Southern tour

It's been about a month since we made our journey home to Tennessee and then down to Mississippi.  The first of April Brent had a conference in Nashville so we took the opportunity to spend some time at home and then head south to Mississippi to visit Brent's family.  It was the longest car ride Samantha had taken up to that point.  She did fairly well and as the journey went on she got better at sleeping in her car seat.  I was a bundle of nerves because it's frustrating to not hold her while in the car, just have to let her cry it out sometimes.  Anyway, we all survived and thoroughly enjoyed our time with family and friends.  Here are a few pics to document our journey.

While we were in Tennessee Samantha and I had the opportunity to meet up with some of my old co-workers.  When I was working at the VA Hospital in Nashville there were two other woman who were also pregnant at the same time.  Our children were all born within four months of each other.  It was so much fun to catch up and see how much all of our lives have changed.

Samantha was the oldest, and biggest, of the three babies.  Ethan was born a couple months after her and Maria's baby girl, Isabella, was born in December 2010.  I hope we can all meet up again in the future.

On Sunday, April 3, we left Tennessee for Laurel, Mississippi.  It was going to take us longer than normal because we decided to take a detour and see some old friends who had recently moved to Tennessee.  I met Todd and Kari Vincent when we were living in Illinois, they were the first farmers to sell me raw milk.  I have a deep admiration and respect for this family because they gave up their modern, suburban life to follow the call of God and become raw milk producers.  The catch is that they have nine children!  Kari, only a couple years older than me, is such a strong woman and an inspiration to me on so many levels.  Whenever I went to their house to get milk I would end of staying for a couple hours because I could always learn something from them. It always put life into perspective for me because no matter what I was going through it seemed minuscule compared to what Kari did on a daily basis.  Between breastfeeding her youngest (or two youngest), harvesting the days milk, homeschooling the older kids, cooking and baking from scratch, making soap, and just doing all the necessary things it takes to keep a household afloat I had no room to complain.  So, when I found out that Kari and her family had moved to Tennessee I knew it wouldn't be long before our paths would cross.  Kari's youngest baby was born two weeks before Samantha so it was wonderful to meet the newest addition to their family and to introduce them to Samantha.  We spent a couple hours visiting, just catching up on all that had happened since all of our lives had changed so dramatically.  I wish we could have spent the entire day with them but we had to allow ourselves enough time to get to Mississippi before dark. 

We got to Mississippi just after dark.  Brent's grandparents had stayed up and were really looking forward to meeting Samantha.  It had been a long day so she wasn't in the best of moods but everyone was so excited to finally have Samantha in Mississippi.  We spent the next five days visiting with family and friends.  Samantha got to spend some real quality time with her great-grandparents. 

Playing catch with great-grandma Jordan!

cousin Wilton helping Samantha with the electronic book the gr.grandma Jordan gave her!

Brent, Samantha, great-grandparents Jordan, and Wilton

These two girls are the daughters of Brent's best friend. I think Samantha enjoyed her playmates! 

Opening her Easter basket from Grammie and Poppa Powers! 

Samantha is their first great-grand baby! 

Grammie left her Christmas tree up because she had saved a gift for Samantha. 

We left Laurel on Friday, April 8th, and drove to Atlanta, GA.  We planned on staying with Brent's Aunt Amanda so we would not have to drive all the way home to North Carolina in one day.  We had a relaxing evening at Amanda's house.  She had cooked a fabulous meal and I wish we could have stayed longer than one night.  However, it was time to get back home to reality.  We left the next morning and were anxious to get home because a major storm had hit our house while we were gone, leaving our horse barn roofless and downed trees in the front yard.  The landlord had cleaned up most of the mess by the time we got home and we were grateful that the damage wasn't as bad as some of our neighbors. 

So, all in all it was a good trip.  Alot of people and places were visited and many memories were made.  We are so blessed to have many people in our lives who care so deeply about us.  And now that Samantha is in our lives we feel God's blessings tenfold.