From Texas To Washington

         In August, I was able to help my friend, Karlynn, move from Texas to Washington where she got a job as a teacher. It took us about 4 days drive before we got to our destination with a few stops to visit relatives of hers.

Day 1

Our cargo

For your information, those car top carriers, although nice, are VERY loud. Whenever 

we wanted to say something to each other, we would have to shout to be heard.

Off we go.

The road stretching endlessly before us. :)

As we drove along, we saw so many of these abandoned houses out in the middle of nowhere.  It made me

 wonder if the people who lived in these houses had any friends, because they were so far from anyone. 

They must have been pretty lonely. 

This one doesn't have a roof anymore.

"The heavens declare the glory of God;the skies
proclaim the work of His hands." Ps. 19:1

"I will lift up my eyes to the mountains- where
does my help come from? My help comes from the
Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Ps 121:1,2

We're in Colorado!! We stopped in Colorado Springs for the night This is our hotel. A friend"s 

relatives where so gracious to host us for dinner and the night. They were really sweet.

Before we went to bed, we went on a walk to stretch out 

legs and get a glimpse of the city. It was beautiful there.

Day 2

   We were up and ready to leave the next morning by 6:00. We wanted to miss the Denver traffic. Thankfully, we did miss most  of it.

Tightening the straps. 

On the road again.

   It was a very scenic and diverse drive. Most of the time we drove through the mountains which was gorgeous. This day, we drove the rest of the way though Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and into Oregon. It was a long day.

These last three pictures are of ranches in Wyoming. Wyoming is SO spacious. There  is nothing and 

nobody out there. This is where you have to really keep an eye on your gas tank. When you come to a 

town the signs will say, (beyond this town) "No services for 30 miles." "No sevices for 50 miles" ect.

Utah was beautiful, but I don't really have many pictures of it because I was driving.

See how dim the sun is?

Look how gray the sky is.

Did you notice how hazy it was compared to Wyoming?

Yes, fires have been here. We never actually saw any fire during our trip, but you could tell that 

there were fires somewhere by all the haze from them. On a side note, look at all those engines.

I like trains.

   We arrived at our hotel around 8:30. We were VERY tired and hungry. So we walked to Panda Express. It was the first time I've ever been there. It was delicious, especially when you are craving rice! :)

Day 3

   Still sleepy the next morning, but time to get back on the road. This day was very short because we stopped to visit a cousin of Karlynn's.

Playing at the park with Karlynn's cousin's children. They are really sweet and so much fun!

Yes, this park had a merry-go-round. I haven't seen one of those since I was a tiny child. 

They were my favorite part of a park growing up. So it was kind of fun to see one again.

Well, day 4 is coming up soon. Stay tuned. :)

  "God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah."  Psalm 46:1-3

The Traveler,    

         Esther

Los Amigos!

From the St Louis Edition:

We love Los Amigos Mexican food!  We celebrated my birthday by eating out there! I really don't need to look at the menu because I always get my favorite meal: a bean burrito with queso sauce.  I've not found a queso sauce quite as good in St Louis so this was a treat!

It was nice getting to visit with these peeps!

This picture was taken to see if Liz and I look the most alike of all the sisters.  I don't think we do.  What's your opinion?

I think Rach and Lizzy look more similar...

We played a lot of Catan, watched a lot of Emergency and drank a lot of coffee.

We love Faith too! :P

But...

All good things must come to an end...

All the girls and mom took us back to the airport.

So sad saying goodbye!

:D

And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers. Philemon 22

Brought to you by: Rebekah Benner

Flying to Texas

From the St Louis Edition:

Delly Bean and I flew to Texas at the end of July to see and meet my new niece, Corrie.  It was Del's first flight and she did great!

The night before.  All ready to go.

Danny and Steven stayed behind.  It was so hard saying goodbye to them!

Already asleep! 

Me with my new niece Corrie!

Del hardly got put down!  She didn't have any problem with that either.

Then Piggy got jealous.

Emma did really well with her little cousin!

Cousin love!

 A selfie with my niece!

This girl knows how to eat ice cream...down to the last drop!

Lizzy and Corrie

Two sleeping babies are perfect!

It's so nice to see everyone again!

Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. 1 Peter 2:17

Brought to you by: Rebekah Benner

Swimming

From the St Louis Edition:

We have discovered that we enjoy swimming!  That is, after we got Danny loving it...  One day, Jessica and I took the kids to Anca's lake and spent the day swimming.  It happened to be one of the hottest days...99*!  We got lovely sunburns that left me peeling for weeks.  ;-)

Danny at first wanted nothing to do with floating.  So I held him in the water for a while and he gradually started warming up to it by splashing and I heartily encouraged him.  Soon he was pushing himself everywhere and I had to keep a strict eye on him to make sure he didn't go into deep water.

Del did very well playing in the shade of the only tree and napping in the stroller.

I managed to keep her from getting sunburned!

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Ps 24:1-2

Brought to you by: Rebekah Benner

The Long Awaited Date

Several years ago, as I was driving through Allen, I saw Saxby's Coffee shop

 for the first time. As you know my love for coffee, trying this coffee shop 

immediately went down on my list of things to do "sometime". While telling 

Lizzy about it, I discovered that she too had been wanting to try it. 

Then, one day, I decided that, because I had never been there before, I wanted to try Schlotsky's. Interestingly, when I mentioned it to Lizzy, I found out that she too had been wanting to go there.

So we started planning a date in which we two would go to Saxbys and Schlotsky's. 

We planned to do it a bunch of times, like, the week before I left for Asia, or the first time 

I went out with Lizzy driving after she got her driving license.

It never worked out until yesterday - finally! It was Lizzy's last day of her first semester of college. She was going to take her final and I went along to run errands after class. She didn't tell you this in her post about studying, but she did GREAT in class and passed with an A! (Of course!)

So she came out ready to celebrate and we finally went to Saxbys. :-)

Coffee is coffee, and this was no disappointment. Mmmmm!

But to stay true to the fact that we're both students and busy girls, we took our coffee to Half-Priced Books in a fruitless search of text books.

And then, of course, after running several other errands, we made our lunch stop at Schlotsky's. :-)

THEN, we went to the high school parking lot where I taught Lizzy to drive my car that has a manual transmission. That was definitely an exciting adventure, but she did great. :-) 

"He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Rev. 22:20

Blessings!
~Faithy

Study, Study, Study....and More Study

I feel like that has been my life for the last 5 weeks. But it is so rewarding! :-) Today marked the end of my first semester of college. Wow! I can't believe it's gone by so fast. However, I'm not the only one that's been studying. Faith's joined me by starting an EMT class.

My stack of studying material

Faith's book - studying is made so much better when you have a cup of coffee (or several!) to go along with it.

Pumpkin decided it was the 'in thing' to study and of course had to join us.

Studying together

Yep...I really felt like this several times. Who doesn't at some point?

One of my class assignments was to read a research article, summarize it, and then write several pages explaining how it  correlated with class content. I was so relieved when it was done. :-)

I tried to start out with only a few of my books, but somehow, I always ended up needing all of them.

 Thinking back over the past 5 weeks, the verse that comes first to my mind is one found in 1 Samuel.
                  "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." 


God is Faithful!
Lizzy