The Journey

Warning: This post will be more "wordy" than the last, and then there will be a photo slide show at the end. I found out yesterday, that it takes a REALLY long time to load pictures to blogger with our new rural internet.

On Friday, June 5th, we left Dallas around 7:30 a.m. and headed out on the first leg of our trip. About 30 minutes outside of Mesquite, Grace said, "When are we going to be at our hotel?" I was hoping that she would be a better road trip passenger this year. No such luck. However, since the kids are older now, we really didn't have to stop that many times which made the drive go faster. We finally stopped for the night around 6:00 in a town between Memphis and Nashville. Immediately after getting a room, the kids put on there swimsuits, and we headed to the hotel pool. They had been eagerly awaiting to do this all day. Then, we walked across the street and ate dinner at Loretta Lynn's Diner. It was adorable, and they sold all kinds of Loretta Lynn memorabilia. We didn't buy anything, other than our meals, but we had a good time looking around. That night, I think I actually slept for the first time in 3 weeks. It was EXACTLY what I needed.

We got up earlier than we had planned to, but I think we all slept pretty good that night. Of course, we chowed down on the continental breakfast before heading back out on the road. We drove into Nashville and parked the truck for about 30 minutes while we walked around and took some pictures. We are definitely going to have to head back there soon for a weekend trip. After a little bit of sight seeing, we set out again for our new home. As we drove through Kentucky, we noticed that the adults sure do like to read there. There were lots and lots and lots of stores that sold "Adult Books" and I apparently they also like movies. LOL! Finally after about 4 hours of driving, we came to the beautiful bridge that crosses the Ohio River. The bridge connects our town in Indiana to Kentucky. Once you cross the bridge, you enter our town's historic downtown. There are 130 blocks of historic homes and businesses. Our house is about 3 miles outside of the downtown area. The location is FANTASTIC!!! If you go 3 miles in one direction, you are in historic downtown, and if you go about 2 miles in the other direction, you are at the more modern shopping area (Wal-Mart, Kroger, Dollar Tree, JC Penney, Gamestop, etc..).

So, when we first arrived at our new house, we opened the massive garage/storage building and saw an old tin sign hanging up. It has a picture of an oil rig and says, "Little Dallas". We were in shock, but it was just another sign (literally), that let us know we were home. We believe God has had a hand in this entire move, and paved a path for us that left us with very little doubt. He showed us in numerous ways over the past few weeks that this is where He wanted us to be.

So, here are some of the highlights from our first week in Indiana:

-Hunter has caught several fish in our pond, including a 5 pound bass.
-We saw two wild turkeys at the state park (only about 10 minutes from our house), while we driving to the free swim day at the park pool.
- We met the principal and toured the school the kids will be attending next year. There are only 188 kids for Kindergarten- 5th grade. They have recess everyday!!! (Hunter's last principal had done away with recess before he started school there) And the kids are super excited, because the bus will pick them up everyday at the end of our driveway and take them to school.
-We went to Roger's Corner located in historic downtown for milkshakes and coke floats. It's an old timey soda fountain, and is soooo cute!
-Wes LOVES his job. He is soooo happy to finally be outside again. Also, since he accepted the position, 5 guys have retired, putting him at the top of the seniority list!!!! Oh, and there is more than enough work. He hasn't had a day off yet. So, with all this overtime, we should have no problem getting new Winter wardrobes, and some new things for the house.
-The kids used some gift cards from their birthday to buy a slip n' slide, and have had a blast playing on it.
-We went to free swim day at the city pool located on the riverfront. Hunter had a blast going down the big slide, and Grace had fun on a slide in the shallow end.
-We went to a free concert in celebration of our town's bicentennial. At the end of the night, they had a laser light show and fireworks. It was AWESOME!!!! Hunter also found a group of boys to play football with there. We all had a great time.
-We went to church on Sunday. I had already signed the kids up for community bible school earlier in the week. There are about 6 churches in downtown, of all different denominations, that come together to put on one vacation bible school. I was sooo impressed with that! I will be volunteering at the bible school, so we decided to visit the church it is going to be held at. The kids had a great time and made some new friends.

So, things are going really well for us here. Hudson is coming to visit us in a few weeks, and Wes' parents are also talking about coming up here for the 4th of July. We miss you all, but are settling in nicely to our new surroundings.