Home Again!

Well,the long planned for, trek to Texas, is now history,and what a lot of memories remain for our little family. Playing Last Word in Tennessee and fellowshipping, driving into Arkansas,Lee's birth state on his birthday,driving over the Mississippi River,listening and imagining with Christian on our first ever listen to Pilgrim's Progress on CD, starting our first chapter of the Betsy-Tacy books,seeing an accident soon after it happened.............. and the pure historical feeling of driving into a Texas sunset in ranch country.Isn't it beautiful?

Descending on Dallas at night-is that city BIG or what? We had dinner and a lovely welcome from Lee's brother ,along with a birthday cake and smuggled in presents from our suitcases.We researched our tourist options and fell into bed....

The next morning we hit the zoo,a first for quite a lot of our crew.

Those otters sure were a great favorite and showcased very well! This was a relief,right after seeing the tiger,which was not as scary as the boys had hoped,I think!

Now,this snake's worth photographing......

and sculptures were plentiful,as were the huge tortoises from the Galapagos.

An underground zone for the little people-and some not so little people too......(so I hear?)

One of these dinky penguins could almost be a bathtub pet,huh? I,myself,prefer the chimpanzees.

Since they didn't offer any of these as souvenirs I came home with a cheetah magnet.Not quite as playful,but far less work.

After the zoo workout(was it ever a workout too!) we found a little German diner/bakery/store which served very homey food.Tempted to go for a staple like a chicken sandwich, I decided to try my first ever hot,pastrami sandwich in the name of broadening my cultural knowledge.I wasn't sorry. Lee and I really enjoy little out of the way places like these ,and tend to ferret them out wherever we go...

We proceeded to drag Lee's very patient brother across the street to a very large ,used book store. We emerged after dark-us book people:)

Back for dinner, and then a DVD for the guys,we girls couldn't stay conscious any longer.

Thankfully,the next day was a much more relaxed pace,time for leisurely visiting and cleaning and then we hit the road again.

That last stretch was a whopper-by the time we arrived home the next day,Lee and I were quite dizzy! Lee hauled our garbage,I unpacked as fast as possible-I've found the faster you get the suitcases unpacked,the faster,you get truly settled in.Lee baked bread and I cooked supper and we were off to bed!

We're trying to get back in the swing of things,a lot of the vacation laundry is done, some homeschooling projects getting done, and most of the gifts for friends and needy friends are packaged and or out. Lee and I are not big on the holidays,but there seem to be enough presents of dessert around here to feed two families anyway! Best of all we got carolers tonight.SquirrelGirl loves the song "Angels we Have Heard on High" and so I think even she was delighted.

May tomorrow bring you many blessings,chiefly the Blessing of loving the One ,whose birthday we say we celebrate!

In His Love!

Marcella