Well, it’s official.  We bought our tickets last night for a family mission trip back to Leon, Nicaragua.  I’m so excited!  It’s awfully scary and overwhelming to think about this in several ways (financially, physically, emotionally).  Traveling with 2 preschoolers is going to be hard, and though I know Nicaragua well, I’ve never experienced it with kids.

Anyway, in case you’re just hearing this… we’ve been wanting to go back and visit my old home and mission field for a while.  Our dear friends Andrew & Jane Longley are running a ministry called Nuevas Esperanzas, which took over some of the work I was a part of with Mercy Ships.   Financially, this doesn’t seem like the most opportune time, but when God calls, it’s up to you to step out and follow His leading.  So we’re taking him on His word that He’ll provide financially to make this trip a reality, and we’re trusting that He’s got exciting things in store for us as a family.

Already we’re seeing His hand in this.  Our tickets were a bit cheaper than we expected.  There was discussion about possibly driving to Miami (12 hours) to fly from there because it was so much cheaper.  But we found good tickets from Atlanta (just 2 hours!), so that saves us quite a few hours in the car.  We also invited our good friend, Abigail, to come with us.  She’s been my “right-hand woman” since Josiah was born, and she babysits the kids weekly.  She’ll be a great help with the kids, and I’m so excited to get to share Nicaragua with her!  Nicaragua and the people there are so very dear to my heart.

There will be lots more chatter about Nicaragua to come, I promise.  But if you’re reading this and you’re in the Birmingham area, you are CORDIALLY INVITED to a dinner we’re hosting at Clearwater Community Church on Friday, December 12th from 6-8pm to share about our trip and the ministry of Nuevas Esperanzas.  There’s no charge for dinner (which will be FABULOUS – by a great local chef!), just whatever donation you’d like to give, with all proceeds going towards our trip.   Please comment or email us if you want more info or directions!  We’d love to have you there!

Well, actually, it wasn’t the weekend.  We left home on Thursday at 6pm, had a smooth 5-hour trip, concluding with the bright Christmas lights of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, arriving at 12:30am local time.

The kids and I visited Ripley’s Aquarium on Friday morning.  We had a great time, of course.  This was one of the first times it was really an interactive experience for both of them.  Analise was full of questions, and Josiah was really appreciating things, too.  We got a big long nap in our spacious, quiet apartment, right next to Brian’s conference hotel.  He had worked nearly all night to finish his presentation, and he spent all day over at the various sessions.  We woke up just in time for him to come home and take us down the street to dinner at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Factory.  We made the cold walk back up the hill, and caught a trolley to ride around town and see the beautiful Christmas lights.

Poor Brian crashed early for the night, and amazingly, the kids slept long and hard for us.  Brian had planned to get up this morning and ride up to the mountain pass, as he’s done the past few years, and he was really looking forward to it.  But he slept too late, it was very-VERY cold for riding (in the low teens!), and after we drove up, we found the road was salt and snow covered, so he wouldn’t have made it far anyway.  So we enjoyed a relaxing morning getting packed up, grabbing breakfast, and driving up into the mountains.  We played in the snow at a couple different stops, and drove the long way home through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

This was a fun trip.  I have probably said this before, but my kids are getting to fun ages so that we can really enjoy traveling.  Yes, the hours in the car can be really long, but we laugh, sing, play and find lots of fun things to see and do.  I’m already looking forward to next year!

Enjoy the pictures!  Our camera has an aquarium setting for low-light/no flash, so some of the photos got very grainy.  Click on each to see the larger version, then you can click the “back” button to come back to this post and look at the others.

We just got back from a walk around our neighborhood and through the woods. The fall colors exploded today. I took some pictures of the beautiful trees on my commute home from work today. Then we went for a walk and got some more pictures. Fall is so beautiful in Birmingham!

The Old Baker Farm is becoming a fall tradition for us.  I remember our first trip with Brian’s parents in 2005 with their church for the hayride to the patch, pumpkin pickin’, and bonfires with hot dogs and s’mores.  I was newly pregnant with Josiah, and Analise was our little 15-month old pumpkin at that time.

In 2006, we had 2 little pumpkins… Analise was 2 and Josiah was just 4 months old…

Last year, Josiah was a bit bigger, opting to carry his own pumpkin…

This year was just as fun.  It was their Cotton Pickin’ Celebration at Old Baker Farm, and the cotton fields were bursting with fluffy white bolls.  Analise had been there on Wednesday with school, so she enjoyed showing us around and telling us the rules.  The kids climbed all over the hay bales in the maze, we munched on a picnic lunch, we visited the animals in the barn, and bounced in the cotton.  There was also going to be a battle reenactment, so there were lots of people dressed in beautiful old-time clothing, as well as a colorful group of Indian dancers who performed.  We took the tractor hayride out to the field, tromped around looking for the perfect pumpkins.  On our way back, we caught a ride on the horse-drawn hayride, and the kids got to ride up front and even help “drive”.  It made their day!  We wrapped up the day creating our no-mess pumpkin family for the front porch.  Happy fall, y’all!

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Another fun adventure was our day trip to Huntsville.  Brian did a long bike ride in the area, while we explored the US Space & Rocket Center.  It was VERY FUN!  The kids lasted longer than I thought they would, and they seemed pretty interested in all the fun space things to look at.  Then we took our lunch to a nearby playground at the Monte Sano State Park.

The Rocket Park was very impressive.

Um, can you find my family hidden below the space shuttle and boosters?  This was HUGE!

Have I mentioned its impossible to take posted pictures of my kids?

There was a Kid Zone that Analise and Josiah really enjoyed.

There’s an adult ride called, Space Shot (“Soar 150 feet in the air with 4 G’s of force during liftoff of the Space Shot simulator”).  I rode it, and it was VERY SCARY.  They had a mini (fun) version for the kids, and though Analise wasn’t sure at first, she did try it, much to my amazement.  She loved it, probably riding it 7 times before we left.  Of course, Josiah had to do it, too, with much hesitation.  But he just followed her lead, and he was laughing his little belly laugh the whole time.  It was so cute to watch them!  (I’m hoping to post a video, too, eventually…)

I’m finally getting caught up on photos, particularly this evening I’ve done the photos from Grandma Sandy & Poppa Dale’s visit in early August. Have I mentioned how much fun we had? I’ll let you see for yourself…

Checking out the trains at the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum.

A cool photo, thanks to Photoshop 🙂

One of my new favorite Josiah photos.

More trains… this time at home!  Poppa built some great tracks for the trains.

A fun afternoon rainshower.  I’ll work on finding Josiah some more boyish boots 🙂