Our spring break vacation, part 1

The kids had not been sick a bit all winter except for a few sniffles here and there. The Monday before we were to leave, Tate was home sick with a fever and a cough, but he went back to school on Wednesday. Thursday, Samantha was feeling rotten and stayed home. We planned to leave the next morning. After the kids were in bed on Thursday night, Glen and I talked about what we should do. He asked me what I thought our plan should be if she threw up (we had a 7-hour trip to Indiana and were also taking along a Cono student and dropping her off). I told him I didn't think she would because what she had was respiratory. He was working in the garage later when Sammy came out of her room with a full bucket--"Dad helped me last time," she said. :) She was sick again early that morning, and when I came back to bed after helping her clean up, Glen said, "I told her to come to MY side of the bed!" We called our friends who we would be staying with and let them know how she was--they encouraged us to come anyway. So, we piled into the Excursion and took off. Sammy felt a lot better except for a horrible cough.

We made it to Warsaw that evening and were so happy to see our friends Kirk and Roberta again. We ate at Applebee's and had a great time. Saturday morning we drove around town and the Grace campus as well as drove by both of the houses we used to live in. Belive me the kids LOVED that! :) It was fun for Glen and I to see how everything had changed.

On Saturday night, Roberta had invited many of the families who had been in our church small group when we lived there. We had so much fun with the Gensches, Rosses and Mary Polston (who was the leader of the group along with her husband Terry who sadly passed away in December). Mo and Karla Grimm, our friends from EIBC/Grace came too and fit right into the group. We missed Terry of course, and the Coopers who had planned to drive from New York but stayed home because 3 of their 4 kids were sick. The next morning, we went to church at Warsaw Community Church, which has really grown since we moved! They have a huge building and several services--when we went they were meeting on the Grace Campus.

After church, we drove an hour to Fort Wayne to the Dupees. The kids had a lot of fun with a set of foam blocks that they had.

Tate is inside the tower that Chase and Sammy helped build around him. We went to their evening service and heard Mr. Dupee preach, then stayed up and talked with them for quite a while.

Monday morning, we overslept (we had two time changes in two days between the time zone and daylight savings). I had changed the time on my watch but not on my phone, which was where I set the alarm to wake up on time. Oh well--it's vacation! After breakfast we began our trip to Hendersonville, NC where Kenneth and Carolyn live with their three kids. It was a LONG day, but we figured out that Tate peed in five states that day! I did not particularly care for driving in the mountains; it made me a little claustrophobic. But it was pretty! It also didn't help that we were going fast, and the windy roads made me a little nervous. :)

We got to Kenneth and Carolyn's after dinnertime and the kids hit it off immediately. We stayed up late with them too. Sammy was still coughing terribly, and Britta felt bad too. We had plans to go to the Biltmore the next day, so we were going to wait and see if we'd all be able to do that or not. We were thankful the next morning that she felt well enough to go. The mansion was beautiful and amazing, and all of the kids really enjoyed it--even the boys! Chase kept asking when we were going to get to the basement. It was near the end of the tour, but we made it!

The kids after our tour of the mansion:
After the Biltmore, we went back to their house where we ate reclatte, a French meal where you basically melt cheese and pour it over all of your food. Delicious! We also had chocolate fondue for dessert. With full bellies, we packed up and prepared to drive the two hours to my brother Brad's house in Mooresville.