Catching up...

on laundry that is. I have been doing load after load after load...you get the picture. But, when you've been gone for almost a week and living out of suit cases, well, you do have tons of laundry to do. I didn't get into bed until after 1:00am this morning so needless to say I slept in until after 10:00am, I think. I've been trying to get my house back in some kind of order. We had our "stuff" spread out all over this house. You can actually see the floor again, so I must be making some progress.

We had a super great time but if I were to tell it all on this one post, you guys would stop reading about half way through cause it would be so long. So, I'll probably break it down into several different ones hopefully showing pictures along the way.

We flew out last Thursday morning. It was the 4 of us and Josh. We got to Chicago around 9:30am, rented a car and headed to Minnesota. The reason for the flying to Chicago was we got really, really cheap tickets and Steve wanted to end back up there for some family time in the windy city. The reason for the Minnesota visit was for Autumn's graduation party. We got to spend some great time with the Thompson family. I love them. They have a really small region so being with them was an extra blessing for us. It was kinda crazy around there getting ready for Autumn's open house which was on Saturday from 2 until 6. She had tons of people come and it was nice to finally put faces to people she had told us about. Out of all the years Autumn has been coming to Tennessee to stay with us, we have never been to her house.

For some of you who may not know who Autumn is and how she connects with us, I'll try to quickly explain. 5 years ago several of us from Antioch went to Family Camp in South Dakota. We met the Thompson family there and instantly bonded with Autumn. At the time she was 13 years old. Her mom had been praying for God to send someone that could connect with her. Well, literally a month after family camp was over she was in Tennessee visiting with us. Her mom, Mitzi, now says, looking back that we probably thought she was crazy letting her 13 year old fly by herself to stay with a family she just met. But, she says, she had complete peace about it. She knew God had answered her prayer. Ever since then, Autumn has been coming about 2 times a year to stay with us. She has now graduated from high school and plans to move here in August. She has said ever since she was 13 that when she graduated she was moving to Tennessee. Her plan is to go to MTSU for nursing. So, that's how we know Autumn.

We stayed in Minnesota until Sunday after church. It was sad leaving them. We felt so comfortable being in there home. It was such a blessing being there. Here are a few pics from when we were there. Autumn has 5 brothers and sisters.



More of our trip to follow.

blessing - being with the Thompson family.