Going Home...

I'm not making Carnesville a very pleasant place to visit. I'm trying really hard. It's been truly a whirlwind 7 weeks thus far. I'm currently listening to my baby cough his brains out and still up at 11:00pm. Boo. I thought we'd leave this sick junk behind, but it turns out the Lord wants to keep sanctifying us through sickness. I got puked all over tonight. That was fun. I'm just grateful that we FINALLY have help. Britton is also sick, but my parents helped clean up everything including me. I guess there's a silver lining in everything, right? Our trip home seems like it was yesterday. We had so much build-up to the day, and we were literally awake for 48 hours. The boys did pretty awesome with jet-lag and so did we. It just feels good to be home.

Packed and ready to go! We had a lot of stuff, but not nearly as much as when we came over. It's hard packing a family of 4 in 5 suitcases for 6 months!

His love.

Though we were thrilled to be going home, saying goodbye was really tough.

We had to take a bus to our plane...seemed fitting for leaving our city. It was a nice view though as we left (no that isn't our plane; ours is behind me and is bigger). This was also the last time we saw our stroller :o( I love when airlines lose your stuff. Blah.

We made it to our connecting city just before boarding our incredibly huge plane. This was such a beautiful sight to me...seeing an American city that we're going to! Surreal!

The long flight was absolutely amazing! They kept the flight dark almost the entire way. Caden watched a movie, slept for 9 hours, then watched another movie and we were there. Glorious! Grady didn't do as well but did pretty good. I didn't really sleep at all. Maybe I was too excited.

 Stickers!!!

Enough said.

All of our flights were great. Our ground time was terrible. We were sprinting to our gates, and the people in LA were SO rude! Welcome home! It didn't matter once we reached this point. Nothing else mattered more than this moment seeing so many sweet people waking up before dawn just to see us! We felt loved beyond words!!

Here's a few videos of our return!

 Wow! Still speechless!

 Had to do something with all those signs :o)

 My sista surprised me and drove 6 hours down to see us! I love her.

Definitely the most shocking is how much my cousins grew. They are so beautiful.

It was so funny to watch our kids adjusting to different scenery. Grady was really freaked out by the grass and interested at the same time. He also had his first go at tee-ball.

Apparently I wasn't tired at all. There were over 30 people to watch my kids, and I was living it up with everything around me. A clean ground. Fluffy grass. A beautiful sunny day (the sky is huge here!!). My own car to drive (haven't driven in 3 years...it's like riding a bike)! We got Chick-fil-A for everyone for lunch. I volunteered to pick it up and got my own personal combo :o) It was a glorious moment.

We had a few down moments in between a gazillion doctor appointments. So precious.

This boy looooovvvveeesss stuffed animals...in case you couldn't tell.

Went on a grocery run. Ha. Took him over 10 minutes just to pick out toothpaste. SO many choices!

Visiting Coach at work.

Enjoying the carousel at the Mall of GA.

They had a blast.

Date night!!!!!! What is that?! So glorious to begin dating again back to the place where we had our first date over 8 years ago!

This rounded out the first week we were there. So wonderful getting a pedicure with my mom and getting to talk to some of the ladies there in their heart language :o) Ready for the beach!

My parents surprised us - beyond surprised us - by renovating nearly their entire home by adding new carpet, hardwood floors, new furniture. etc. But by far the biggest surprise was the room they literally created for the boys! This used to be my mom's sewing room. The right wall used to be an entire mirror. I'm amazed at all they did in such a short time considering they decided to do all that 2 months before we came home. Nuts! So grateful.

So very cute!

Had to have the giant Chick-fil-A cow part of their room. They love their space and so do I!

One of my favorite new additions is the new carpet. The boys quickly found that it was an awesome place to wrestle.

That's our first week in a nutshell! Next up...the beach!

Our last week in East Asia (for now)

We're here!!! What happened?! Our computer died, so naturally the first thing that goes is upkeep of the blog. There is A LOT to cover over the last month including our travels to America then to 4 different states. It's been a blast, and we are exhausted. But life seems to be slowing down a little. We finally have a new computer that I'm very excited about it, so hopefully I will slowly catch you up on all our adventures over the last few weeks. I wanted to post our last week in East Asia before we headed home. We had a great time spending it with friends and trying to relax. I had done most of our packing over 2 months, so there really wasn't much to do. Looking back, I'm SO glad I did that so we could just enjoy our last few days there.

Our last days were pretty random (as per normal life). We managed to get out for a few walks as a family to enjoy the nice weather. I always love taking walks. You never know what you're gonna see :o)

Of course Grady needed to get another fever before coming home. Poor baby got a fever, so we gave him a bath in the middle of the night. He finally fell asleep in our bed fever-free. I love my precious babies and wish they could stay this age for so much longer, but I'll be glad when their immune systems get stronger!

Caden and I were able to get away for some quality time together. We went with his best bud and her mom to see "How to Train Your Dragon 2" (again...he saw it with Britton on Father's Day). Afterward we enjoyed some starbucks along with a giant cookie.

Caden had a lot of quality time with his buddy since we were doing a lot. He got a boo-boo one day, and it showed that his best friend is a girl.

I also had a lot of quality time with my best bud. We had A LOT of Starbucks. Oddly enough I haven't had any Starbucks since being back in America for 6 weeks!

This is a famous spot that is actually on the back of our city's starbucks mug.

Speaking of Starbucks (ha!), here's my collection thus far from our travels over 3 years.

So grateful we had a few blue skies before leaving...made it harder to leave. Can't believe I have this view from my couch!

Our last homemade pizza and a movie night. Seemed fitting to watch Mulan.

Only 5 days to go til America (well...a month and a half ago)!! I feel like suitcases haunt me! Still!

Making time for daddy/son moments.

I can't believe this was 3 years ago getting on his first plane ride, and now he's been on nearly 60! Can't wait to go home ;o)