Just before the fun...

The first week in August was a fun and busy week just before we left for our trip to Bama. Our friends Chris & Laura (below in the sailboat) came to visit, and they also agreed to help us with a Vacation Bible School we had gotten lined up to work with. 

Our boys were still a bit too young for the activities and discussions we were doing, but they had fun hanging out with new faces at the very least. During the week of VBS, I really felt the Lord calling me to work with the teen and young women in the church we were working with. I asked them if they would be interested in meeting up when we came back from our trip (we were going to be gone for 3.5 weeks) and they all said yes :) I was very excited! We had our first meeting last night, and once I get into it a little more and get some photos of the girls I'm working with... I will definitely be putting them on here!

We had to get all the sailboats out of the water before we left, so I got my chance to sail solo one morning :) 

I was so excited. I rigged the boat and sailed it all by myself to the ramp where Dallas and the boys met me with the trailer to take it out of the water. It was a very pretty morning and so relaxing out there on the water. 

The photo above makes me smile. Every day Joss & Emit sit next to each other like this when they get on the couch. They are always right next to each other and usually always touching just a bit. Think they like each other??? :)  

Our last day before we flew to Bama was spent tubing and skiing, just the four of us. I don't remember too many specifics from this morning except that I was laughing A LOT!!! Everything the boys were doing seemed to crack me up so much... we were having a really nice time. 

Joss and I were tubing together and I was trying to tell him not to be scared if I fell out because he would be safe and he had his life jacket on. He wasn't worried one little bit... but I just wanted to reassure him just in case. Well, after talking about it, he wanted me to get out so he could ride by himself. He didn't want me in the boat, but he wanted me to jump out of the tube and stay in the water. After a little signaling to daddy, I bailed and little man took a spin in the tube all by himself!!

Then, momma got to go by herself :) 

Before our airport and plane rides, I wanted to have a grab bag of 'distractions' in the event we needed them :) My recent love of pinterest gave me some fun and quick ideas. I made some train crayons like you see below, some little binoculars, a color matching game that works on fine motor skills, and a couple other little things I thought might entertain my little dudes. 

Here's the grab bag stash....

 The boys did really great. Our biggest delay was waiting here in our little airport. When we checked in, we knew it was going to be about a 2 and a half hour delay, but we had a friend drop us off and were already there so we decided to just wait it out instead of going back home and having to come back a little later. So most of our distractions got used up in the airport instead of on the plane. We saved the iTouches with the new games (the golden tickets) for the plane. 

 They had a blast with the binoculars (toilet paper rolls decorated). They were keeping an eye out for our plane. Unfortunately, it was a really slow time for flights, so there wasn't much 'air traffic' to entertain them. But it didn't keep them from looking for them. Joss kept calling them his 'a-knock-u-lators'. SO CUTE! 

 I brought a bunch of stickers so they could decorate them too, but they didn't have time to sit and decorate them, they just wanted to run around looking at things :) Luckily our little waiting room has lots of windows, if nothing else.  

When we landed in Atlanta, as usual, we had to clear customs. This process takes a very long time, but it has a lot of things that excite the boys, like the luggage machines that spit your bags out and down the 'cool slide', the walking escalators, the stair escalators, the little train and all the interesting people and artwork everywhere. It's not like we are landing in a little tiny airport in the states when we come for visits.. it is either Atlanta (the busiest in the world) or Miami or Fort Lauderdale... so we hit MEGA OVERLOAD right away. But their favorite site to see in the airport was of course their CC!!!!!! She had them sitting and eating ice cream within minutes of hugging them (while I took care of return tickets for Emit--last 'free' flight for my little man) :(

After leaving the airport, the fun began: Big trucks honking, red lights, planes flying overhead, bridges, trains.... and then of course when we got to CC & Poppy's house, the REAL fun began. Stay tuned :)