We ended up leaving MUCH later in the day than we'd planned last Friday, I think it was around 4:30. We had to pick up the rental car and stop by Busch Gardens to upgrade our passes to Platinum, then come home and pack the car up. This was after I'd worked all night at my summer job at Super Target. I slept for awhile as Jerry drove, and we switched back and forth and made pretty good time, arriving in West Virginia around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. We slept a bit and hung out most of the day with Jerry's mom and grandma.
Saturday evening we went to Jerry's class reunion and had a pretty good time. He ran into several friends he hung out with in high school, so I got to meet them. We also saw Bryan, who used to go to his home church, and it was great to see him again. He actually came and sang (I Will Be Here by Steven Curtis Chapman) in our wedding almost 13 years ago. We also ran into Christy, who ended up going to our college, she's now married and they are missionaries to South Africa with Word Of Life. It was great seeing them both.
Sunday we went to Jerry's home church with his mom. We ended up talking to the pastor and he asked Jerry to speak that night, just to update everyone on our current ministry, he agreed. Thatt afternoon we went to the Reunion picnic at Coonskin Park, it was a nice casual day, hanging out, good food, Jupiter Jump, and beautiful weather. We ended up talking more to Christy about the WOL camp that is near us, sounds like something good to look into for our youth, we'll see. That evening at church, Jerry shared with them about our new church plant ministry and expressed appreciation for the faithfulness of that church's people for helping him in his spiritual walk as a kid. He saw several of his Sunday School teachers in the congregation and that humbled him, to see they're still faithful and serving God and that they were used to reach him as a kid too.
Monday we left for VA. We crossed the James River on a ferry, then drove to the State Park and found our campsite and pitched our tent in the dark.
Tuesday we went to Busch Gardens, we rode all of the roller coasters and the weather was perfect. It was overcast and cool, and no humidity! (You don't get that in FL in the summertime, that's for sure!)
Wednesday we went to Colonial Williamsburg. It was really hot, but we had a good day. Elisabeth got a mob hat and Nick picked out a replica old coin from Virginia. They learned some cool stuff and had lots of fun. We ate supper at one of the Taverns, that was really neat too. We ended out the day making s'mores and roasting marshmalows.
Thursday we took our time getting home. We decided to check out the oldest church in the US, but they were closed and filming something there. Everyone was dressed in period clothing. Then we decided to drive to Chesapeake to check out the area "we almost moved to" 5 years ago instead of coming to FL, I think we like FL much better. LOL After that we headed South. Around supper time we found "Pedroland". If you're ever driving on I-95 near the NC/SC line, you must check out Pedroland!!! There are signs for it all of the way down I-95 through all of NC. It's a big tourist trap, but so corny it's totally cool! We ended up getting home early Friday morning.
It was a good vacation. I felt refreshed and rested, not only physically, but also spiritually. I had time to reflect on God and my relationship with him. I had the experience of listening to my husband, and really being appreciative of our calling, even though we've had some really rough times. Vacations like that are truly rare, and this was a good one!
