Road trip Tennessee to Alabama

" I travel alot; I hate feeling my life disrupted by routine"

Wow. Christmas has come and gone. We had such a good time with everyone. I don't feel like we did much anything but relax around and eat.. where did the time go?

Christmas Eve we went to 5 o'clock service at Christ Community Church in Franklin and it was packed. As we walked in the door, we were like " man, wouldn't it be awesome if every Sunday was like this?" and without missing a beat, the woman behind us replied " Amen!" The praise and worship was amazing, but it's to be expected we're in singing country being only 30 minutes from nashville. After celebrating Jesus B-day with the church, we headed home to have a chili dinner.. which of course included Uncle Tim's amazing angel biscuits. After dinner everyone got to open one gift and Amanda made matt open hers, because we all wanted to watch his gift; she got him Jim Gaffigan.. hilarious

" You know who's a happy camper? The guy leaving the camping sight, he gets to shower.. lol"
" I probably wouldn't be so scared if I wasn't sleeping in a bag."
"play dead? Who came up with that? The bears! Play dead, roll yourself in honey and scoot on a large white plate."
" The bear's like great performance, but i', hungry and he looks like a burrito."

"Ever get in a hammock with someone else? Cuz you better be dating um. looks like your making a family."

"We never want sleep to end. Thats why there's the snooze bar. Nothing like starting off the day with a little procrastination. As my first decision of the day.. i will go back to sleep."

I could go on and on and on... lol.. we were dying.. look it up on you tube!

The next morning we got up and opened presents.. and Autumn and I had so many! We were so surprised, Tim and Tracie had even gotten us our own stockings filled with tons of awesomeness.. they are so sweet.

Then, not to mention food again, but I have to because Tim's breakfast casserole was so good! We all hung around some more and then Amanda and I made a target run to get the 500 days of summer Cd and movie... we were in the middle of transferring almost all her music to my computer ( really she gave me like 300 some songs) when we realized she didn't have that one cd lol. and that only her and I had seen the movie, which was a crime, thus are need to make a target run.

Target, great as always. We got our stuff and left. As we were driving home we realized we had forgotten to get my uncle a big storage tub like he had asked and wait a sec.. what is this vest I'm wearing with the tags that I didn't pay for?? I just shoplifted! I had been looking at puffy vests and tried one on and left it on debating the purchase whilst we browsed the store and just completely forgot I had it on. The woman at the register looked uuber confused when I took it off in front of her and said i had come back inside to pay for it. Luckily no sirens or anything went off as i walked out the door, I already have one possible warrant out for my arrest..that story later.

Then after we watched 500 days of summer we headed over to see sherlock holmes.. I loved it-------------------------------------------------->>

Then we had A BIG christmas dinner.. ham.. sweet potatoes, regular potatoes aunt tracie's special style. yum yum yum

SO I mis-posted but am not tech savy enough to change it.. but target mishap and 500 days of summer was the 26th, and then Amanda and I made some sweet pizza. recipe's in post under yummy recipes. try them.. rate them!


The 27th Our family headed over to East TN..so autumn and I got up and went to church... I was so tired.. i bobble headed the whole service...then we met Erica back at the house.. yay!
It was so good to see you ERICA! She brought our christmas gift - snuggie (well the intention of one, we will get one soon) to wear as we enter each statem,some great camping gear and fun games to play in the car, and not to forget, her beautiful school picture for us to put in our dashboard.

We have such amazing friends and family. Thank you to all of you who have already taken us in! We truly enjoyed our time with you. To those we will see soon, thank you in advance and we are excited to see you.

We amazingly enough left Franklin, TN only an hour and a half later than we intended ( a vast improvement from about 4-6 hours late) Who knows maybe by the time we leave Texas we will be on time.

Arrived last night in Huntsville, AL to stay with Kendall and Kurt and the baby bump also knowns as the up and coming baby anderson( so excited to meet you in July little gummy). Really had a good time getting to visit them and see their new home. This morning is beautiful and Huntsville seems to be a good place to live, unfortunately we don't have time to explore it more. We are getting on the road in the next few minutes to head to Garrison, TX to see our true Texan Aunt Nonie. Can't wait for the " shuugs" (as in sugar) and BIG texas hospitality. Its a ten hour drive so we are stopping in Vicksburg Mississippi for lunch and walking a bit. We may try The tamale Place...what's a tamale?

<<------Erin gamble this is for you. we are the same. i miss you friend
Love to all of you reading.

ps. Our family has still not bothered to check this blog, though we sent them the link for Christmas - either that or they are messing with us until we blurt it out! We won't cave:)Miss you in NC, TN and MT - See you soon OR.

Journey's, like artist are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think. 

     ~Lawrence Durrell

Which is easier and why: To make a model airplane out of a banana peel or a wet sock?

Merry Christmas Mom, Dad, Chris and Jackser!

We will see you in January.

Call when you see.

Can't wait to see you!Yay!

Adventures in packing - Road Trip Day 1 and 2

" When preparing to travel, layout all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money." - Susan Heller

Ohhh the truth in the above statement.

Our bomb.com trip got off to an interesting start. Monday Rach and I had planned to say good bye to several friends, finish last minute packing, load our stuff into the car and head west. It almost happened. Neither Rach or I had finished our packing, we still had several people to see, I was still finishing a med school essay and Rach was finishing several paintings so what had happened was...

We decided we would pack the car that evening and head out in the morning instead of rushing.

We gathered all of our belongings and piled them in the driveway in front of the Alexanders garage. WHOAA. Where did all this stuff come from. Things had hidden in the cracks and crevices and despite sending some of our belongings ahead of us, selling furniture and becoming the largest donors ever to Good Will ( and the Alexanders- sorry Daniel..:) we still had way TOO MUCH stuff. As I continued to pack and sort Rae attempted to do the impossible and fit the mountain of belongings into our small neon. She almost succeeded. By the time we were done it was 3 am and we still had a few things that needed to go into the car. Discouraged and exhausted we headed to bed. The next morning we retackled the car, pulling everything out, resorting through boxes and bags and once again getting rid of a bunch of belongings - this time Rachael's super power comes through and she is able to get everything into the car! We just can't see out of the back window. ( " I really wish we had Mary Poppins bags so we could put everything in there and then there would only be two small bags in the back seat"-Rach) This has been a great reason to really evaluate what we need and wear and get rid of what we don't. How do we accumulate so many belongings? We hugged Sarah and said goodbye off we went!

We had planned to hit the road at about 8:30 am and in our typical fashion it was 2:30 pm in the afternoon. We made it to Winston Salem to hug Katie and Mary and then somehow managed to get lost right afterwords. No worries folks we can make it to Oregon no problem - but will get lost an hour outside of Raleigh. We had accidently set our GPS to "off road" so it was not giving us any directions. Our cousin amanda was able to google us back to the right road. Ohh and shout out to Katie's mom who in true mom fashion made us an emergency kit with food, flashlights and FLARES! ( amazing) We have decided if we don't use them along the way we will let them off when we get to Portland. Helen "amazing" Munt made us a CD to listen to in every state - fantastic. Rocked out to them in NC and later TN.

Some great thoughts from the trip -
" There is nothing in kentucky except an amazing rest stop"
" Your telling me all these great things in kentucky, and all i'm hearing is corn, corn, corn, corn, corn..."
" I wonder how a caveman would feel his first time in the car" - While tribal music is playing in the background and Autumn is trying to sleep.

Then we stopped for gas somewhere in mountains- Rach ran in to get snacks and stretch her legs and I was sleeping in the car. I woke with a jolt when over the loud speaker the cashier asked me to move the car because I wasn't allowed to sleep at a gas pump. I thought I was dreaming so I went back to sleep. Rach heard him in the store and had to explain I was not driving (ummm obviously).

Arrive tired in Franklin, TN but had a blast with Rach in the car. Today we have spent time with Tim, Tracie, Amanda, Matt and James and Brenda stopped in. Lots of yummy eating, cookie making ( see chris as the hot fireman and jackser as bballer to the right), a bit of shopping and game playing and now its already bed time. Good relaxing day.

Thank you to the Alexanders and Manganos for all their help in getting us out of town and for just being amazing!

Love to all of you!

Home again Home again

So Vacation has flown by. I came here thinking I had booked the trip too long, and here it is already over. This has been a great visit. Not perfect, because nothing ever is, but so many good things. My grandparents came over from Montana, we got to hang out with Tasha on multiple occasions. More than once our whole family got together, mixing mom and dad's sides of the family and there was no drama or fighting.. miracle. HUge Blessing. I think time does fly when you are having a good time.

Today we went to POrtland, and we didn't want to leave Christian at home, because we wanted to hang out, so we told him the big secret. It was fun to have him ask us repeatedly, " Are you moving to Portland, Does this mean you are moving to Portland, Well are you???" Once we got to Portland we realized the car was overheating, and had to quickly park. We went and toured 5 apartments, and it took us all afternoon. Fortunately we found two that we really love, the park terrace apartments, and the cumberland apts. Park Plaza would be next on our list and we didn't even get a chance to check out the Hawthorne district; we ran out of time. So the plan is to just check while we are near the end of our road trip what is available, and if nothing else go back right when we get here the end of January and check out the Hawthorne district and then just go with what's available that week. We'll see.

Autumn was super excited about exploring Portland today, and I was too, but still had the knot of fear, because I love my friends in Raleigh. Not that we aren't going to be friends, but it's not the same long distance. I think it's different for Autumn and I because most of her friends have started moving into new stages in their life, serious relationships, marriage, new jobs and babies and my friends for the most part haven't. We are just getting to start digging into each others lives for good, and thats hard to pull away from. I know it is going to be great though, and it will be what we make of it, and what we are trusting in the Lord to make of it. My life has already been an adventure so far that seems to keep getting better, so I have no reason to doubt the future will be different. I am getting super excite doubt making a place my own, which i haven't done in a while, and rooming with Autumn which we have never been able to do officially. But I most excited about our road trip. It is coming up so fast, and we still don't have some details panned out. Christmas in TN is going to be awesome and even better now, because I think Erica is coming with us.

I can't wait to send mom and dad a post card for Christmas that we are moving back. Mom was so sad when we were decorating the Christmas tree tonight, because we were leaving tomorrow and woudn't be here for Christmas, and she never knows when we will visit. I feel a little mean, but the surprise is totally worth it. I wish I had more time with gma and gpa though. I can't wait to go to MT for YWAM at some point, or just to go write in a cabin in the woods ( aka: grandparents house).

We just got done having AB Chinese and watching 4 Christmas's all together and I am zonked. Have to get up early so I can have coffee with mom and dad and say bye to Jackser and pack, and get all my pictures and stories off of the old computer we brought for Jacks.... such a procrastinator. I feel like I have gotten nothing done and have a million things to do when I get back. So with that said good nigh.. until next time.

Rach