load 'em up

First, thank you all so much for your kind comments & emails that you sent to me about the last post. Thank you for letting me be honest & for encouraging me to do so. Thank for taking this journey with us over the last 5 years. Thank you for praying for us & with us. Thank you to those of you who have shed tears with us. We are so grateful to our friends & family who have been able to experience this journey with us. And we are so grateful to those of you, some of who we've never met but have kept with us on this blog, who have come along for the ride, too! Thank you for your prayers & encouragement & even just an interest in what we are doing. Who knew what the world wide web & this little ole blog could be for 2 newbie missionaries 5 years ago?

And thank you to all of you who sent me ideas for toys for my kiddos & make-up for this mama's face! I'm so excited to have a list in hand & go shopping for Izzy & Luke. I'm also excited to hit up some of those make-up counters y'all suggested in the comments & emails & get myself a little pampering done! I'll be sure to let you know what my final pick is! Let's just say that it is going to have to be something that holds up under the "wear & tear" of 2 young chilin's & this desert heat & the insane amount of sweat that comes from both!

But onto matters at hand ... the Phillips family is packed up & ready to go to America! We will be leaving on a jet plane in 12 hours! Oh, Lord, please help us!! I'm so nervous about traveling with 2 kiddos. I'm just praying that the other passengers on the flights with us will have patience & grace. Some of you have flown international flights before & there's always "that" kid or "that" family on the plane. I'm praying we won't be "those" people but you just never know with small children.

I'm fairly confident that Isabelle will be fine as she is now out of those terrible 2's & is easier to reason with in times of stress. But Luke ... well he's a different story. The last time we flew, Isabelle was just a tad bit over 2 & Luke was 6 months old. Now Izzy is 3 1/2 and Luke is 20 months old. That lovely ole age where they try to communicate but don't really make words & then get highly upset when you don't understand them. Y'all know what I'm talking about?

Luke is also just loud ... happy or sad, he's just loud. The day he was born, there were 9 other babies born that day in the hospital & 13 born the day before. The nurses made it a point to tell us that he was the loudest baby in the nursery. He has lived up to it til this day. Which being loud is not always bad but on an airplane for 8 hours traveling across the Atlantic? Well, that's just not cool. Oh & he's not a snuggler or doesn't like to sit in laps ... so being an "infant in lap" & having to stay in my lap for take-off & landing, that's just going to be so much fun!

Let's just say that we are going to be glad for more than 1 reason when our feet hit American soil tomorrow!!

I don't know if I'll have time to post blogs while we're on our vacay but I'll try to update you on all our fun. We really are looking forward to just making some new memories with our kiddos while in the U S of A. Luke is at the same age Isabelle was at when we came back to the States in January 2010. We had so much fun doing things with her there that we can't do here, so we're really looking forward to doing those with Luke & as a whole family (seeing as how Luke couldn't even sit up the last time we were there). Plus, Luke has never tasted American food (other than from our kitchen), so we're excited about introducing him to all of our favorites! Isabelle is also at that age now where we know she will remember everything from our time there & we're really looking forward to helping her mark off some of things on her "list"!

Even amidst all our busyness during our time in the States (ummm ... 6 states in 30 days!), we are looking forward to being together as a family & just having fun! And we hope to see some of you along the way!!