All things denote there is a God

More of the Sunshine State

You just haven’t lived until you’ve slept 3 to an air mattress. 

Christian and Jeanne came down Friday night and I made 2 giant shepherds pies, one for the crew and one for the freezer. We played games and then went to the pool and had so much fun! We played colors and Marco Polo and Christian told us all about his training. Big kids are so fun! Christian dogpiled the girls because that’s what brothers do. 

I made bacon and eggs and toast and cut up some strawberries and then we packed lunches and beach gear for our fun day. 

Adi got to drive bubbas big truck and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the back and letting Christian coach her. 

We hit the exchange because beach exchanges usually have good stuff, but not this one. 
Then we headed down to the Pensacola Lighthouse. 😍 


Jeanne and Christian were the only brave climbers. It was like 180 steps!

Pretty high!

It’s also haunted, so that’s fun. 

Lu got pics of us from down below. 

See Christian hugging the wall? Neither of us like heights. 

We had decided to go to the navy beach there in Pensacola and I was a little sad because there’s these skinny barrier islands that I thought would make it so we didn’t have waves, but from the top of the lighthouse we could see there were no waves even past the barrier islands. 

#happylady

Unfortunately the beach was chock full of jellyfish. 

So we hung out under the canopy a lot. 

And we waded. 

Look at that monster! And the giant jellyfish. 🤣🤣🤣

The jellyfish were pretty sad, but a day at the beach is a day at the beach, amiright?

Gorg!

Love this cute boy!





And the sand! Like sugar!



Christian had bought inner tubes and Jeanne and Adi sat in them and held the boys and didn’t get stung at all, so then Damian and I went out too. 

I never did get stung, but there were so many fish and so many jellies and I got tired of trying to dodge them all. 

I love spending time with these 5!

They made me. 🤣

The only things that could have made this day better was Matt. 

Since it was so tough to swim, we headed just down the street to the base pool and slid and swimmer and had diving contests. 

Aaaand we got rid of all that sand. 

We had brought our shampoo and conditioner so we could all use the outdoor showers there and then didn’t have to try to get 10 people cycled through 1 shower. 

It stormed as we left but Adi drove like a pro. We had a delicious dinner at a Mexican fast food place, and then the boys took the boys home and the girls took the girls shopping. And we finally were ready for back to school!

We played games until 10 when I made myself get to bed. Since we had a 14 hour drive I had planned to wake up early, so I took Lexi and Damian’s room and all the kids had a big slumber par-tay!

Florida

The Lu crew arrived in Florida just a few days before we did and Damian was finishing up his last few days in Montana before bringing their furniture down, so he hadn’t arrived yet. Thankfully Christian lives only an hour away, so he was able to find them a free sofa set and also brought a bed from their spare room, so they had some furniture when we got there. 

The first order of business after dropping Emmett at school was the grocery store where we did a big empty apartment shopping trip. We dropped Frankie, Delaney, and Carter at home and adi, Lu, and I went to Wally and then lunch at Whataburger, which was what-a-licious.  

We took the boys to the pool when Emmett got home from school and it sprinkled the whole time. 

We were cool with that because it was warm out and the water was so warm, but then it started thundering so we had to get out. 

An empty house is depressing, so we plan b’d our night and went to see Harold and the Purple Crayon. 

Carter couldn’t hang. He fell asleep during the last 15 minutes of the movie. 

Emmett loved it!

Frankie’s been without a phone since my birthday and she’s actually been really good about it. It’s hard because friends she doesn’t see regularly don’t know why she’s dropped off the face of the earth. 

On Wednesday I woke up with a terrible sore throat and so much achy fatigue. I slept all day on the air mattress in the living room, so that tells you how wiped I was. 

That night Damian arrived and I rallied enough to help unload their little trailer, but then I was done.Thursday was more of the same, lots of sleeping and rest, but by the evening I had started to feel better. 

Alexis and Damian went on a date and we put the boys to bed. 

I had been in bed for 2 days, so I hit the pool and it felt so good, though a little creepy to swim by myself at night. Frankie and Delaney joined me for a little, but they were creeped out. Just to be clear, the apartment complex and especially the pool are very nice, it’s just weird being out and night. 

On the road again

We dropped Matt off at the Nashville airport around noon. We had packed sandwich wraps so we all ate in the car and headed south from Nashville. 

When we planned our Tennessee trip I decided to check how far we’d be from Lu and crews new home in Pensacola, and we were only 6 hours! Dropping Matt off added 2 hours, but still. I had found a few fun stops for our trip. 1st up - Giant chicken with chef hat. This was Adi’s fav! She loved this guy. 

I just think the US is beautiful. And I love traveling with my crew!

We found another Buc-cee’s on our way. We stopped at every one we could, but around the 4th one, some of the shine had worn off. They are so much alike that I had to double check we hadn’t been to the same one. Even the shirts were the same just with a different state on them. 🤣 We *love* their candied nuts - we always get almonds and cashews, so we definitely still recommend them, but you know. 

Iron man ancient billboard. This guy was a few miles off the freeway, but then we were able to backroads it and it didn’t add but a few minutes. 

I’m not exactly sure what “Ironman” is, but I do love a roadtrip stop. 

Adi drove us on some backroads to the Clarkson covered bridge

It smelled like an old covered bridge too. 

Her picture stance lately kills me. 

There was a short bus there field tripping but as we arrived they were loading up, and then it was just us. 

Models. 

We walked the bridge and then were on our way. 

Our late start threw me off a little, so when we arrived at the Ave Maria Grotto at Saint Bernard Abbey, it was already closed. Whomp whomp, we had to drive all the way through town to get to this one too, so that was a big bummer. 

It looked pretty neat, but was all fenced and locked up. 

We drove into Birmingham to see Miss Fancy the Elephant. She lived at their zoo for 20+ years and became a mascot for the city. She’s everywhere!

Avondale Park was extra cute, but we had to make tracks, so we didn’t linger long. 

We tried to see the Heaviest corner on earth, but it was right downtown and no easy place to park. Adi took a turn driving through the rest of Birmingham and got her first taste of freeway driving. There was only one hairy moment when she switched lanes without looking because she was nervous of the merging traffic coming onto the freeway, but thankfully alls well that ends well. 

She drove for an hour and got us to the Big Lighthouse Fountain. 

There were several things we wanted to see here in Clanton, Alabama, but one thing lead to another and they were hard to find. I actually think one of our sites - a giant peach statue was located right next to this here lighthouse and we missed it, but oh well. 

I really wanted to see the Lighthouse statue, and then the Fake Town of Spectre from the movie Big Fish, but that closed at dusk and we would have arrived about 30 minutes too late. So that was a bummer and I wish I would have planned better.

We got Jack in the Box for dinner, a first for the little Rays, and powered on to Lu’s new home where we arrived at 11. It was big boy Emmett’s first day of kindergarten, so we were all excited to see our best 5-year-old before school the next day!