We're HOME!!! We left Mom and Dad's house at about 8:30 yesterday morning. Stopped at Casey Jones' Villiage in Jackson, Tennessee and ate at the restaurant there for lunch. Fresh blueberries on the buffet! Wow! It was the first time James and the kids had ever been there and it's been several years since I've been, so it was fun. Everybody really enjoyed themselves and the food was really good. We even found coonskin caps for the boys there! They've been wanting them for AGES now, but they're hard to find and so expensive (but cheaply made) when you do find them. These were better and cheaper than most, so we now have two furry-headed little boys. :-)

James wanted to push on and go as far as we could last night, so we ended up driving 14 hours and making it all the way to (almost) Oklahoma City. We held out for dinner until we got there (8 or 9 hours past lunch!) because they had a Steak ~N~ Shake and it was going to be my last opportunity for one of those on this trip! So at 9:30 at night we woke our sleeping children, enjoyed a FANTASTIC Frisco Melt with two extra cups of sauce, found a motel down the road and fell into bed. The La Quinta (with our AAA discount) was only $1.50 more than the Motel 6 down the block. So we enjoyed a much nicer, bigger room with a bathtub (most Motel 6 rooms only have a shower) AND a good breakfast in the morning.

I drove the first leg of the trip today, taking us into Amarillo. James took it from there and we had a nice, enjoyable trip. We had bought a couple of those Children's Classics books at a discount store in Pennsylvania, so by the time we made it home today Katie had read Anne of Green Gables and Pollyanna and Joe had read The Prince and the Pauper and Robinson Crusoe.

We got into our mountains just before 5:00, so we had time to run to the Post Office and pick up our mail, then to the grocery store to grab some milk and bread--and Totino's pizzas for dinner. :-) I don't think this has EVER happened before, but we were able to get the van unloaded and vacuumed (thanks to Sammy and Katie) AND get EVERYTHING UNPACKED!!! Wa-Hoo!!!!! It usually takes me days to get unpacked and sort through everything. Now it's 10:30 and I'm wiped out, so to bed with me. I'll start tackling the mountains of laundry tomorrow.

Before I go... please say a prayer for our local church. It looks like our folks have decided to walk away from the church building rather than try to fight it in court. They're just so exhausted with the whole business (it's been going on for years, even though the lawsuit only became official just recently) and want to be able to just be DONE with it and go on. We don't know if even that is possible at this point, but we're praying that the CoGoP will accept our offer (to hand over the building) and drop the suit. Who knows. It's been pretty incredible, some of the things they've done and tried to require. In any case, God knows. He has all the answers and we only want what he wants. This has been extremely stressful on some very dear old ladies who have been attacked ruthlessly and unjustly. Please say a prayer that God would give them strength and comfort and peace that passes all understanding. They really need a touch from the Lord and we all really need wisdom to know where to go and what to do from here--beginning with a location for church services on Sunday! :-)

~Rebekah~

--As for pictures, I'll start posting some soon! The batteries to my camera died at Mom & Dad's house and I kept forgetting to recharge them. I've got them charging now though, so I'll be able to get my pictures on the computer tomorrow. Hopefully I've got some good ones, but even bad pictures are better than no pictures at all, right?! ;-)