Well, I can hardly get my mind around it.....come Sunday morning we will be on our way to LA and Sunday night Nov 29, on our way to Sydney, Australia!!! I confess that even writing that makes me dizzy and nervous, but I know that God has mapped out this exciting adventure for us and that all we have to do is stay on course. In fact I would really appreciate your prayers on Sunday night for sleep, anxiety, safety....beginning at 10:15 PST LOL....all my friends on the east coast can either pray ahead, or set an alarm! It will be a 15 hour flight and we will land at 9am on Dec 1, crossing the international dateline and skipping Nov 30 all together.
As you can see from our pictures, NJ was a very special time for us and a great way to mask the homesickness we felt leaving Virginia. We packed our weeks with wobbily iceskating lessons from PopPop, adventures in imaginations with Uncle Russ and Aunt Jessica, lots of time playing Wii with Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Lauren and baking, coloring, running and playing on the playground with Auntie Robyn. The girls were privledged once again to be able to spend precious time with their great Grandparents. Great Grandpa Dyksen took us to his special fish pond and bought big pumpkin cookies for the girls. Great Grandma Unrath made us a special snack and treated us to playing the piano and exploring in her back yard. Even a real playdate made it into our trip - Aunt Ally's house is probably the most fun place in the world! Emma loves Jacob, Lukas and Kierra - especially Luke who is her "best buddy" in NJ. It's so fun for John and I to sit back and watch as the girls interact differently with each person in their own
special way. John and I even got a night out kid free, courtesy of Auntie Robyn, Uncle Jim and Aunt Lauren, we went out for dinner with Ralph and Allison, my best friend, and had a great time! The hardest part about visiting "home" is realizing how much all those who live there touch your life and how much you miss life with them.
Off to Indiana after NJ! Talk about an extra special place - you see horses and cows as often as you see people, horse & buggy's go by all the time and quiet and peaceful are just as common as the sun coming up every day. My Uncle Glenn's house is a great place to stay! Great coffee, yummy food and lots of super conversations make for the kind of special visits that you don't get everywhere you go. Emma got a ride on a real Amish horse and buggy - she was in her glory, she called it her princess coach. My cousin Bruce took us for a tour of the Fire Dept. he works for, took us for a real ride on a firetruck and gave us a little lesson on firesafety - he's so cool!!! We watched Cassie (Bruce's daughter) play soccer and spent Sunday night at Tom's house. I'm close with almost all of my first cousins (there are 24 of them!) so it's a real treat for me to spend time with any of them, even if just for a few days.
We are soaking up yet another set of family memories and experiences here in Sandwich, IL. The girls got to start their adventures by setting up Papa's special train that only goes up at Christmas time. Emma has reinvented the whole town to her imagination and has spent hours in train adventures already, she thinks it's the Polar Express. Lily is starting to show her "battle fatigue" but handling it as well as can be expected. She has developed a fun relationship with her Nana and Papa and it's fun to watch her warm up and get loved on by John's parents. I'll catch up with our Sandwich pictures in a day or so - the pictures bring life to our story! James and Sarah invited us to stay at their house for the weekend.....Uncle James has a Wii too....so you can guess what Emma did while she was there! ;-) Uncle James and Aunt Sarah took the girls to a fun, indoor water park called Coco Key and had the best time! Emma didn't stop the entire 5 hours we were there and Uncle James confessed to us all that he was ready for bed by 6:30! We finished up the weekend with Sarah's baby shower at our friend's the Reiners. They have a bunny rabbit named Boo who the girls love to hold.....needless to say, Boo ended up under the bed! Emma thinks he was playing hide and seek, but I think we all know better :-) We'll spend the rest of the week with Nana and Papa, with a stop at the Schultz's (John's best friend) for dinner on Monday, a "big girl" haircut and lunch day with Nana on Wed and Thanksgiving with Nana's side of the family on Thursday.
As you can see, we've been busy busy busy....and that's just how The Moris Family likes it. Looking forward to writing our next post and story...... wow, the next time I write, I'll be in Canberra, Australia!!!! That's crazy!
No comments:
Post a Comment