park Zoo to meet up with our friends the Ward's and the Kleins. The zoo was awesome and it was so fun catching up with our friends and watching everyone's kiddos together. We all grabbed Bush's Chicken (which was a must and did not dissapoint) to take back to their house and meet up with the Perry's. We had half of our old LifeGroup back together and there were 7 kiddos altogether. None of us had kids when we were in LG together so it was so fun to see everyone again and their sweet munchkins. I wish we would have had weeks to spend together but we had to all go since our kiddos were getting to the end of their ropes and needed naps. So glad we got to see the Perry's and the Klein's before they left back overseas. We ended up swimming at the hotel later that afternoon with the Ward's and then went to eat at Ninfa's (another one of Chris and I's favs).

The next morning the headed to Ft. Worth to see the May's, the Phillip's and the Boatman's. We met up at the Chuck E Cheese and then decided to go to the Ft. Worth Zoo since it was half price day. It was so stinkin' hot but the zoo was awesome! Both zoo experiences were amazing and I'm so glad we did them. I'm going to make the kiddos one of those photo books of our trip so they can look back through all we did. They absolutely LOVED the animals and definately the hotels! ;)

We had dinner at the Phillip's house with everyone and it was such a good time laughing and catching up with everyone. It had been over 3 years for some of us to see each other and we definately said we wouldn't wait that long again. Wish we all lived closer!!

The next day we headed back to Waco so we could eat dinner with the Ward's and Klein's and so Chris could see Dustin. We had a blast and the kiddos were pretty exhausted from the whole trip that we decided to drive home that night and let them sleep on the way home.

The trip went so well and so much better than I expected. We really bonded the 4 of us and the kids are going to be sad when Dad has to go back to work after having him off on vacation for 12 days! It was such a great and fun experience and I can't wait to keep having fun times with the fam! It was SO great to catch up with all of our friends. We left sad because we so badly would love to be back in Waco. We miss it. It's such a great little place and we miss our church peeps. The one year we were there for so impacting and impressionable that we love it so much and it hold so many great memories and relationships. Maybe one day we will be back there. :)

We sure loved coming home and seeing family again though. The kiddos missed everyone and they were super excited to see their NiNi! ;) And of course everyone else too!

I'm praying God would just use that time we had as a family and catching up with friends as a refresher and to give us a little push to go deeper with Him. We hit roadblocks sometimes and it's nice to have that encouragement from people you love and respect.

So here's to next summer! We will see where we go! I think we might just be a vacationing family now ;)