LOST LUGGAGE

UGH! My luggage did NOT make it to Padre. It MIGHT make it here on the 7:55 PM flight. I used to wish that this would happen to me so I could buy new clothes .... I'm not liking it though. I feel lost without a bag!

At the airport

I am at the airport without any children for the first time in a really long time. I don’t remember the last time I flew by myself. I LOVE it! Usually about this time I’m trying to entertaining my children with books, popcorn, and just trying to keep the other passengers around me happy!

A random stranger just made my day at the airport. I sat down beside this cool, hip young lady and she smiled and asked me what store I was from. I was very confused and asked her what she was talking about. She said oh you must not work for the BUCKLE. Then I remembered that my friend Laura who is a manager for the Buckle is on her way to Nebraska this weekend for meetings, and it all clicked. She thought I was a BUCKLE manager headed to Nebraska for meetings. WHOA she made my day. That means that she thought I was dressing cool and hip! Funny thing is that everything I am wearing today except my shoes are from the BUCKLE!!!! I love this store and it helps that I have some great people there that help me find cool, hip clothes! I’m trying to stay away from the I’m-a-mom-of-two-little-kids look!!!

Once again it is apparent that I am kidless. When flying with kids it is impossible to wear cute wedge shoes, or nice shirts because I would not be able to chase kids around in these shoes and this shirt would have some sort of stain on it after flying with my kids.

I am so happy as I am about 2 hours away from being in the arms of my man with nothing to concern ourselves with except loving on each other, laughing our heads off at each other, having a blast with the Student Life staff and spending great nights of worshipping our God together.

Back to Trinity

I'm back in Trinity for the day. It is slow here and I need that sometimes. Slow days to do laundry, watch a movie, read a book, finish a magazine. Today is all laundry day for me and movie day for the kids. Right now they are enjoying some Pops time and I'm knee deep in laundry.

The kids and I drove from Giddings yesterday to Jordan and Kristen's house in Conroe for dinner with them, Paul (Kristen's dad) and my parents. It was fun and rowdy. The kids were a little wound up after being in the car for 3 hours. It won't be long until JOrdan and Kristen have little Porter running around crazy everywhere.;

Here's a funny kid story for you. Before we went over to their house we stopped at Old Navy to get Baby Porter a present. As I was checking things out and trying to decide on what to get Big Boy was talking about giving the gifts to the baby. I told him that he could give the baby one and his brother could give the baby one too. He thought for a moment and then said ... and Kristen can eat the presents to give them to the baby in her belly! It took me a minute to understand, but he was thinking logically how those presents were going to get to that baby in Kristen's belly! What a thinker we have on our hands!!!

Tonight after dinner the kids and I will drive to Pearland to spend the night with some of our favorite friends, Matt & Rachel and baby Ava. The kids are super excited to stay there. We have been with them the whole last week and so the kids are comfortable around them and love Baby Ava as everyone calls her!

A few weeks ago I thought I wasn't going to get to go to South Padre with Aaron and was kinda bummed about it. I mentioned to Rachel that I wasn't going to be able to go b/c the people that were watching our kids backed out and without even hesitating she volunteered to watch them while I am in Padre with my lover. How amazing of a friend is that! So, she'll have plenty of practice this week with having more than one baby! I pray that my kids are on their BEST behavior and don't miss their mommy too much while I'm gone. I think they'll love to "help" with baby Ava, and it sounds as though Rachel has fun things for them planned like the museum, pool, and water park (for kids of course!).

I have been looking forward to this week for a long time now. We'll be at Student Life Camp on the Beach. As I have said before SL puts on some of the BEST camps around and so it is always a relief to be somewhere that you know will take care of you and treat you well. Also SL Beach camps are a blast! I LOVE the beach, even if it is a TX beach, and I love being alone with my hubby with no kids. I don't think we have a trip planned this year for us with no kids, so this will be our trip for the year, even if Aaron is "working"!!! It is nice to get away with no kids - if you have kids and don't do this - YOU MUST start this year. It is a MUST for your marriage to be the best it can be. Men, plan a trip for your wives. Don't make them do it, you take the initiative and make them feel special! Aaron is fabulous at this and I love that about him so much.

Okay I have heard my children calling for me and should show them that I am still here! I hope and pray that your week is FABULOUS and I should have lots of good news to share with you this week! I can't wait!

getting packed and random thoughts.....

Well I have to admit that this might be my best packing job yet. The boys have a suitcase each, I have a suitcase, a stroller, hang up clothes, a pack n play and a bag of toys. I am just down right getting good at this packing stuff. I have learned with each trip what is NOT necessary for a road trip. I used to bring it all, but not so much anymore! It helps that they are both getting older too - only one in diapers, no bottles, no formula, no baby food .... it gets easier with each year they get older!

In fact the car is almost completely packed and it is only 3 pm! I'm on a tight schedule around here. I want to be in bed tonight by 9 so that this road trip can get started between 4:30 and 5 in the morning! Wow that is early, but it makes a huge difference when you are traveling with little ones. The plan is that they will hopefully go back to sleep and then we'll be about 3 hours down the road when we have to stop for breakfast. The day is long b/c each stop is about an hour long. BUT they need it and frankly so do I since I'm doing it all by myself.

Tomorrow will be a LONG day for me - about 15 hours long, but it is worth it. I get to spend a week with my family and then two weeks with Aaron!!!

I have much on my mind these days that I'm hoping to get to blog about this week while I'm resting in Texas. I'm thinking tons about adoption, tons about orphans and even more about what am I to do about this. I have a friend that has adoption on the mind and I LOVE it. It reminds me of myself about 2 years ago when we were working on our adoption for Little Boy. It will be a pure joy to walk beside them when they do begin this journey. It could be soon, or it could be a year or two, but whenever it is I am happy to be here with them as they journey.

I also have relationships on my mind. Especially the relationship of marriage. We received three wedding invitations last week in the mail for weddings this summer. Two of them were students in the student ministry that Aaron served with. Wow that does make you feel old doesn't it! The other was for our dear and wonderful friends Jimmie and Laura. We are so happy for them and this journey that they are about to embark on. I love marriage and honestly Aaron and I have a great marriage. I am not bragging, but simply being honest. We love each other, respect each other, cherish each other, encourage each other, challenge each other and simply adore each other. It is a great journey for us. We will celebrate our 6th year of marriage in a few weeks. I could not be happier with my life!

Okay so this week I promise to bring you posts about adoption and marriage! Stay tuned ....

It's SUMMER again!

Aaron and I have beeen married for almost 6 years (in June we'll celebrate 6) and every summer of our married life we have ventured out around the globe (not really, just the US) for summer camps. SPUR gets the awesome priveledge to lead students and adults all over the US each summer in worship at camps.

I LOVE and I HATE this part of the year. 85% love and 15% hate. Something like that. I LOVE the summers because we get to go to lots of cool places and travel a lot all summer long. I HATE the summers because we sometimes go 1-2 weeks without seeing our daddy and the traveling can get old and hard with two little ones.

Tomorrow begins camp #1 out of 8 for the summer for SPUR. I have a feeling this might be one of the BEST summer's since we've been doing this. Everyone in the band is happy. They are almost all married. Life is good. They will be with some great students this summer and some great places too.

We head out for Chattanooga tomorrow and before the summer is over the boys and I will have driven LOTS of miles in the ole' minivan. We will go to Chattanooga TN, Trinity TX, Brownwood TX, Giddings TX, Spring TX, South Padre Island, TX, Prosper, TX and then back home. WOW it will be fun. The guys will be in TN, NC, CO and TX this summer.

So, I hope that your summer is fabulous! I'll be updating here on our life from a new place each week!!! Pray for me as I travel a lot alone with two boys! Pray for us when we are away from our daddy this summer.

Student Life here we come.......

TEXAS

Yes we made it safely to TEXAS on the airplane the other day. Big Boy was SO EXCITED to fly on an airplane and did so well. He kept waiting for the plane to arrive and told everyone he came in contact with that he was going on an airplane! They all laughed b/c so were they and everyone else that was around us!!!

We had to walk down stairs to the plane outside and then up stairs to get on it. UGH for a mom with two toddlers, a carry on bag, a backpack full of toys and snacks and a stroller. BUT a very nice man and lady helped and we made it on the plane just great. Big Boy was hilarious b/c he was in front of me and by the time I showed the lady our ticket so she could tell me what row we were in (not sure why I didn't figure that one out while we were waiting for the plane, but oh well) Big Boy had already planted himself in the first seat he found and was trying to get buckled up!!! I laughed at that one and had to convince him that our seats were somewhere else.

Little Boy fell asleep about an hour into the flight and slept for 30 minutes. I was blessed b/c that morning I had prayed specifically for three things. #1 that no one would have to poppy on the plane. #2 that Little Boy would sleep some, and #3 that Big Boy would not need to potty. The first two were great and about 20 minutes before we landed Big Boy informed me he needed to potty. So off all three of us went to the little potty in the back of the Continental Express Jet. It was a tight squeeze, but we made it and Big Boy went potty while I reminded him ever 5 seconds not to touch anything and Little Boy kept occupied by completely emptying the entire roll of toilet paper!!! At least he was touching anything on the nasty floor!!!

Our trip has been fabulous and I feel as though we've done so much. We drove to Tyler yesterday to visit the flowers. Seriously three weekends in March they have the azalea trail and the flowers were beautiful!!! It was just my mom, my grandma, my aunt Sarah and myself since Kristen and her mom kept the boys for us! Then we had dinner with the Kiel's and enjoyed that so much as well.

Today we were up early and drove to Palestine to ride the train from there to Rusk. Big Boy loved riding on a "thomas" and both of them did fairly well considering we were on that train for an hour and a half there and then had an hour and a half for lunch, and then an hour and a half back!! Little Boy finally crashed on the way back.

I have been running here and it has been hard. My parents work at Trinity Pines Conference Center and there is a mile loop around the camp that I've been doing. Half of it is up and half of it is down. Wow the up part is hard! I ran 8 miles on Friday in one hour and 14 minutes. I have never run continuously for that long in my entire life. I think I'm ready for this half marathon to be over! 4 more weeks! My knee has not bothered me in a few weeks. After the last time it started hurting so bad I took some time off and things have been better. I'm now only running about 3-4 times a week instead of 5-6. I also usually take a mortin after long runs and ice my knee after long runs too.

Okay well I must get back to their house since I"m in the office using wireless internet. Tomorrow is lazy day for us! Yeah! Tuesday we're off to Brownwood to visit Mimi and then Wed and Thursday night we're in Fredericksburg!!! Then on Friday my hubby flies in and we head to his parents house for the weekend. I CAN NOT wait to see him. I miss him! He is home alone and I know he is missing me!!! Love you baby!

I'll take a a bloody mary and two apple juices!

I don't even know what a bloody mary tastes like but I always see people on airplanes getting them and tomorrow may be my day to experience one! I am already stressed out about what is going to occur tomorrow around 9:45 am when I board an aircraft with my two boys and no hubby. OH MY GOSH what have I gotten myself into! Big Boy has flown several times but doesn't remember any b/c it was all before he was two and before his little brother joined us as well. Little Boy has never flown and is really the one I'm thinking might send me over the edge and straight into a bloody mary. He is not one to like to sit still (what 16 month old boy does though) and is going to give me a run for my money on the plane.

I plan on bringing lots of snacks and toys, quiet ones for the fellow plane travelers, to keep them entertained. If anyone has any advice on flying with two children ages, 3 and 16 months, please let me know TONIGHT!!!

PS - The bloody mary is a joke ..... I will be a responsible, calm, and happy mom the entire 2 hours!!!!