Road Trip, Day 3: Prosser, WA to Twin Falls, ID

And what a long day it was! We left Prosser this morning, but not until about 9am. Along the way, Noe noticed that the car was pulling to the right quite a lot. So on our way to lunch in Baker City, OR, we stopped in La Grande, OR at Les Schwab, where they rotated the tires. At first, the car drove straight. But then we did notice it pulling to the left. the Les Schwab man said if it pulled to the left that the tire was defective. But Noe thinks it still might be an alignment problem. We will look into that this weekend in Wyoming.

On the route, we saw the White Tree of Gondor- somehow it got moved to the PNW... must've sailed "into the west" and landed out in such splendor...

Naya enjoyed our Pizza Hut lunch. The drive was beautiful, especially approaching the Columbia River from south-eastern WA, and also coming down into Idaho (Nampa/Boise) from SE Oregon. We finally arrived, tuckered out and hungry, at our hotel in Twin Falls at about 8.15pm. (7.15 PST). We had a wonderful late dinner at Tomato's Italian Grill (yay pasta!). Now we are relaxing for a few hours, and hopefully we'll have a good night's sleep for our drive to Jackson Hole, WY tomorrow. It will be nice to spend 3 nights there before another long drive!

The car is still functioning "like a champ", and Naya did a pretty good job today! What a trooper she is! :) We had gotten a new windshield on Monday, and... (you can see where this is going) just as we were pulling into Twin Falls tonight, a car pulled in front of us and blessed us with some little rocks... we received 2 decent chips in the windshield. So that was added to our agenda for tomorrow morning. I am so thankful for a husband who is so pro-active in getting all these little things taken care of so they don't become bigger issues later!! God blesses him with the smarts and the energy to do it.

Special note: happy birthday and welcome to another (fake) "nephew" of mine!! Eli Bradley Stebbins was born today, to my best girl friend Alanna and her husband Brad. Congratulations!! So that was a very, very positive note to my day! (that and the fact that Naya's dinner only cost $2.95...ahhh, now see, there comes my random humor!)

Thank you for leaving your comments! We read them ALL, and it makes us feel very loved!! We love you all! Keep the comments and emails coming! :) Keep in touch.

Noe, Lisa, Adannaya, and "Little Two"

ps--- for the proud grandparents: Naya can pretty much sing the ENTIRE alphabet song now! amazing...

Road Trip, Day 1, July 28, Seattle, WA to Prosser, WA

After a series of 'unfortunate events', nearly all relating to vehicles, we were able to leave town early this morning, around 7.15am. To share a little of those events, we had sold my dear Henry ('92 toyota corolla) and used those funds to purchase a '97 dodge caravan. we were thrilled! We made and met appointments to get the van ready for our trip. On Wednesday, the "Check Engine Soon" light appeared. This is not the kind of enlightening experience we want to see just a few days before our trip. So after more repair work, we finally felt ready. We finished packing and cleaning, and we moved out of the house we were renting at 4pm Saturday, just in time for a wonderful family gathering at 5.30 at the Roe home. Sunday morning, the potential to purchase a '99 nissan pathfinder suddenly arose. To keep this paragraph to merely a paragraph, the purchase of the pathfinder was made around 6-7pm Sunday night. [In unison: "Oi vey!!"] Monday morning, Noe rose bright and early and spent the entire day making and meeting appointments once again to prepare THIS vehicle for our trip. We had initially hoped to leave Monday morning, but the repairs took all day, so we settled in for one more night in Seattle. We cannot express how truly thankful we are for Steve & Ellyn-- i have to mention them in particular because they seriously bent over backward in many ways to help us through all of these many vehicle entanglements, and loading our trailer, etc, etc, etc! There were other precious people who helped us over the last 3 weeks- too many to mention actually! But we know who you are, as do you, and we truly are thankful for your generosity of time and energy and gifts, etc, etc, etc!!

If you made it through that fantastic paragraph... on to brighter things.

We arrived in Prosser, WA (Tri-Cities area) around 12.30pm (and the Pathfinder is running beautifully, to answer that question for anyone!). We are staying with Noe's sister Celia, Bill, and Naya's 2.5-year-old cousin Sophia. Our plan was to move on to Idaho tomorrow and camp for 2 nights. But we really want to soak up 2 days with them, so we opted out of our campsite and will head to Idaho on Thursday and stay in a hotel.

Naya has had a blast today with cousin Sophia. They spent nearly 2 hours splashing about in the kiddie pool. That really is the only reason to be outside- it is around 100 degrees. Ouch! :) Bill and Celia are great hosts, and we enjoyed a nice dinner outside tonight (it had cooled to upper 80's with a gentle breeze). Those of you who remember I spent a summer in the Zambian bush may or may not recall my marveling at the pure quietness I experienced there... no city noise, no cars, no planes, no noises really of any kind... and I described it as "You can hear the sky." In the place we are here in eastern WA, I was pleasantly surprised to find that same quietness, after "missing" the experience for the last 6 years. It is so beautiful... Sorry, back to the girls... the girls enjoyed popsicles and running in the grass this evening, and Naya had a fun tumble down a couple stairs... Ok, not so fun, but she didn't injure herself thankfully!

Well, time to sign off for today. We'd love to know that you were here reading this! :)

***Funny note: This morning we stopped for breakfast at McDonald's on I-90, and one of the girls behind the counter was admiring Naya, when she asked me, "How old is her?!" I could feel my mom cringing, even though she wasn't there... ha! (By the way, she then gestured toward my pregnant belly and asked "And what are you waiting for?" Oh my..... it was great...)

Lots of love,

Noe, Lisa, Naya, and "Little Two"

July, Here we come!

And just like that, our moving month has come! We are moving 3 weeks from today! Oi vey! We are very much looking forward to taking this next step. We will miss seeing our family so regularly, and are very thankful to have had this last 10 generous months to soak them up! :)

My "morning sickness" finally subsided during the 2nd week of June. I've been 'catching up' on my eating (haha), and have been keeping busy since then with organizing and consolidating and throwing out things...all in preparation for our move. This particular move has a new aspect for us- storage. We've never needed to store things before. So our "piles" have been Storage, Michigan, and Garage Sale (oh, and garbage!).

We're having a garage sale this coming weekend. This week we are also preparing our cars to sell. Please pray that they sell quickly, and for the price we want to ask for them! (Those of you who know me from over the years are aware that I will indeed miss my dear Henry...) We have decided on a minivan from a very trusted source which is being sold to us at a very generous price. We are so thankful to the Lord! As soon as we can sell the car(s), we will use the money to purchase the van.

So, that's a tiny, vague look into the busy next 3 weeks for us. Lots of packing and cleaning... so thankful for the family and friends who have offered their helping hands and meals and prayers!