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| Owen's 4th Birthday Party. Esther Up From Her Nap. |
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| Owen Opening His Birthday Gifts with Erin and Erin |
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| Spooky Birthday Party with Cousin Millie in Her Mom, Beth's Lap. |
Saturday. 13. Morning routines. Fabulous pancake breakfast. Property searches online with tea. Call from Brazil with son Jeremy, Andrea and Quinn. Duolingo language app time. Sandwiches for lunch. 2 o’clock for Owen’s 4th birthday party!! He had such a great ‘scary’ birthday theme last year that he wanted to repeat it this year! He has more recently discovered Spiderman and the younger viewer version cartoon called Spidey. We enjoyed his party and visiting with our daughter-in-law, Erin’s family. We get to talk to her Mom and Dad about their retirement downsize, selling their house, and moving from Birmingham up close to Eric and Erin! They are going to enjoy living close to Eric and Erin with two of their grandchildren, and they also have a son, Chris with his wife and daughter here also. I’m so happy that they are coming closer!
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| Having Sunday Lunch and 39th Birthday for Our Son Wesley. In Picture: Me, Eric, Samuel, Wesley, Darrell, Esther, Owen and Erin. |
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| Three of Our Four Sons Playing the Game: You're Getting Old. |
Sunday. 14. Morning routines. Bible class and worship at Capshaw church from 9-11am. Noon lunch at our house with our three sons. It’s Wesley’s 39th birthday celebration. All the food I prepared turned out very good. I made his requested mint chocolate cake. I used a dark chocolate cake mix with a few mint chips added in. I topped the warm cake with York peppermint chocolate chips to melt and spread on the cake. We had a little ice cream on the side. For our main meal, I baked potatoes, cooked a lean pork roast with cumin, garlic and chili powder, carrots and onions. Darrell heated up some corn tortillas. We had a pot of black beans and also some fresh taco toppings of chopped tomato, lettuce, green onions, serrano peppers, cheese and sour cream. After our filling meal, we sang happy birthday. Wes blew out his candles and opened a couple of presents. Eric and Erin brought him a game called “You Are Getting Old”. We played the game and had some laughs together. Everyone was ready to head home. We cleaned up and stayed inside for the afternoon because it’s hot at 90 degrees outside. We took an evening walk around our neighborhood.
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| Building with Magnetic Squares. Eric, Esther and Owen. |
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| Owen and Esther at the Playground in Madison, Alabama |
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| Owen and Twins (older than him) Playing and Having a Fun Time |
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| Our Final Taco Truck Dinner for This Stay in Madison, Alabama |
Monday. 15. We had the opportunity to sleep in today. I woke up about 4am and stayed quietly in bed. I may have fallen asleep again, but I'm not sure. I use quiet times like this to pray and think about scriptures like this one: I will wake the dawn with praises. (Ps 108:2 and Ps 57:8) We sing these words in a song at worship. It’s one of my favorite hymns because it lifts my mood. Darrell was awake and then sleeping again until 6:40 or so. We got up and had our easy ‘energy’ ddp routine this morning. He made pancakes for the next 3-4 days. Then we will have an egg breakfast for our last morning or two here. Eric texted me to let me know that we could come over there before 9am and then he could go pick up their grocery order. Darrell decided to take his older clothes to Eric’s to paint some of Eric’s fence for him. It’s a big project in motion that is on the to-do list. Darrell spent 2 ½ hours painting fence and accomplished a lot, but there is more to do. He also discovered that Eric will need another bucket of the $60+ paint! I played with the kids and Eric was in and out playing in-between. We came home and relaxed a little before having lunch. At 1pm my friend Melanie’s coming by at my invitation for a visit! I’ve had an ongoing conversation with my daughter-in-law in Brazil, Andrea. She’s updated me with her exercise and dieting activity because she likes to share and she’s learned a lot from me and Darrell and Jeremy through the years. She’s having a great time working out her energy in keeping track of her daily kilometers walked, and her protein grams for her day. In the meantime, she runs the commissary as a full-time volunteer and is learning Russian for their next duty station! She’s Ah-mazing! Lol! I’m working a bit more on getting my clothes put away into my trunk or into my luggage. I also want to go through the kitchen and pull out what items are ours that I have stored in the drawers and cabinets. I also began writing my review for this airbnb so that it’s completed.
Tuesday. 16. Had a good morning with tough ab exercise routine and big pancake breakfast. Eric texted me that he’s taking the kids to the playground before it gets too warm. We met them there and stayed a good hour. I followed Owen around and Darrell followed Esther. Owen pretty much takes care of himself. He engages kids at the playground to play games with them. He notices the smaller ones and the bigger ones. He saw some boys just older than himself who were climbing on the climbing wall. He got excited that they were like Spiderman. One was wearing spiderman shoes. Eric later said that both kids took long naps.
Wednesday. 17. Kids coming over to our house before lunch. Our last visit at this house together. Darrell feels a little puny today. I feel all better. We have morning routines and time to chat over coffee about travel app updates, and details for packing and other thoughts. After lunch we went shopping for jeans for Darrell and leather walking shoes for me. 3pm phone call with friend Dawn.
Thursday. 18. I spent time packing today to get most of it completed so that tomorrow I can focus on cleaning up and checking out of our airbnb. We took our open crate storage boxes to Samuel’s house. He has an available closet that we stacked them in for storage until we return at the end of October. We leave him a few opened food items that he may use. Darrell plugged in our mini truck fridge at Samuel’s house. It is holding a jar of jam and some bottles of sauces.
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| A Beautiful Farm Field in Limestone County, Alabama |
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| On a Plane |
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| "Meh" Meal on Overnight Flight to London. At Least We Were Served Food! |
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| Our Flight Path to London is Tracked Live On a Channel. |
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| Daybreak Over London from the Airplane |
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| Over London. Seen from My Airplane Seat. |
Friday. 19. This is check-out morning at our Madison airbnb. We take time to cook breakfast and clean up. We finish packing our suitcases, as well as our sealed trunks that we store in our truck. We get all finished early enough to stop and have a coffee on our way to Jackie’s house. She’s become a nice friend who we met at church, and she volunteered to store our truck and drive us to and from the airport. We arrive at her house mid-morning and she climbs in our truck as we head for the airport. She leaves us at the airport and we are on our way. Our flight leaves around 1pm. We fly to Atlanta then and overnight flight to Heathrow/London. We eat a meal at Atlanta airport during our 2 hour layover.
Nomad Notes.
Selecting a property: After breakfast on Saturday we looked for a property to stay in Devon, England for 4 nights while we are there from Sept 22-26. (Note: When I wrote this, I thought we were looking in Devon. It turns out that we were looking in North Cornwall! Learning my geography as I go! lol) This is an example of our timeline and our decision-making. We talked about waiting until we were on the road on the way to Cornwall to make our reservations, but Darrell decided that he wanted to go ahead and select a place. (Note: It’s a good thing that we did make our reservations early! The driving was fully active and took all of Darrell’s attention and most of mine while driving. I could not have searched online while navigating this drive with Darrell.) There were so many nice properties available within an hour of Tintagel Castle that I’m glad that we spent the 2 ½ hours looking and thinking about which one to select. We finally narrowed our selection down to a waterfront, family owned cottage on the Coastal Path in Boscastle. It has a 2 minute walk to the beach and a 5 minute walk to the closest restaurant and other town shops. It is about a 5 hour drive from Tunbridge Wells. Darrell will be doing all the driving in England.
Not feeling well: On Sunday morning I felt just off a bit. My knees felt weak and I felt a little distracted by my thoughts. Last week I had a couple of mornings when I felt similar. The only similar thing I did was on the days prior to this shaky feeling, I had a coffee from a Keurig machine. I’m not sure that this is the exact or only reason that I’ve experienced this. By lunch time, I was feeling some better. A couple of hours past that, I was feeling fully recovered and well.
Friends in Kent at church: We’ve both been in contact with a few friends at church in Kent, England (Tunbridge Wells). We’ve had some back and forths on e-mail and whatsapp. Darrell has had more. Mainly they are welcoming us for worship on Sunday and possibly eating together for lunch. Second to that Paul has given Darrell loads of information about Devon and Cornwall. What to expect of the roads, weather, and scenic and historic highlights. He’s had as much fun as us!
Feeling exhausted again on Tuesday after time at the playground in 80 degree weather. It was very hot. I didn’t have Keurig this time. I did start feeling better toward dinner time.
Our Truck Maintenance: Darrell got an appointment to get the tires rotated per our ‘Car Facts’ scheduled reminder. While at the tire place, he discovered that our tires needed replacing. So he got that done.
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