Hello all,
I am just winging this one so it might look a little thrown together. We got back from our 3-week 'vacation' late Thursday night, and this is the first time I've been on my computer since then. A quick synopsis of our time away is this:

David went to the Philippines for his second missionary trip there. He was gone for 15 days, including 4 days of travel time (it takes a while to fly halfway around the world!) I don't have any pictures of him there just on hand, but here's one he took of some of the local flora and fauna:

Meanwhile, I was at Mom and Dad W's house with the children during that time. Mom got a lot of great pictures of the kids but I don't have any to share from that time. David had our camera in the Philippines.

David had one evening plus one full day to sleep. And sleep. And sleep. Then we took off at 5:40 Thurs. morning to drive from central Illinois to central Georgia, and from there to Royal Palm Beach, Florida for a wedding. Aside from our van acting up (engine racing from faulty computer signals - it's a long story) in Paducah KY, and having to rent a car while the van was in the shop, which put us on the road about 7 hours later than we had planned (landing us in R.P.B. at 3a.m. the day of the wedding), it really was a good trip. The kids traveled really well, and we were so thankful!

The wedding was beautiful, filled with familiar friendly faces. It was so wonderful to be there and be a witness to this special occasion.

These are a few of the familiar friendly faces - among whom I fit in quite well, and we didn't plan our outfits to match at all!


We stuck around for a couple days after the wedding, going to the beach twice and visiting several friends in the area. The kids had a bit of overcoming to do where the beach was concerned. The roar of the waves, even though they were coming in gently, was enough to be overwhelming. The kids seemed to think we asked way too much of them to get their feet wet - but Elisa did overcome her aversion to putting her feet down in the sand. This is a small victory in the larger picture, at least. This picture is pretty much what it was like: Mommy and Daddy smiling; kids crying or merely tolerating this "ocean" business. And may I say, the beach at John MacArthur State park is gorgeous!!! We enjoyed it immensely. Er, that is, David and I enjoyed it immensely...


We had various small adventures on our way home. We stopped in Arthur, IL, a small Amish community, and did 2 hours' worth of (grocery) shopping. That was a lot of fun!

We then rolled into our driveway - thankfully snow-free, unlike last year - at 11o'clock on Thursday night. Now we are just catching up on our rest (and laundry!)