We are home. Mom and Melissa are home. All the LPM girls are home. Well, they are at work today, but still. Home! Home is good!
My little family had a very fun, unexpected blessing at the end of our trip. My friend Janelle, who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, invited us to stay with her family on the way home from Missouri. It was perfect! We drove eight hours on Sunday with the goal of making it in time for dinner. Janelle’s husband, Heath, is an amazing cook and was making a feast for us. We had our eyes set on the prize all day. First, we stopped for an hour in McKinney and met up with my college roommate, Mel, and her precious new baby. I have so many sweet friends in DFW that I miss terribly! Mel and Janelle are both the kind of friends who are more like sisters.
We arrived at Janelle’s house just in time for dinner.
Jackson and Ella, who were born in the same hospital just two days apart and were each other’s first friend, were thrilled to be together. It’s so precious to see how much they love each other despite the physical distance between our families.
After dinner, Annabeth went to bed, the “big kids” watched a movie, and the grown-ups turned out attention to Phase 10. This has replaced UNO as my new favorite game. I have no pictures of us playing it, but we played for hours. It was so much fun. Does your family have a favorite game you play together?
The next morning we had an amazing breakfast at a restaurant called Mimi’s. It was like a cross between La Madeleine and IHOP. I loved it and deeply regretted not going there when we lived 20 minutes away. The last time we were with Janelle’s family we hit up Cracker Barrel. I guess breakfast is our new thing. It used to be Double Dave’s pizza.
Ella was concerned for Jackson’s safety and wanted to hold his hand. We were cracking up.
Our children formed a praise team.
Just the girls.
We finally made it back to Houston on Monday evening after four more hours on the road. We picked up our dog, Beckham, from a very generous friend’s house where he was spoiled and loved on by her three darling kids. He climbed into the back seat of our Suburban and pouted like a small child. He wouldn’t talk to us until the next day. I don’t know if he’s mad that we didn’t take him to Nana’s house (he thinks he’s a grandchild) or because he didn’t want to leave Heather’s family. Bless his heart.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. Melissa is preparing a post for tomorrow and I can’t wait to read it! Y’all have a great Wednesday!
Love,
Amanda
so glad that you are back home safely! Thank you so much for your great posts about family life. The pictures of the your kids and the one of Just Girls are all so adorable!
Our favorite family game now is Farkle.
I’m going to have to look for Phase 10 and Mimi’s!
Still so excited about summer Bible study! Got the CD today, and picked up all the books they had in the store today (3) for friends!
We love Phase 10 as well! And Skip-Bo!!!!!!!!!!
skip-bo all the way, it’s a sick addiction, I even bribe my kids to play with me.
Welcome home everyone!! Can’t wait to hear all about the trip. So glad too, that Amanda and family enjoyed their return trip after the bitter/sweet home-going of a loved one.
I just wanted to add one more thing and that is to thank Mama Beth for writing her most recent book, So Long, Insecurity!! Just finished it and realized you included a fabulous “Top Ten List” (on page 333) far better than anyone in the world could ever come up with. Those verses provide such powerful truth and reassurance! God was so good to give you such a wonderful book and then to share it with us. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!
Amanda, It’s just precious to read about your family and see pictures of your little ones. Thanks for that!!
If we are lucky, our two sons (ages 17 and 23) will join us for a game of Boggle!! We love it!! It’s a simple game, yet we get so competitive coming up with the biggest word! And our youngest is always making up words, “just in case” they are for real! And with the dictionary close at hand, we have been learning a lot of new words! It’s fun! I highly recommend it!
Glad to hear that everyone is home safely. It’s always fun to get to spend time with friends you haven’t seen in a while. I’m sad that you missed your trip to the Holy Lands but I’m glad to see that you got to visit friends and family that you don’t get to see often. I’m still praying for Curtis’ family.
PICTURES~
Toooooo Cuuuuute!
PRAISE GOD everyone is home safe!
With a name like Mimi’s how could it not be just wonderful. That is what my grandbabies call me! Can’t wait to here about the grand trip. Glad everyone made it home save and sound! My church ladies are getting ready for Beth’s simulcast in September. I know it will be the next best thing to be there live. So excited!
Oh my goodness…. Ella and Jackson are precious together!!!! I see an arranged marriage in the works, haha!!! 🙂
Thank goodness there was a new post…I was just dying to know how the trip went. I love that you got to see your friends. The pics are so cute, isn’t it like a wonderful girl to hold the hand of her adventurous guy friend…just like a girl! I love the praise team pics – AB’s leggings are too much! And yes Mimi’s rocks – I finally feel like I have a restaurant that I know about. (We just got a chik-fil-A in the OC) They have the best corn chowder and they have a bread pudding that is out of this world. Well I’m gonna cram now so that I can comprehend Melissa’s post tomorrow.
Thanks for the update and Beth – Can’t WAIT to see you in DENVER!!!!
It looks like you guys had a lovely trip. I loved the “praise team” picture — too cute!!!
So glad everyone is home safely. Anytime we get together with friends, we play Phase 10. We also love Cranium…our family is so dramatic and we love to laugh at each other so cranium is always a big hit!!
Oh my gracious! What darling pictures! I love those burgeoning musicians ~ such fun! And I’m so looking forward to Melissa’s post tomorrow as well!
So glad you are all home safely. The pics are so great! I love the Praise Team. Too Cute!!
Blessings,
Marita
Hi Friend! I am still living off the high of y’all being with us for the night! 🙂 It was so much fun. A huge blessing.
Enjoyed the update and fun photos of your adorable kids. My husband and I enjoy playing Phase 10. We even played that in the delivery room while I was being induced (and I didn’t have an epidural), we needed something to do while waiting for active labor to begin!! 🙂 We also enjoy playing oodles of other games with our 2 oldest children (9,7)…Skippo, UNO, Mousetrap, Dominos….
Girl, we have Phase 10 marathons that have lasted until around 2:00am with my brother and his wife!! It’s like once you begin, you can’t stop playing!! We love that game.
So glad you had such a great time and can’t wait to hear about your mom and sister’s trip too!
of COURSE they formed a praise team. what I want to know is if Annabelle brought the message?
I gotta tell you, we have this DVD of kids praise songs we listen to and it has a lot of un-named kids in the cast (Cedarmont Kids). We can’t handle those kids not having names, so we have been naming them just for fun. Mostly it is people they remind us of.
One day my husband pointed out one of the girls and said “that one is named Beth”
I asked “why?”
his reply…
“she has the biggest hair.”
I’ve missed your Janelle and Ella stories!! What a sweet reunion!!
We used to play Phase 10 a lot. I’m partial to games that use a deck of cards. Up and Down the River, Euchre…
Yay!! So glad you are all back safe and sound!!
So glad to see that everyone made it back home safe and sound!!!! Enjoyed the first day account and also today’s of your family adventure….. sorry to hear of your families loss, I’m praying for you….. Can’t wait to hear about the trip tomorrow… hope it brings on a new bible study or two???? Keep the blogs coming, we love to join you guys in whats going on, and are praying for you and your ministry!!!! Thank you and God Bless you all for sharing your lives!!!!! Lori in Mo.
We play a game called Rook with my husbands parents. One year I found this little rook bird figurine at a dollar store and turned it into “the rook bird trophy”. So now when we play whoever wins gets the honor of displaying it in their house. It’s currently on display in my kitchen/dining room 🙂
Love love LOVE Phase 10! What a great game! 🙂 Glad you made it home safely! I enjoyed visiting McKinney when we lived in Oklahoma for a few months. Phew, glad our OK days are over!
Thanks so much for sharing your family so freely. The pics are great!
And I’m so glad to know that Beth, Melissa and the team are all back safely. I was thinking of them and praying for their safety just this morning. Thanks for keeping us up to date and I can’t wait to read Melissa’s post!
Those pictures are too cute! Sounds like you guys had a great time! We play a game called Shanghi that is just like Phase 10 but you don’t get stuck on the levels so it’s not as frustrating. 🙂 Catch Phrase is a great one but it somehow ends up getting loud so it’s not the best while little ones are sleeping. 🙂
So glad that everyone is “home again, safe at last!” (to quote a Berenstain Bears book)
It looks like you had a great couple of visits on your way home!
If you liked Phase 10, you’ll have to be sure to try Phase 10 Twist. Lotsa fun 🙂 We also like Sequence, Catch Phrase, and Cranium 🙂
Hi Amanda, I’m glad that you had a great time at Janelle’s and I enjoyed looking at the pictures. Happy to hear everyone arrived back safely and I can’t wait to read Melissa’s post tomorrow about her trip.
My family is into card games. I love all kinds of card games like Wizard, Phase 10, Skipbo, Rummy, UNO, etc. I also love board games too but any game of cards (except WAR. Hated that game. Only exception that I will play is with my niece.) is my first love and choice to play. I have special connections playing certain card games with certain family members. For example: Rummy – my Dad taught me how to play that game when I was in the hospital years ago and ever since then, we always play that game. When I go visit my sister and her family for few days, almost every time, she, my brother-in-law & I play Wizard. Whenever I get a good visit with my other sister, we ALWAYS play Phase 10. Especially when we mix up the orders to make it more fun hoping it’ll confuse the other person thinking she’s on the right phase but really she’s messing it up on the wrong phase and it gives the other person a better chance of winning. It has happened a couple of times. I can keep going listing but I think you got the idea how much I love playing cards/boardgames with family & friends.
Thanks for sharing the sweet pictures!!
Just so you know – THERE IS A MIMI’S IN PEARLAND. It’s a bit of a drive, but you can take your mom there some time to share the yummy food!
Being with friends is good for the soul, isn’t it? I refueled my soul all weekend with a girlfriend getaway. We played Catch Phrase, which always leaves us rolling on the floor laughing. As for playing with the kids, we love Sorry.
So glad you all are home!
We love Phase 10 also!! Isn’t fun? Another fun one, if you like word games, is Quiddler :). Thanks for sharing your pics and your thoughts…
Wow!!! Great pics Amanda…..you cram so much into your posts….I love them. The Praise Team is awesome!! Who knows??? Only God!! Glad your trip was good….sort of…and all arrived home safely. Dogs certainly have their own little personality don’t they???
Looking forward to Melissa’s post as well….
Blessings to all of you.
Bible Bunny in NO MI
Great pictures! Spontaneous times are the best. I LOVE Mimi’s. One of my favorite places to eat. I live in the DFW area and used to go there for lunch alot with my girlfriends. Love your posts thanks for sharing. 😉
So glad you made it home. All of you. Well be looking for the post. Our family game is Mexcian Train. Really fun. Have a good week. Bless you all.
Sue
love the pictures! My mom keeps a little boy and they will visit her best friend who has a daughter a little younger than him — they play so much like that! Rebekah is always wanting to make sure Riley doesn’t get hurt. =D
I think our favorite game to play is Mexican Train – it’s a game with Domino’s that my mom learned a few years back. If we ever get together, that’s what we play.
So glad you guys are back safely!!
Must say, Amanda…that we love Phase 10. Recommending Quiddler to you and your sister and Mom if you haven’t tried it…its a word game. You will all love it!
So glad you are all home safely. The pictures are darling. Wish you were driving by my house so you could stay over! I’d have you and Curtis and your kids come any day, plus, you could bring your dog! (Smile!) Your little one is sure growing up fast! As to a family game, my family plays a card game called, of all things, “Scum!” At the of each round, whoever loses is “scum”, Second lost, “vice-scum”. If you win that round you are “President” and coming in second, “Vice-President”. Every changes seats accordingly for the next round. It is fun, but not as fun as your card game!
How is Curtis? Are you guys healing? Love you all,
Lisa, in Kirkland, WA
So glad all is well. We love Phase 10. But if we are just playing with the immediate family – Settlers of the Catan will come in a close 2nd. And Scattegories, and hand & foot (a card game) and Sequence and Boggle and Cranium and we just love games!
YAY! We love games…games…games. I could not possibly list all my favorites…Rummy cube, Yahoo, hand and foot, on and on. My all time FAVORITE to play at night after the kids are in bed is “Settlers of Catan”! Glad somebody else likes it too! Did you know there is a ‘christian’ version called “Settlers of Canaan”? It has a few things the other doesn’t have that make it fun, like building the wall of Jerusalem. Since it looks like Canaan the borad can’t be changed, so although it is good to teach new comers on we like to play Catan with all the extra add-ons like sea-farers. We also make up rules like allowing the person on your right to place your first settlemsnt. FUN! WE LOVE GAMES!
the praise band and Ella holding Jackson’s hand just do my heart good. It cracks me up about the nature of a woman from an early age. We are going to help control. lol.
Oh, we love Phase 10!! So fun. We have a Mimi’s here in Fort Worth … they had the best pumpkin muffins at Thanksgiving … oh, they were good! We almost went there tonight to celebrate my husband NOT getting a promotion! But we opted for On the Border instead. We’d been praying … Lord, open or close the door … the door closed for the promotion, so we said we were celebrating either way! “Celebrating” always involves eating out for us! Love you all so much.
Glad to hear everyone is back home safely, tired maybe but safe. I love traveling but it is always good to get back home to my own bed and my own routines.
My family’s favorite games are backgammon, Skip Bo and Yahtzee. Playng family games is one of my favorite family memories. We used to play games on Sunday evenings when I was a kid. When I adopted my guys, I was so glad when they got up old enough to play games.
Can’t wait to hear about the trip.
Jan
yay!! everyone’s home! so glad you had such a great visit on your way, amanda, and can’t wait to hear from melissa and your mama!! 🙂 jackson, ella and annabeth made a LOVELY praise band by the way 😉
So glad everyone is home!
We love Catchphrase!
Hi Amanda!
I loved the pictures as well…It seems Jackson looks a little bit taller every time we see a new picture! They grow too fast! I had been thinking of you & Curtis and praying for you as you said good-bye to someone so dear to your hearts…I’m really glad you got some much deserved R&R time with some great friends after. God knows just what we need when we need it. He’s so good that way! After my recent hospital stay my cat wanted nothing to do with me for hours either. Animals are funny… Lots of love & prayers sent your way..
oh so glad you are all home safe and sound. Looking forward to reading Melissa’s post. My summer bible study group began Esther today and I am really excited about this. Mama siesta has her ways of getting us excited about our sweet jesus. Hope yall have a beautiful day.
blessings
I love games!!! Phase 10 is SO fun…but I like most card games 🙂 We don’t get to play much though – so hard to get together with friends to play when everyone has kids that need to be in bed early!
Glad you had a chance to visit friends and that you are all home safely!
my family loves card games! especially Nertz! glad everyone is home safe!
Amanda,
You should try Phase 10 Twist – our family played phase 10 constantly and then
we got phase 10 twist for Christmas – it is a fun variation!!!
SO glad that everybody is home safe and sound. Have been praying for travel safety for everyone! Bring it on Melissa, can’t wait!
Amanda,
So happy everyone is home safe! Thanks for sharing the pictures! The kids are adorable! My youngest has been best buds with the neighbor boy since they were babies as well. When they were really little, they said they were going to get married. They are devout Catholics and we are Protestants. The kids came up with their own solution: Emily would convert to Catholicism and Peter would,of course, take HER last name.( That’s saying something when her last name is DeKoekkoek!) That gave us moms quite a few laughs!
Our family likes to play card games, and Phase 10 is a family favorite. If we don’t have a lot of time we play the fast version where everyone advances every level, and whoever has the least amount of points at the end wins. Have a great week! We are in the middle of exams and the starting of Driver’s Ed. Love you all, Joan