My Trip

This post is over due, but better late then never! Maybe. =)

"More than half the pleasure of going is in the return, as any traveler knows. To go, to see the far place, the place beyond the horizon, is exciting; but to return is satysfying as few other things can ever be. To know after absence the familiar street and road and village and house is to know again the satisfaction of home. ...And that is the final satisfaction of a trip, whether it is a vacation or just a journey - the return itself. The homecoming. The trip back, and the home at the end. To go is good but to come back is best." -Hal Borland

Some of you know (and others do not ) that I had the opprotunity to be a "nanny" for a family and was out of town for four days. The trip was good, but in the words of Hal Borland, "but to come back is best."

I went with a fun, Christian family to a homeschool conference, to help watch their four children. Nick-named by the mom, Big-Big, Big-Middle, Little-Middle, and Little-Little. I though it was cute too! And if you wonder what they will do if they get five the mama has kindly commented informing me us! =)

Big-Middle, Little-Middle and I were running through the water.

 Sam made me take the camera and also made it very clear that I was supposed to use the camera while I was gone. I didn't take any picture at the homeschool conference, because I was busiest there, but I got some photos while the family and I were at the resort.

These are the two big slides that were at the resort we stayed at.

 It was so nice to finally swim this Summer! When we moved to our new house we lost access to any pools, and I'd been dying for a swim (so much that I told everyone I know who owns a pool how much I missed swimming with the hopes that I might get invited to swim at their house! haha)

A picture of yours truly going down the slide. Courtesy of my employer, a.k.a. the mom who's kids I watched.

 One slide went pretty fast, and that one was a lot of fun.

Form left to right: Little-Middle, Big-Big, Myself, and Big-Middle

 The children were very well behaved and a lot of fun to be with. Big-Big was happy to call me "sister" for those four days and told me if anyone asked if we were sisters I should just say yes so that I wouldn't have to spend all that time explaining who I was and why I was with them. In the end I wasn't mistaken for their sister as much as I was mistaken for their mother.

Big-Big, Big-Middle, Little-Middle, Myself

 When I came back home my entire family came to pick me up and they had made cute signs for me which they posted on the front door. I love them so much!

Prayer for Today - by Hilda Butler Farr

I only ask

That home shall be

A place where loved ones

Come to rest;

Where peace abides

And faith exists

Somehow because

I did my best.

Tomorrow -

It may never come -

And consequently I do pray

That I may have

Enough strength

To serve the ones

I love today.

Happy Birthday, Sam!

Counting the years you've been alive, and thankful for every one of them!

Counting all the blessings you have brought to our family, and just to me personally, would be impossible.

Sam is serious, responsible, and sensible. She is trustworthy and reliable. Her practical and realistic approach brings a much needed balance to the un-orderliness that comes from some of our family. =)

Though expressed in a calm facade, she has very strong beliefs that are steadfast when others might doubt.

She gives constantly but is often unnoticed because of her quiet personality. She is a young woman of beauty, but it is her hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, that is most admirable.

I'm so blessed to have such a sister!

I love you, Sam! Happy birthday!

Sam, wanted me to share a list of some famous poeple who share her August 19th birthday.

If you don't recognize the name that's okay, I wrote who they are in (brackets).

Lil' Romeo (a hip hop rapper)

Bill Clinton (42nd US President)

Tipper Gore (author, Al Gore's wife)

Johnny Nash (Singer, best known for "I Can See Clearly Now")

Fred Thompson (American politician and actor)

Kyra Sedgwick (American actress who stars in The Closer)

John Stamos (American actor who starred as Jesse Katsopolis Full House)

William T Riker (Character on Star Trek Next Generation)

Gene Roddenbury (creator of Star Trek)

A garlic-bacon-chocolate-chip cookie

Sounds lovely, right? I didn't think so either. But Clarisa bought one...of course it was hard to avoid garlic seeing as how we were at the garlic fest. Maybe I should have mentioned that earlier and the cookie would have made more sense. Okay, it wouldn't have.

In the car on the way to two places: a local orchard for peach and apple picking and a garlic festival. Pictures are really small because they were all taking on Dad's smartphone and we aren't techy enough to know how to enlarge them without ruining them.

Risa picking peaches.

On a big rock.

Jack...the faces he makes =D

So that was our Saturday...but I have to go now so we can shut off the computer. Sorry there wasn't a whole lot to say. Maybe if Momo or Risa posted next it would be more entertaining...don't you think? *hint hint to M and R*

Sam

P.S. THe cookie tasted exactly like it sounded. Yup.