Randon Photos from our Vacation Trip to Mississippi

Our summer vacation trip to Mississippi was fun-filled from start to finish!  This will be my last post about it.  This post is filled with all the random photos I took during our time there.

We made A LOT of trips to Wal-Mart.  It is my favorite place to visit on all trips to the U.S.  We arrived in the States late at night and made our first visit to Wal-Mart the very next morning.  We were all excited!!

 

Reese's Puffs is their favorite cereal.

 

 

I love this shirt!

 

 

Here is a video of first trip to Wal-Mart.

 

We also made several visits to Chik-fil-A.  We had eaten it in the Atlanta airport the night before but ate it again for our first lunch in the States.

 

 

We did a lot of shopping!  We always stock up on everything while in the U.S.  Here we are buying shoes for the boys.  

 

 

shoe shopping

 

We enjoyed a few visits with the Johnsons.  I love getting our kids together to play.  Nicky and Jackie were in our student ministry years ago.

 

We made several visits to the Dairy Freeze for ice cream and snow cones.

 

 

 

 

 

They spent hours in the yard playing wiffle ball.  It provided them entertainment and exercise.

 

 

 

 

They also spent many hours riding their scooters.

 

 

 

We got to enjoy a few kid-free shopping trips of our own.  It was so nice!  We rarely get much time alone without our kids here in Guatemala.   Any time we do, it is a real treat.

 

We took advantage of one of their sleepovers with friends for a date night to Jackson.  We enjoyed a wonderful meal and movie.  We have not been to the theater without kids since 2009.

 

We saw Sound of Freedom. 

It was our first experience with reclining seats.  Wow!  That was amazing!

 

We loved being home during tomato season.  Here is David buying from a roadside stand. That honor system is something that would never work here in Guatemala.

 

 

Ahhhh.... tomato sandwiches.  That is something we definitely miss every summer. I lost count on how many we ate while home.

 

 

The boys spent a lot of time at the Sojourners.  These are also former youth ministry students whose kids are around the same age as ours.  I think our boys would spend their whole summer with them if we would let them..  They got to do many fun outdoor activities there like riding 4-wheelers, swimming, and tubing on the lake.

 

 

They also went on an outing with them to Party Safari.

 

gearing up for go-carts

 

 

 

We met friends from Easthaven Baptist for supper at Shiver's Fish House.  Most of this group had been on our our March mission team. It was great to catch up again in person over a delicious meal.

 

 

We shared during a VBS service at Sardis Baptist in Hazlehurst.

 

Our family sharing about life in Guatemala with a group of VBS kids.

 

They enjoyed getting to spend some time with their cousin Ryder after the service.

 

Enjoying snow cones with the Johnsons in Wesson. 

 

I loved all the beautiful sunsets we saw while home.

 

Me and the boys in my hometown.

 

 

flying back to Guatemala 

 

a video of our travel day

 

We returned home to Guatemala on July 30.  We were sad that our vacation had come to an end. It really was a perfect ending to a fabulous school summer break!!

Summer Days

This post will cover a little of our life over the past two weeks. We are enjoying the lazy days of summer.  The boys are doing a lot of summer reading.  We are visiting the park on an almost daily basis.  We are taking evening family walks either at the park or around our neighborhood.  We are also playing a lot of basketball in the driveway.  We love going to Wal-Mart and making spontaneous trips to get ice cream after supper.  Life in the U.S.A. has been nothing but fun so far.  It is so good to get a change of scenery and routine.  I needed it a lot more than I realized!

 

We love making visits to the local library.

The boy's books for the past two weeks.

 

I have baked chocolate chip zucchini bread.

 

and also some homemade blueberry muffins. 

 

The boys have attended VBS at two different churches.  Last week they were at Central Baptist in Brookhaven (pictured above) and this week they were at Mt. Zion in Wesson.  They have loved getting to go to VBS! 

 

 

Last Friday night we attended the Ole Brook Rodeo here in town.  Our friends Reagan, Malinda, and Sara Madalin drove down to join us.  I had no idea that a rodeo could be so much fun.  We had a blast!

ready for the rodeo

All the kids 10 and under got to compete for a bicycle.  Ben joined in on the fun.  They had to chase a calf and the kid who pulled the ribbon off the tail won.  It was a joy to watch him participate even though he didn't win. 

The boys enjoyed watching Bob Ross paint last Saturday morning.  They had never seen his show before.  I considered that a cultural learning experience. He's the best!

 

That afternoon we visited my dad in Hazlehurst.  We took him out for supper at Family Fish House for Father's Day.  We celebrated David on Sunday and you can read about that day HERE.

 

This week's VBS theme was Treasured. 

For snack, this church does a buffet.  It was my boy's favorite thing about the week.  A friend sent me this photo of Ben with three suckers in his mouth.  That boy loves candy!

 

One of our library books was on rock painting.  We have been collecting rocks everywhere we go.  Here are the boys one afternoon this week painting. It has been a fun project.

Here are a few of the ones we have done so far.  Each one has a Bible verse reference on it.  We have a travel trip coming up and we plan to take these with us to leave in places for others to find. 

 

Hooray for Friday!  We started the day with a visit to Janie's Pastry for donuts.

It was overcast and breezy this morning which made it perfect for sitting outside to eat.

 

We then drove out to the Lincoln Civic Center for the Brookhaven Farmers Market Dairy Day.  They had vendors set up, a tractor display, live music, and free ice cream, chocolate milk, and grilled corn.  A highlight was seeing a few familiar faces to catch up with.  It was a fun morning outing.

 

the kids also got a free plant to take home

Cruz climbed on every tractor there.  

We are now home washing clothes and packing for our upcoming trip. It will be our first travel trip for this Stateside Assignment. We will be spending the next week visiting some church partners.  We could not be more excited!  I will share about that in my next post.