Happiness

Scenes from a rest stop in New Mexico. Here's Asher with a Native American chief! It was quite sunny! Bathrooms at the rest stop as well- or maybe it was a souvenir shop! We saw a lot of sky and land as we traveled from Oklahoma and New Mexico on that Friday. Picture done by Josh. He likes to steal my camera and play around with it a little. He takes wonderful pictures! Home Sweet Home! Us in front of our rental home. It was built in 2006 and is a lovely 4 bed, 3 bath. Like I said before the extra bed and full bath is downstairs, so if anyone wants to come visit let us know!!!

The skies in Oklahoma are drop dead gorgeous! On Tuesday night we stayed with Jen and Uche in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. They have a beautiful home and we so enjoyed visiting with them! We wish we could have stayed longer! We went swimming, visited the Conoco Philips Museum and went out to eat, plus ice cream! It was so nice and refreshing to take a break from the road and visit for a while. Josh did most of the driving while I gave him a one to two hour break each day. Thanks, Babe! The kids loved the two hotels we stayed in! The 2 must haves for hotels with kids are 1. A hot breakfast and 2. a pool. The kids loved being able to swim at night and we loved that they got the needed exercise. One time I sent Josh with the kids to the pool and enjoyed a nice bath in the hotel room all by myself. Being in a car for 8 hrs a day with a lot of noise can be stressful! Then, we enjoyed hot waffles in the morning with the current news on tv. Oh, and we love free cable! Fun times! ...

On Monday night, we arrived at Molly and Doug's home in St. Louis, Missouri. This is the first time we have visited her in St. Louis and a bucket list item checked. She has a lovely home and a sweet, sweet family. We stayed the night and went to a children's museum called The Magic House the next day. The kids had a blast and I had fun taking some pictures. We left early the next day, on the road again. This is blurry, but cute! Elizabeth and Anna playing a game on the phone. Fun, fun Christian in the Bubble Room. The bubble had just popped! All the kids. A bit blurry. Sweet Baby Peter. He is such a doll. I loved, loved, loved holding him. What a sweet baby! He really has brought a lot of joy to the Larsen household! Paul waving hi. Anna is growing bigger and bigger. She is a sweet, helpful girl. Charlotte- I love how there are pictures of Charlotte in each and every room. Her Spirit filled each corner of the home. We miss her! ...

We left our small town in Maryland around 2 pm Saturday Aug. 6th- after packing up several last items, buying a car top carrier and finishing cleaning our house- and we were off! The almost 2,500 mile trip would take us about 36 hours for us to complete but first we had to say goodbye to some friends. Here are the kids, with one of the boys' best friends Andy, in front of our moving trailer, saying goodbye. We sure will miss Andy! We also had to make one last trip to the Glen Echo park, since the kids needed a break from all that packing and riding a carousel was still on our Summer list of things to do. They had a blast! And we were off! Through West Virginia and green trees and on to Ohio. As I mentioned before, we got a shredded tire just outside of Washington, MD and had to stop for the night. Luckily a Super-Walmart was open on Sunday and we fixed the tire and went on our way with no more incidents! To be continued...