Our trip home!

It’s hard to believe we have only been home for a little over a week!  We have had so many wonderful visits with friends and family and are looking forward to many more before we leave for Guatemala in LESS than 4 weeks!!  We shared a lot of things on our facebook page during our travels home but we wanted to also share them with those of you who did not get to see them on facebook.

We started out our journey on November 17, 2012 with a 16 hour drive to Alabama!  Crazy as we are we timed our travels just right so that we could stop in Louisiana for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Chipotle!  The closest Chipotle to where we were in Texas was a 5 hour drive away so we were very happy to enjoy this treat!!

Mmmmm Chipotle!!

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Gulf Shores Alabama with Dylan’s dad, stepmom, brothers, sister-in-law, and nephew!

Dylan with his dad (Dean), stepmom (Ruth), and brother (Jeremy)!

I got to see a white sand beach for the first time ever and we had a lot of fun playing with Dylan’s nephew!!

Beautiful sunset over a white sand beach!!

Uncle Dylan and Aunt Missy having fun with Dominic!

Our nephew Dominic is such a cutie! One of our 2 cutest nephews ever 🙂

After a great week in Alabama we moved on to visit our friends the Malones in Tennessee!!  We had a great time catching up and had so much fun together!  We got to see the Smokey Mountains for the first time when we took a trip to Gatlinburg and thanks to the Malone’s season passes we were able to spend a day at Dollywood amusement park acting like big kids!!

Our dear friends the Malones (minus 5 of their kids) when when we went to Gatlinburg!

Dylan and I in Gatlinburg TN, with the Smokey Mountains in the backgroud!

Found this in a shop in Gatlinburg…so thankful the scorpions on our bed in Texas weren’t this big 😮

The soaring eagle rollercoaster at Dollywood!! SO fun!!

Dylan REALLY enjoyed the rollercoaster!!

Then we moved on to trying on goofy hats!  Hot dog head!!

I’ve always wanted purple hair 🙂

After 4 days of fun and laughs with the Malone’s in Tennessee we moved on to North Carolina to visit Dylan’s mom, step-dad, brother and sisters!

Dylan decorating the tree with his brother (Mario) and sister (Tara). First time they all got to decorate the tree together in years!!

So thankful our sister waited to decorate her tree with us we were happy we got to decorate a tree this year!!

Dylan with his mom (Debi), stepdad (Freddy), and sister (Jenna)!!

We also visited Dylan’s brother at his college campus and on the way there Dylan was being goofy in the car and made up this little jingle:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI3pyvvLKHY]After all our fun in North Carolina we made our way to Virginia where we were able to stop for a few hours and have lunch with my aunt and cousins!

Missy’s Aunt Judy and cousins John and Bobby!

After our brief but enjoyable lunch in Virginia we headed to West Virginia to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew!  We spent a fun day catching up.  Kris’ stepmom, Carol, was so sweet and thought to get us all gingerbread houses to put together.  We had a fun night trying to outdo each other to see who’s was best!  Putting together gingerbread houses was another first for me (so many things I haven’t done or seen…lol)

Us with Charlie and Kris (Missy’s sister and brother-in-law) and our finished gingerbread houses!

Uh oh!! Some little boy got caught with a mouth full of gingerbread house candy!!

Missy with her sister, Kris, and nephew, Anthony! Next time they are all together like this there will be a new little niece or nephew to add to the picture!!  (Just to clarify…Missy’s sister Kris is pregnant NOT Missy…lol)

We had a wonderful time visiting family and friends during our travels back to PA!  We are so blessed to have had the extra time to do this since we won’t be seeing everyone for at least 2 years!  Now we are back in PA and enjoying spending time with family and friends here!  So thankful that we have this time in between School of Missions and heading to Guatemala to get to see as many of our friends and family as we can!

Thank you all so very much for you faithful prayers for safe travels on our way back to PA!