Day 16: Florida

Today we got up and packed a little and then headed out for snorkeling. We were admiring all the fish around the reef when all of the sudden a large school of fish were swimming by Joshua. We were looking at that when the school not only kept going but got bigger. Suddenly there were fish swimming on both sides of Joshua and me and through us. They were hitting us. There were thousands... probably tens of thousands, swimming by. We both tucked in our arms and held still. I kept wondering where the end of them was but also was wondering what would be at the end and if they were running from something. When they finally finished we continued to swim around the reef. I got some water in my mouth so I came up for air and Joshua told me there was a big fish by us and to check it out when I went back under. So when I did sure enough there was this long skinny fish sitting still looking at us. Joshua grabbed me and I stood up and he said that he thought it was a barracuda. We got out of there quick and continued exploring. When I went back up on the shore Joshua saw three more. We looked up barracudas when we got back to the hotel and sure enough that is exactly what they looked like and the site said they are in the shallow shores of Florida. After snorkeling we met up with the whole family and had an afternoon picnic in the park. We barbecued franks and a variety of veggie burgers, and hung out for a few hours. We played a little frisbee and shot some video of the family. Also we tried to play tennis but it was so hot we were dripping sweat right away so that didn't work out so well. Watching all of the kids at the park was a lot of fun:) We went back to aunt Sherri's house and Danielle had gotten sugar free ice cream for us! Yummy. After that we said goodbye to everyone and finished packing. It might be slow on the videos for awhile because we will be on the road...will load more pics soon:)

Day 15 Florida

Today we slept in again. We keep thinking we will get up early and going swimming or snorkeling but we just don't do it. After we finally got up we headed to Sherri's and helped her paint her room. Joshua and I love painting... freaks I know. Then we got the privilege of babysitting our niece Jasmine and we went with her and also all of her four cousins, and Sherri, Danny, Danielle and David too Boomers. Which is like a family fun center back home. Joshua was really thinking the four kids thing. It was hard just to watch one three year old and figure out how to do any adult stuff... crazy. We did get in a family game of lazer tag and one go cart race. It was fun. Then Danny came back to our hotel with us for a midnight swim. Yay for heated pools and warm weather.

Day 14 Florida

Today we got up and headed to Sherri's house to help them put carpet in the three bedrooms. It was a long work day but really Joshua and Danny did most of the work and I did a lot of reading and helping some. It was fun to be able to work on someones house other then ours. Plus if you now Joshua he can not go more then two weeks without doing a house project. Sherri bought us Chinese food for helping so we were thrilled about that. Also we got to go over to Danielle's house to celebrate Angels birthday. She had gotten this delicious chocolatey cake. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

Day 13 Florida

We spent this sunny morning snorkeling at the beach. I had a mask that fit me this year so I had a much better time then last year in Florida. We saw lots of fish swimming around us and one Jelly Fish. It was a pretty low tide so we could not explore the reef as well as we liked because it pretty much was on the shore and too shallow but it was still really fun. After the beach we went and spent time with all of Joshua’s siblings and spent some time working on his aunt Sherri’s house. Three more days here!

Day twelve Florida

Today we slept in and went swimming at the hotel. It was awesome. They have a closet full of pool toys and the pool is right outside our door. We cant believe we got this place at such a discounted price. After swimming we met up with Joshua's sisters families and went to the beach. It was fun to play at the beach with kids and think about kids in our future! Joshua's mom met us there for a little bit. After that I headed back to the hotel to do some laundry and clean and rest while Joshua got to go play Tennis with his brother Danny. He was hoping to be able to hang out with his brother Christian as well but he had to work. We look forward to more family time tomorrow.

Day Eleven Florida

Another glorious day of sleeping in. We sure needed it. We met up with Joshua’s sister Danielle and her husband David and their four kids to go to Bob Coy’s satellite church in Bocca. Also Joshua’s other sister Jennifer and her boyfriend and daughter met us there as well. It was an excellent message on biblically how division in ethnic groups happened in biblical times and how we should all be unified as brothers and sister in Christ. After church Danielle made us vegetarian biscuits and gravy and Joshua's mom and brothers Christian and Danny joined us. we hung out with the family. In the evening Danny, Joshua’s brother and his aunt Sherri joined us to go to see Despicable Me. We had a wonderful day with family and look forward to the beach tomorrow.

Day Ten more pics

Day Ten: Georgia to Florida

Today we were on to Florida where we get to stay for 7 nights whoohoo. My mom suggested that we stop in St Augustine in Florida because it is the oldest town in America and has the oldest house. We decided to take her advice and it was well worth it. We spent most of our time touring a old Spanish military base from the 1500's and did not have time to tour the oldest house, oldest school, museum, and old Catholic church but we did drive by and will definitely plan on going back. After being there we headed down to coco beach because joshua wanted to check out the Ron Johns surf shop there. You know your shop is a big deal when they have a live band playing in the store. We picked up a skin board and headed to Boca Raton. We checked into our motel which is way nicer then we were expecting so that was an awesome bonus and headed over to Joshua's sisters house. She made us dinner and we got to see all four of his siblings and his mom and aunt and our nieces and nephews. Another blessed day that we are so thankful to have had.

PS we have videos through day five posted now on the old post. Hopefully will have them all up soon. It takes about two hours per video to upload!

Day Nine Tennessee to Georgia

We were back on track with getting up early. We headed out for Georgia at 6am. We were going to stop and buy some cereal for breakfast and instead decided to stop at the Cracker Barrel restaurant/store. These are a huge deal in the central states. We had been seeing signs all over for several states and could not resist anymore. Their breakfast was delicious and cheap, well worth the stop. We headed on to Georgia and really enjoyed passing buy the buildings in Atlanta. Also there are these hilarious billboards for chick-fil-a everywhere. We had read that Jonathan Acuff does advertising for them so he is probably behind those. There are models of cows hanging off them. We stopped for lunch a little south of Atlanta at a place called Noah’s ark. It is a huge park that rescues animals and cares for them. They have one area that houses a tiger, lion and bear who all live together because they had been together since cubs. We also saw a bunch of primates, bears, tigers, zebra, buffalo, ostrich, alligators, snakes, turtles, and peacocks. It was fun but unfortunately there was an extreme heat warning out for Georgia and it was VERY hot. They actually closed the park down right after we got there because of the heat.
We continued on driving to the bottom of Georgia and were keeping our fingers crossed that our campsite would actually have a open free pool. Luckily it did because it was so hot!! Joshua and I spent awhile in our camping chairs plugged into the outlet post in our campsite trying to upload videos before we got too hot and went to the pool. We stayed in for about an hour in a half until it was dark and then showered and tried to sleep in the tent. Joshua was way too hot so instead we got up and slept in the car until 2am ☺ Every time he woke up sweaty he would turn it on and run the air conditioning for a few min. We are VERY excited to have a hotel in Florida for a week!

Day Eight: Kentucky to Tennessee

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So in theory day eight would start off gloriously. Since we stayed in a hotel the night before, a great night of rest would be followed by an early get-up and a carefully executed schedule. Well that’s sort of how it went. We slept great...a little too great. It turned out the outlet the laptop and phone was plugged into actually was on the same circuit as the light, so when the lights went out….so did our alarm. Woops. We scurried to throw together some breakfast, guess how much coffee we could get out of those hotel coffee pods, and load the car in the rain. We actually ended up being about 55 minutes late for our 10:30 tour of the Mammoth Caves. Fortunately, we found out we jumped into Central Time from East to West Kentucky and gained an hour, making us about 5 minutes early for our tour! Mammoth Caves were incredible and we were able to capture some good pictures. The difference in the rustic caving we're used to and the accommodations of Mammoth we're pretty amusing (including a solid, doored entrance, stainless steel steps, and occasional seating for the heavy-winded). There was also a very opinionated gentleman on our tour who seemed to have thought our little expedition was a podium for his public political venting in response to the tour guide. e.g. Not allowing backpacks is Homeland Security suppressing the American People, the National parks initiating eminent domain is unjust, etc. (so, that was interesting)

Next, we cruised to Tennessee, locked in a good spot at our campground with our chairs, and checked in. When we returned to occupy our site, our chairs had been mysteriously removed from around the campfire area, and hidden in the bushes. Wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be upset….so we set up at another more populated area, and headed for the pool- which turned out to be closing in a half an hour, and cost 4 bucks per person- so much for that one. Ha. Finally, we just showered and headed for Nashville, leaving camp in the car for the time being, in case our neighborhood vandal still ensued. Nashville was alright, but a major flood had just forced much of the city to close for remodeling. We spent about an hour there, enjoying some scenery, air-conditioned souvenir shops and taking a few pics. We made it back to camp just before ten, set up camp, and got a wonderful nights’ rest.

Day Seven: Indiana to Kentucky

I apologize, the bugs are SO loud in this video!! its kind of hilarious.

Finally a day of sleeping in oh glory! Joshua and I slept until 9am which was still only 8 hours because we got home so late the night before. We got up and headed on a drive to Ohio to see Joshua’s old buddy Chris. He lives on a big farm up there with lots of cute dogs. We hung out with him for a few hours and then were heading to Richmond Kentucky, which is another one of Joshua’s hometown. We had a campground near there and were very excited to get in early and relax. But then we found out another one of Joshua’s buddies was in a Kentucky county jail. Joshua gave them a call and they said if we made it by 8pm that night they would let Joshua visit him. We drove straight there for three hours and made it with 15 min to spare. Joshua was able to visit with his friend for an hour and a half and it was a blessing for both of them. We knew we could not make it back to our campground by the latest check in so we drove towards tomorrow’s destination until we found a motel. Finally at 11:30 we checked in and crashed. It ended up being an additional blessing because they had a fridge and we were able to put all our food in there and clean out the cooler! Great day with many blessings.

We have also begun to upload videos, starting with Day One if you would like to go back and see our video summaries:) We hope to upload the rest soon from our hotel in Florida!

Day six more pics

Day Six: Missouri to Indiana

Another day up at 5am… this is getting rough. I once again hid while Joshua took down the tent. I cannot handle those daddy long legs. We also had another night of wind and lightening but slept ok. We drove across Missouri and headed over to Illinois. We were so excited to see the Mississippi River. We stopped in a little park just across the border in Illinois. We could see the Mark Twain themed town across the river and the steamboat. We could not believe how flooded the river was. It was all over the campground and in the trees. Joshua got a picture of a sign that said no parking that was about 50 feet into the water. It sure was very pretty there and I was surprised the water was warm. We continued driving all the way through Illinois. We were able to stop in Springfield and see Lincolns old house and all the other houses on his block restored to how they were when he lived there. That was really fun and we saw houses of people who helped with the Underground Railroad. After we made it through Illinois we drove into Indiana. We were staying that night in Lafayette Indiana where Joshua spent a few of his teenage years. He showed me his old house and many places him and his friends used to go. We were able to visit his old friend Brandon and his girlfriend Victoria and see their kids and also visit another friend Brandon and hear about how his life has changed in the last ten years. Joshua also took me over to the to a walking bridge in the college district that he scaled underneath when he was a kid. We had fun visiting his old buddies and seeing all the places he had told me stories about.