Recap of summer in a collage of pictures!

In May, I went down to visit my Husband in San Antonio.  We visited this lovely little winery in Gruene (New Braunfels) Texas.  This is a photo of the delightful riesling that we ordered! Did you know that there are a bunch of wineries in Texas hill country??!!  I was stunned by this!

I had my first Texas Barbeque at Rudy's.  It was AMAZING! Fancy isn't it?

We looked at a few houses...Some very promising....

Some not so much....LOL!  Those are SPURS on the boots in the hallway in the above picture.  This was on a ranch in New Braunfels.  I still can't believe I was able to contain my laughter long enough to walk through this house!  I wanted to say to the realtor... "I DID mention that I am FROM CHICAGO, right?"  Truth be told, the house was charming, and full of "Texas" flair, but there were farm animals, of all kinds all around and PEOPLE were scarce!  Still makes me giggle!

We had a garage sale, and I packed and packed and packed!  Did I mention that we were moving from my childhood home, that my Parent's have lived in for 25+ years?  I PACKED, DONATED, and still we had stuff at the curb a full house length!

The day came to load the truck, My "Little Brother" and his lovely family helped us out in ways I can't even number!  I will forever be grateful to them!

My Brother's beautiful family.  Michael, my nephew, in the above picture wearing orange, and then Catie, Erin, and Gabriel.  

One last look around the house and it all finally sunk in....we were REALLY doing this!  My Mom, Dad, kids, and I were all moving to TEXAS?!  


Still now, looking at these pictures seems surreal to me.  What was once a house full of laughter, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Holidays, Birthday parties, STUFF....LOTS of STUFF, and......MEMORIES....was EMPTY.  So strange....growing up there as a child, and bringing my first child home here, I thought we would ALWAYS be here.  But God had a different plan, 


 On June 29th, at about 11 am. We met in our near empty garage (something I have waited my entire life to see)  LOL :) for prayer as a family.  Finished loading up the trucks, looked at the house one last time and waved to our Dear neighbors who were outside to say "Good-bye" to us.


We were finally on the road to our new home, in Texas. 

St. Louis Arch.


There were so many firsts through all of this.  Some of the ones that are most memorable for me are....this is the first time I have driven across country with my kids, the first time I personally have driven over 1200 miles, the first time I have driven through the mountains, the first time I have been in Missouri and Arkansas,OH MY WORD....Missouri and Arkansas are incredibly BEAUTIFUL!  Most importantly, the first time I have made a leap of faith like this, surrendered completely to God's will and Just followed.......


To see where HE led us, you'll have to come back tomorrow! :)


Blessings!
Paula

For those of you who think I fell off the face of the earth.....

For those of you who think I fell off the face of the earth.....I haven't, I just moved to Texas!

We have been here a little over a month now.  Most of the boxes are unpacked, pictures hung on the wall, kids are registered for school, football and cheer have started, and we believe we have a new church home!

Now I am just waiting for this to start "feeling" like home.  Don't get me wrong, I am so excited and thankful to be together with Chris again, that I can't even express it in words.  I think I have finally stopped staring at him all the time now, but I still hug him and hold his hand constantly! 

Those two months apart were the most difficult two months of my life.  Now that I am here though, I miss my family and friends terribly.  My kids are lonely and bored to death, we have cabin fever because it is sooo HOT outside that you can really only go out in the morning or after the sun goes down without bursting into flames, and money is really tight.  

I truly know all these things are temporary. Usually I am so busy, and have so much going on around me that it is easier to keep this all in perspective. I am sure once the kids are in school and my Mother is back to work....(she had an interview today that went well....so please keep us in your prayers) I will hit my stride again.

In the meantime, I am going to just keep working on the house, take some pics so you can see our new digs, and hopefully get back to blogging regularly again real soon!  I miss it.