Move to Georgia Day 8 (July 25th)

We started out our wonderful day in Birmingham by going to Chick-Fil-A for chicken biscuits. Mmmmm! Then we headed to my very much missed friend Amy's house. In some ways it seemed like so long since we had seen her and her family, but in other ways it seemed just like yesterday. The kids reconnected just like they saw each other the week before and I felt right at home at Amy's. Their kids had goodies for our kids and that was a big treat. Will took the van to go and see some of his old friends and then there was a knock on the door and I was so excited to see Shannan and her kids too!

Jude and Cody

Baylee and Laney

Cody, Jude and Zane (who was only 5 weeks old when we left)

Sadie didn't know what to do outside in 90 degree heat and Amy graciously let her come inside. And Shannan was sitting beside me and didn't mind even though she is allergic to dogs.

Later, Jennifer came over with her kids and I was able to see baby Elijah for the very first time. What a cute baby he is. And she brought us one of her, amazing, utterly delicious and magical cakes for our anniversary!! Her cakes are the best I have ever had and we had missed them soooooooo much while we were in Washington.

We didn't plan on being there more than a couple of hours, but the day flew and Amy fed us--thank you!

I couldn't wait to have some of that cake!

Her we all are trying to look as if we were eating it daintily, but that only lasted for the picture. That cake was everything I imagined and more. I just can't explain it. Jennifer's cakes make the whole world seem better.

Amy thought this was so funny, and I guess it was. 2600 miles worth of bugs.

Zane had just woken up and we had to leave.

Will took this photo while we weren't posing and I love it!!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Baylee's friend Lauren's house and were able to see her for a few minutes. Baylee is 10 days older than her, but you'd never know it and they have been friends since First grade. They have both grown so much.

Next we took Baylee to her friend Merry Katheryn's house to spend the night, which was a spur of the moment treat on their part. And we took Cody and Sadie to Shannan's house and Will and I went out for an anniversary dinner at our favorite restaurant Stix!!! We hadn't been without kids or dog for a while, so it was absolutely fabulous to have some time just for the two of us, and something we weren't expecting. Thank you sooooooo much Shannan.

It was one of the best days I had in a very long time. I felt like we had been lost for two years and now we were home.

Tomorrow we would head for North Georgia

Move to Georgia Day 7 (July 24th)

We all slept well last night and it was really difficult to wake up the kids because they were sleeping so peacefully.

We stopped at a Starbucks for Will's tea and talked to some very nice ladies who were sitting out front. It was the first time that we started feeling close to home. Only 6 more hours to Birmingham.

Not long after leaving Evansville, we crossed the river into Kentucky.

What, not "Welcome to Kentucky"? Missed it again.

Tennessee!!!! Miley Cyrus' home state!!

Ft. Campbell.

Yay!!! Alabama!

We've missed you Chick-fil-A. We were all soooooooo happy to get our first Chick-fil-A in a long time.

We stopped to see the newly painted helicopter for the Jefferson county Sheriff's Department. Will played a large part in creating the helicopter program and it was difficult for him to leave it when we moved to Washington.

Birmingham! Even though home is really Melbourne, Florida, this was our favorite place that we've lived and we felt like we were home!

We arrived at our hotel in the afternoon and it was so good to have some time to rest and relax for the first time in about a month. We were so busy getting the house ready and then having the packers and movers there, that we really hadn't relaxed much for so long. Will took the kids to the pool and I did some work on the computer.

Later that night we drove past our old house and remembered all of the good times we had there. We went to one of our favorite places to eat "China Cafe" and the nice lady who owns it saw us walk in and said "Where have y'all been?". I thought I was going to cry. It was amazing that she remembered us, especially since the kids had grown so much.

We went back to the hotel happy with our food and excited that tomorrow we will get to see our friends.

Move to Georgia Day 6 (July 23rd)

Today we left Salina, Kansas and headed for St. Louis. We passed Ft. Riley where Will had gone to Army Advanced Camp long ago in college.

We are all getting pretty tired of being on the road, but excited because we are only two days away from Birmingham.

It's getting greener and less flat.

The whole trip I have been having difficulty taking pictures of those Welcome to "state" signs, and this one is supposed to say "Missouri". If you look closely you can see it on the right.

I wish I had tracked gas prices the whole trip.

They were at $4.27 when we left Washington.

St. Louis!!! We stopped here on our way out to Washington, and it was so much fun to go to the arch. Baylee had been terrified to go and stayed down with Will, who had been up before. So this time, I stayed with Sadie outside, while Will took Baylee for the first time and Cody for the second.

Going up.

They're at the top.

Looking down.

Our van.

The Mississippi River. The floods had just happened weeks before this and it was sad to see how high the water still was.

If you look really hard at the shady part of the lawn you can see Sadie and me.

Coming down.

I forgot to mention it was a beautiful day. 84 degrees and breezy. All done.

We got back in the car after that nice break and headed for Evansville Indiana. The farms of Southern Illinois reminded me of where I grew up in Central New York State. I loved them.

It's a long story of how we ended up in Indiana, but the short version is that we wanted a nice hotel and Evansville was the only semi-big town in a path that we could take. The hotel in Salina (a really small town) was not very good and none of us slept well. It was eight miles longer to go through Indiana than it would have been to turn south and go straight to Kentucky, so we were able to get a great room with lots of help from my sister Jenai--Thanks, Nai! I think she helped us out just about every day by looking something up for us on the internet.

So we spent a peaceful night in Evansville.