ROAD TRIP TO VIRGINIA

We usually love taking our annual sometimes bi-annual road trips to Virginia. Though our visit in VA was fun as always, our trip...well, it's another story. Traveling with a 5 month old is hard enough alone, but with all the "road blocks" we encountered along the way AND way back, it was not as much fun as usual.

Many of you have heard the story...we left after our afternoon service on Sunday. As we were walking out the door (already packed with kids in the van) the weather radio goes off calling for severe weather. We decide to go on. We get out of Alabama, clear of the severe weather and only running into some rain along the way. The kids are sleeping. :) Sounds great. Here's the rest of the story...in Chatanooga, Eric gets a speeding ticket for going 66 on the interstate. (We were in a short 3-4 mile 55 zone, but didn't know it.) We were almost in Knoxville where we were going to stay the night when we had to slow down for a wreck that was being cleaned up at this point. Only the two officer's cars were still there. As we passed by the first officer very slowly, we ran over some debris from the wreck and it slit our tire. Eric changed the tire on the side of the interstate in the rain. We made it to our hotel room, but had to stay later on Monday than we planned so that Eric could buy a new tire. We were back on the road again and made it on in to Suffolk, VA.

On the way home we stopped for lunch in Ashville, NC. After lunch and only a few miles back on the interstate, something went wrong with the van. The water pump broke. Eric called 911. A state trooper came to help and called a tow truck. Eric road with the tow truck guy and the kids and I road with the state trooper as they took us by the auto parts store and then to a hotel. Eric changed out the water pump in the parking lot. We got back on the road the next morning and made it home.

In case you were wondering...God did answer our prayers. We prayed and asked God to keep us safe as we traveled and He did. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here are a few pictures from our trip...