You may have noticed my lack of posting, updating, and commenting for the last two weeks, and the reason for my absence is because my whole family took a vacation/field trip down south. When I say “down south” I mean it. We stopped in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico. I was hoping to go to Arizona too but plans didn’t work out right.

We had one of the best times we’ve had in a long time! In total we traveled over 5,000 miles, drove for almost 100 hours stop to stop, met four blog-families, and took over 3,000 photos, which is why I have been so reluctant to post about it. I have to resize and watermark every photo! AHHHHHHHHH!!!! So I decided to only do a few on each post and then when I get them ALL done, I will do a slideshow for you to watch. Sound good?

The journey begins… We left on Friday, after staying up all night to pack and clean, and headed to Georgia. I was so tired but it was a long drive, and I can sleep well in the car. I took a book to read, a pillow, and my afghan to snuggle with. The drive was longer than it was supposed to be, but with stopping to go the bathroom for the Littles and then the kids who got car sick wasn’t, it couldn’t have been prohibitated. I enjoyed seeing the different country sides of each state we passed through. We had wanted to stop in Nashville, Tennessee to see any historical places, but time wouldn’t allow it.

About lunch time we stopped at a Sonic in Kentucky…. oh boy, I love Sonic. We don’t have too many up here and the one we do have is 35minutes away so I took every chance I got to get a Blue Coconut slushy at Happy Hour. Ever been there?

After lunch we were back on the road, headed down to Tennessee and then onto Georgia. Driving through the mountains, hills, and seeing the rock walls on the highways in TN was amazing. I’d be in Tennessee twice before, but always God’s handiwork amazes me. I knew we were in Georgia when I began to see the famous “red clay” dirt. I’d never been in Georgia before so it was something new to see.

I fell asleep off and on after that, and then around 10:30pm I woke up. It was dark out and Mom, Dad, and Amanda we’re all talking about going “just 5 more miles” because they’d thought we were a lot closer than we actually were. Plus it was dark, raining, the roads were curvy, and there was road construction, which led to us turning around once or twice…

Nearly fifteen hours and 656 miles later we arrived just outside of Atlanta at the Camp’s house.  Ah finally we could get out and stretch our legs! We were also hungry so we went in and got a bite to eat. The Camp’s have eight kids just like us so it was pretty crazy with 10 Littles running around, and Miss Lily kept wanting to “help” Luli play. Around 2am, after checking our email!, we finally went to bed…. ah glorious bed! We’re exhausted! Unfortunately all that sleep didn’t do me too good because when I got up I had a horrible pain in my side and spent most of the morning we were there asleep. They had to come wake me up to get photos and leave. Mom prayed for me after that and the pain was gone within fifteen minutes. I was amazed yet again by God’s awesome power and love.

We met Mrs. Camp online almost a year ago when Mother Dear, Amanda, and I had started writing for HSBA. Mrs. Camp is pretty cool and is the one who keeps the HSBA site looking great. She has also been very kind as to help me with any wordpress tech help I need. We had a nice time to fellowship with her family.

We left the Camp’s around 11:30 and headed further west to meet Brooke, who some of you may know as IloveyouGod from HSB. Brooke and I have become close friends over the past year and she has been a real blessing to me. She was one of those bloggers who was marked on my list to meet. She is as sweet in real life as she is on her blog. Her sister Holly and other siblings were also very sweet. I was happy to be able to meet her parents as well. We stayed at Brooke’s for a few hours, having lunch and talking, before we headed out. I’m so thankful for the sweet relationship I have with her and so blessed to have met her in rel life!

Though, we were just at the beginning of our travels, already did that big white van look dreary as we piled back in. It would seem we’d have plenty of room but with five carseats, two coolers, “travelpack” for each Little, and bags… it isn’t that roomy…

More coming as soon as I take time to resize more photos.

Blessings!

Miss Jocelyn