Hello from Nashiville, Tennessee

Hi!

It has been so cloudy and foggy and raining these past several days, but we have enjoyed the scenery around us so much! We agreed that we could easily live in Arkansas, it was so beautiful. And again, we agreed we could easily live in Tennessee! The landscape is quite different from Colorado or any where else we've been so far - but it is breath taking. And people are really friendly wherever we go. Things are very laid back... not uptight at all... which is nice, but we've also noticed it in the state of our hotel rooms too! Oh well. I clean every place we stay anyway.

This is our third day in Tennessee. The last couple days we have been in a city only for the day, and we moved on early the next morning. We are really getting good at all the logistics of moving around so much:o)... though it's getting old now. But we are here, in Nashville through the weekend, and that is nice.

Our plans now are to move onto North Carolina, where on Tuesday Jadon and I will fly out to Portland, Oregon for Christmas. Elie and Bryce will follow us two days later, after Bryce completes a few more installs. We will spend a week or so celebrating Christmas with family before Bryce I will fly to Arizona for a week. My parents are keeping our kids - and we are looking forward to this break! :o)

After Arizona, we fly into Portland, pick up the kids and fly back to North Carolina, where we will resume the installing trek for a couple more weeks. As it appears today we will head back to Grand Rapids around the 21st of January. Of course - as has been the custom of this trip, that could change in a day:o)!

This is an especially fun part of our trip, as we love the south. We came out to Georgia on our second anniversary and traveled to South Carolina. We fell in love with this part of the country then, so being back out here and seeing more southern states has been a treat. It is also beginning to feel more like home... perhaps because we are within a days drive of home? It's a nice feeling, as we are all getting a bit homesick.

Also, we booked a suit when we booked this hotel as we were given a special rate on it. (I guess that's a perk when you stay in so many hotels of the same chain!) When we got here and went to check in, they had doubled booked our room. So instead of a suit we were given two joining rooms for less than we were paying for the suit! This is a fantastic mistake made in our behalf!! We have not enjoyed so much space for 39 days :o). Elie and Jadon each get a bed of their own. Something that upset Jadon quite a bit at first. Once he realized he got all the pillows on his bed and could spread out as much as he likes (he's still so small that he sleeps all over the place - much to Elie's discomfort), he loved it.

I think we are hitting our second wind when it comes to enduring the longevity of this trip. We are missing home so much, but finding it routine to move our small household from place to place day after day. We are finding so many little provisions too, and it's going to be good to be with family again soon for a time.

So Merry Christmas!