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**Disclaimer** This post is a month late! We had most of it written, but because of how busy we have been while at home, we are just now getting the chance to post it...as we're leaving town again.**

Part 1

Well, after 8 weeks on the road exploring some incredibly beautiful places, we made it back home! We left Jacksonville, Florida - our last official stop on the trip - on August 26th. We drove several hours and stopped for the night at a little RV park in Bonifay, Florida. We didn't level anything or slide the slide-outs out; matter of fact, we even left the truck hooked up to the RV, plugged in the power and water and climbed into our un-level, tilted beds, and went fast to sleep. We were all totally exhausted after a long day of travel. We woke up early the next morning, unhooked the electricity and water, packed the kids back into the truck, and off we went! I have never been so excited to be headed back to Texas!  

The excitement however did not transfer over to the kids. They literally fist-fought, cried, blamed, tattled, pinched, poked, and sobbed for 12 hours straight! I, in turn, screamed, threatened, growled, swatted blindly into the backseat, put my fingers in my ears and hummed "ommmmm" to myself for about 20 minutes at one point, and nearly cried several times! It was a long, LONG day. We had originally planned to stop in Baton Rouge for the night, then finish the drive the next day, but after being in the car for two days with the kids already, we just couldn't face another day. One more day in the truck would have pushed me right to my breaking point. I'm sure of it. 

So we rolled right on through Baton Rouge, and eventually we passed the BEAUTIFUL "Welcome to Texas" sign! Never has that Texas flag looked better. I would have shed a happy tear to be home, but I was just too exhausted and emotionally drained to work up any tears at that point. Around 11pm, all of the kids had finally dozed off, and Jonathan and I drove in almost complete silence the rest of the way home. Silence is golden after all!

- M

Part 2

As Molly said, the drive home was less than desirable. I had to get onto her as much as I had to get onto the kids. :-) The plan all along was to stop around Baton Rouge because I wanted to make one last client visit before heading home, but spending hours on end in a truck cab with three very resultless children strongly persuaded me that we needed to get home and out of that truck as soon as was humanly possible. We ended up getting back to Conroe around 12:20am on August 28th. By the time we dropped the trailer at the church and headed over to my parents to crash for the night, it was after 1am, but of course Mimi and Papa were still up, waiting to see those grandkids! I think we finally fell into bed around 3am and crashed. 

The 28th was my grandpa Ensey's birthday, and it just so happened that my parents had planned lunch at Vernon's, our favorite local mom-n-pop restaurant. While we were celebrating Grandpa's 76th, it might as well have been my birthday when they brought out my pork tenderloin, mashed new potatoes, green beans, and the best sweet iced tea in the world!

It was nice to be home...

~J