Road Trip Home

So, I forgot about all the pictures on my phone too.  So, the first collage is just that!  A whole bunch of pics from my phone that I am too lazy to go back & put with the coodinating "parts."  They are some of the places we ate at, some from the great escape, Lily eating a donut from dunkin donuts, (which we had often) dyncing up DS' with the cousins, and a fabulous scrapbook shop I ooohhhhed & aaahhhhed over right in the little town that my husband grew up in.  It was beautiful-one day I might get to do that in our little town-we shall see!

After breakfast we hit the road for another 4 day trip home.  I think being on the road was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  It was just us & the kids, my sweet family.  we weren't trying to accommodate everyone's schedules, plans, routines, habits, personalities...we were just driving on the open road...playing games, watching movies, talking, eating, telling our kids to hold it...lol....It really was great!  We got to see & explore fun little communities!  We saw a hot air balloon water tower, and huge bridges, and found license plates from all the different states.

The first day was a short drive to NJ where we attempted to go to Carlo's Bakery from TLC.  Well, they were filming the day we went, seriously?  So the line to get in was re-dic-u-lous!  I have 2 small kids-I didn't want to wait.  So, we watched from outside the people shove in & out in large crowds-didn't look fun.  That was after they waited in the block long line (2 hour wait) to get into the teeny tiny bakery.  I'll just take my pictures & get back into my air conditioned van-thank you!

We ended up finding this great little bakery called The Gaston Bakery!  Totally YUMMMMM!  We picked out like one of everything to bring to our friends' house: the Hastie Family!  Seriously, I wish we lived closer to them because our kids actually PLAYED together.  PLAYED-no fighting-no name calling-PLAYING!  It was so much fu!  They LOVE JESUS too!  It was such a great visit.  

(fyi-Andy is looking for a youth pastor position if anyone knows of anyone, haha)

We got to have yummy pizza, antipasto salad, house dressing, and yummy desserts from the bakery!  Cannoli's, eclairs, cookies....yumminess!  We got to listen to the girls argue about bedtime & the boys finally fell asleep in the tent downstairs (thanks Andy for putting it up)  We miss them so much!

The next day we took off early hit up some dunkin donuts (yes again) and hit the road for Pennsylvania!

We went to the Hershey Factory & toured it that day!

Then we hopped back into the van & drove all the way to Roanoke, VA where we finally crashed for the night!

The next day we drove through Knoxville where we visted the World's Largest Rubki's Cube...

and we went up in the Sunphere!  How fun!  I would love to go back to Knoxville!

Nashville however I was unimpressed!  It's quite a dirty little town!  I couldn't wait to leave, lol!

In the meantime, we had some Joe's Crab Shack & Gabe took his picture with every figurine on the strip!

We finally stopped around Memphis!  Before calling it a night.

The last night we stayed in Dallas, had pizza in bed, went swimming, and then finally hit the road to head back to Midland!

Overall, we had a fabulous trip.  We LOVED the road trip and hands down I would do it again.  I loved that our kids got to see America and not just from the clouds.  I am so glad we got to take in God's beauty and allow our kids to see that too!  We had an eventful trip in NY and a blissful time on the road. God blessed us with safe travels & no problems on the way.  We love Midland & know this is where God has placed us & are excited for what He has in store for our journey!