We first drove from MD down to FL to seem my folks. We had such a great time. We stopped at St. Augustine, FL which is the oldest settlement in the U.S. It was cool to see, and I loved that it was right next to the ocean. While in FL we went to the beach, hung out with the folks and went to Gatorland - which was awesome.
Rachel with her scared face.
Lauren getting eaten alive... 
On the train around Gatorland. Rachel threw her sunglasses off the train about 2 minutes after this picture was taken.
My MD friends gave me some Disney $$ because we were originally planning on going to Disney World. Our plans changed, instead Travis & I went with my folks to one of the hotels and had dinner. I love food - and this was AWESOME food. My dessert was a Passion Fruit Creme brulee. It was so yummy!
My MD friends gave me some Disney $$ because we were originally planning on going to Disney World. Our plans changed, instead Travis & I went with my folks to one of the hotels and had dinner. I love food - and this was AWESOME food. My dessert was a Passion Fruit Creme brulee. It was so yummy!From there we drove and stopped and had lunch with a mission companion of mine. It was great to see her and her family. I have been so blessed to have great friends - ones that even though you haven't spoken in a while, that when you are together its just like old times. Emily is one of those friends.
Lauren and Rachel loved staying in hotels. Luckily we had a few days where they could do that.
2 days later we arrived in San Antonio and stayed with some good friends from MD that got stationed in San Antonio. It was great to see their family again. We tried to go to the Alamo, I think we were there a total of 1/2 hour. Trav really enjoys reading all of the material that's posted, that was cut short by our 4 1/2 & 1 1/2 year old running crazy all over the place. Maybe we'll make it back again in 10 years.
We spent Easter weekend with them and were even there to celebrate their daughter's birthday.
On Monday we headed to El Paso where we had dinner with my cousin and his family. Great food and even better company! The next day we were off to our new home!
Rachel did pretty well on the trip. Her favorite activities were to call my name incessantly. "Mama, mama, mama, mama, mama." One time it happened for about 15 minutes. I was about to scream. Mind you, this is with me replying, "What, honey?" for the first 5 times. Also, she would put her hands on her carseat buckles and say, "All done. Mama, All done!" It was so sad to tell her we still had 3 more days to drive. Whenever we went someplace we put her Monkey backpack on. She loved it and called it her "nono" - we've been calling it her "Mono" which is monkey in Spanish.
We realized (not quite a big surprise) Lauren loves to talk. There were a few times that Trav and I would beg her to be quiet for just a little bit. She mainly kept busy with a new Barbie that our neighbor gave her before we left. Its the Diamond Castle Barbie and when you press her hand it sings 2 songs. Thanks, Laura, those songs didn't get old at all. ;) ... "I feel connected..."
Why couldn't more of the trip been like this:
The day we arrived, we got right into our apartment. The apartment is REALLY small - that and it has an odd smell. A little musty, a little like urine. With my passive-aggressive nature, I didn't say anything. I'm just suffering through everyday. We try and have the windows open everyday - I'm hoping that's helping and that I'm not just getting use to it.The weather has been nice. We've been in the 80s or low 90s lately. I'm thinking we lucked with the location (although its not close to the pool) it does face Northeast ( I think). We get the morning sun, and we just close our blinds in the afternoon and our apartment stays cool. We haven't even had to turn on the AC yet.
On Trav's first day of class, he found out that another LDS family, who was here last time we were here, are here again. They weren't in Trav's class, but the class before us and she cut my hair. Really nice family - we're looking forward to getting to know them better this time around.
Lauren is officially registered for kindergarten which starts at the beginning of August. SUPER EARLY! She wasn't able to go to Primary on Sunday because she had pink eye which Rachel now has. In the meantime Lauren will start swimming lessons in May.
As for myself, I joined a gym and working out has helped me feel much happier with our situation here. Trav and I are currently trying to figure out where we want to go next and how we want to do it. We would love to go to WA and there are lots of options that could get us there - many of them include deployments. - The key is some deployments would be longer and/or more frequent than others.
Trav started classes on Monday. Its been awesome, the latest he has been home was 4:30. That's about 2 1/2 hours earlier than MD. He just called and said he is on his way home... its 2:30. I love it!
