PS

It's getting colder! :-(

March 24 - Houston TX to Memphis TN

Well, I really don't feel like sorting through pictures so you don't get any - sorry.

After 2 dead cats, 1 dead pig, 6 live dogs, 5 hitchhikers, 3 flooded roads, 150 pieces of rubber, 2 stops, 12 hours, 2 forgotten maps and a near accident.... we arrived at our destination. :-)

We made it here at 9pm which isn't to bad. We left at 9:15 so that was almost 12 hours of travel. I'm so proud of my family because we only made two stops!!!! (Of course the second one ended up being way to long but we were able to get everyone by on two bathroom stops) I drove the four hours in between the two stops and I was pretty sore and ready to stretch when we got to Chick-fil-A for dinner. Mom and I are switching off driving since my Dad's not with us (who, BTW the way is already home.... suprisingly I'm not jealous right now but by tomorrow I just may be lol) anymore. It was my first time driving in two weeks and my first time driving at 70mph legally ;-) lol

Tomorrow we travel to Joliet IL which I estimate will take us about 9.5-10 hours with stops. If the traveling goes as it did this morning then everything will be great. If it's like the traveling just after dinner it will be a nightmare. *tenative grin* lol For those of you praying for us, please pray that we can get through the rest of our trip without a major breakdown and arguemnt between two memebers of the family. I think it's time we all catch up on sleep!!!

Tomorrow night I won't be online (no wi-fi) so I won't be writing an update. Thank you all for following this trip. If I have time, I'll post pictures when I get home.

Goodnight Ya'll !!!

Heading Home

In 20 minutes Beth and I leave for Nana's where the rest of my family is. At 9 my family is headed out to Memphis TN. It's going to be a long 11 hour+ drive. My Dad flies out of Houston today to get home before us to start his new job so Mom and I will switch off driving all the way home. We'll be home Wednesday afternoon as long as everything goes as planned. I'll post pictures when I can. Please keep us in your prayers. Last time we left Houston without Dad we got a flat tire! :-S (And mom had ended up in the hospital on the way down that trip to....!) See ya'll soon! Sending warm wishes to our freezing states!! :-S

Much love, Your sister in Christ,
Courtney Lynn

Check back later

Later this evening I hope to post all the pictures from the USS Lexington Aircraft carrier and the beach, so check back soon! :-)

March 20 - Hangin' out and relaxing - sortof

MI IV for sure....

Rachel, this one's for you! lol

(And yes, I know I may have just surprised a few of you :-)

Dad trying out Alex's airsoft gun (note: he removed the orange piece on this one in case any of you were wondering lol)
Nick showing Andrew how to load the airsoft gun

Dad helping Andrew use the sites
Nana and cousin Alex
Caleb and Alex!
Josh and Alex
Caleb and Beca

My cousin Alex and I
Alex and his crazy fun best friend Nick who appeared at his house at about midnight, slept over and became our third cousin for the day. lol
Caleb wanted me to take a picture of the honey bee on the clover but was alittle scared to get to close to look at him. He's been stung at least three times.
The park pavillion
Bethany practicing her soccer

March 19 - Houston LiveStock Show 2008

My family in front of Reliant Stadium
My cousin Anthony and I. We both look a good bit alike usually with our DSLR's but this picture was taken on his so he isn't wearing it in the pic :-)
The kids really wanted to ride the escalators so we rode them (three times! lol it was fun!)
Had to take a picture of that one

BUNNY!

Haha - this must be Bethany's livestock (B ethany L _____) We had to take a picture of it.
This is a new born baby in the hatching center - to cute, though they looked dead when they closed their eyes!
These are some of the older ones. And by the way Rachel, there aren't any lime green ones, she was kidding... unfortunatly....*sigh* I figured lol
This is a cool picture of some of the Republican presidents. How well do you know your presidents? The Democratic one is somewhat pictured below that one. I took a picture of that one too if anyone really wants to see it.
Goodness doesn't she look like me?!

Cutie
And more cuties....
I took this picture awhile before I discovered that mom was going to order these steak and potato burittos for my lunch! :-)
So it was messy.... It was really good! :-)
More fun eating together - hehe

Joshua and the chicks or should I say Joshua and the baby chickens???? lol
More chicken viewing

Us waiting beofre the pig race

The pig race!!! These pigs are "Brittany Spare-ribs", "Brad Pig", "Hamma Montana" and I forget the other. In another round they also raced "Arnold Schwartzenhogger" and "Hilary RodHam Clinton" hehe
Youth pole bending in the Reliant Arena

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So the weather was very nice today. I have a slightly pink tinted face but I don't really look burned, though my Dad and Aunt got a good bit of sun!

Beth and I took a jog at about 10pm tonight down the street and back to the house. Why? Cause it's still gorgeous at that time and I felt like enjoying the weather. Then we watched LakeHouse and now Beth is rewatching Ice Age while she waits for me to finish so we can go to bed. Sid (from Ice Age) is an amazing cartoon character hehe - gotta love him. "We'll break your neck so you won't feel a thing" (the rino's in Ice Age). lol

I don't think there's a whole lot else. The Livestock Show wasn't the most amazing thing in the world but it was fun and we got to spend time with family and of course we got to eat FAIR FOOD! (lol I love fair food....) So it was enjoyable. My cousin and I only took 441 pictures- not to bad. And I deleted 100 of them while watching the movie so the whole trip only totals so far at about 604 - not bad....

Goodnight Ya'll from the Lone Star State!

March 18 - Dallas TX to Houston TX

The lovely home of our host family
All of us kids. Yes you counted right, two families - ten kids.
More stressful driving. If narrow lane construction wasn't bad enough, add torential rains and impatient truck drivers! Getting out of Dallas was a nightmare and we had a whiteout when a truck was spraying water onto our windshield because of the angle. Down here rain is like snow in the winter in WI. I saw more accidents today than we usually do with a snow storm it was crazy. A presumed deadly roll over, a head on collision with a guard rail, a couple of stalls, something we couldn't see that caused two semis and a pick up to vear into the ditch to avoid crashing into bumpers at the sudden stops. This landed them up to their axels in mud and one of the semis had almost made it all the way across to our side of the highway. SCARY! Praise God that He was watching over us, any of them could easily have been us the way the weather was.
We have gone to Texas by plane, train and car so we were trying to figure out how we should come next time. I think the final consensus was a riverboat down the Mississippi because the blimp and the hot air ballon would be too expensive and the rocket idea (shown above) just didn't seem feasible....
Rebecca's my buddy and we spend about half our time laying in a similar fashion to this :-)
I've seen enough tolls...
This is the crazy Houston highway system. I love how high the highways go though. I call them "ups" and the lower highways Dad named "downers". We passed a tunel that almost when down into the ground and I said "Boy, that's really a downer" and Dad said "Especially in a flash flood!" and I said "No, that would be a drowner". I thought mom would burst a gut laughing - :-)
More Houston traffic and highways
PALM TREES!!!!!! I decided I'm going to bring one home for prom decor lol
When Beth and I arrived back from our trip to Hollywood video with my cousin Alex (in his mustang which he's so proud of - which he likes to drive fast with loud music lol) we discovered that Mom, Dad and peoples had unloaded Beth and I's stuff. Yes - that's all ours. What can I say except that we're teenage girls? AND I'm loaded down with electronics! (which are in the middle of the pile) My sister and I are staying here at our Aunt and Uncle's in our own room (which has a TV, Satelite, Playstation, Phone, Wi-fi, exercise equipment.... lol) and the rest of the family is staying at Grandma's. I'm loving it already but I need to go to bed!

I'm enjoying this weather immensly by the way! and I'm loving the emails so keep them coming :-)
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I don't mind traveling and usually enjoy a good bit of it but I am SOOOOOO glad to finially be here! I don't know if I could have done another day.

Love to all, goodnight!

March 17 - Memphis TN to Dallas TX (with a stop in Big Sandy)

GOOD NEWS!!! Before we left this morning, my Dad got a job! For those of you who didn't know, he's been off of work for a month and oppertunities were becoming less frequent. Praise God for him finding work. Unfortunatly he's going to have to fly home because he's supposed to start before we get back.

Fast friends!
Rebecca cried when we left - if only they lived closer!
This is the "castle" across the street from where we were staying
More friendships formed First flowers of the year!
My family cheers everytime we pass one of these signs. This one's actually over the Mississippi which we've crossed three times already and will cross at least once more before we get home. :-) Also note the house in front of us. We hit construction right after the bridge so it took us awhile to get around the house.
More stressful driving. Construction on highways with semi trucks while driving a 15 passenger van is always a little nerve wrenching. Mom and I are always glad Dad's driving when we hit those situations occur.
Okay so there's a story here! We got re-routed off the highway in redneck country (as Johnathan calls it lol) onto some old Texas back road. Well, this old road was NOT made for 15 passenger vans and semi's to pass eachother on! Talk about nerve wrenching! We never travel with out an adventure and Texas has given us a few for sure. We found this one pretty amusing (seriously) and we loved the old light blue pickup that followed us for miles with the grandpa and his grandaughters.

This is Dad asking for directions 5 or 6 miles off the highway on Farm Road 1002. Stupid mapquest.
The big Texas sky
ALERT! After mixup's, re-routes and a sketchy rural gas station, we arrived at the ALERT Academy (an hour late!)
This is the lovely "road" Johnathon took us on as we toured the outskirts of the Academy's property. I wouldn't recommend off-roading in a 15 passanger van.... I was so sure we would get stuck!
This is us with Jonathan. It was so good to see him again after all this time but like all of our other stops on this trip, it was simply to short of a time.

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I was so proud of my family. We made the entire 6 or 7 hour trip to Big Sandy with only one twenty five minute stop in which we walked a block, filled up with gas, went to the bathroom and ordered 12 soft tacos and a number of other things at Taco Bell. And that 25 minutes includes the time to get on and off the highway. We're getting really good at this stoping thing. I'm so proud of us! :-)

After we left Big Sandy we made the two and a half hour trip to Dallas to spend the night with more friends we havn't seen in a long time.