Around the World, or So it Felt

Can you believe the total milage from the trip was over 2700 miles in less than 2 weeks?? That's right! Every inch of every foot of every mile of the trip was driven and almost every one of those inches was enjoyable! Shocking, right?!? It was such a wonderful trip: visiting family, watching Little Bear grow into more of a young man with every day of travel (that is until the last day when he reverted back to a one year old who wanted nothing more than to get OUT of the car seat!), being reunited with Daddy Bear after 4 1/2 weeks apart, traveling to see friends, more family, and finally returning home with the whole family intact. From OK to KS to IA; back to KS, then AR to AL to FL; from FL to MS to AR and then HOME!!!

The time without Daddy Bear was not fun, but it was definitely fruitful. We pray that we will not face any more months apart, and especially not any more deployments, but we are open to God's will and know that His divine providence will always be fruitful if we keep our eyes fixed on Him. Let us strive to do that everyday for the rest of our Crazy Braun lives!!!!

Cloudy, Oily Beaches--But GREAT times!

Thursday afternoon, we made it to Florida where good friends, food, and fellowship awaited us! That first night, we enjoyed homemade hummus and veggies, German Riesling, and a delicious salmon dinner. Mmmmmmm!

The next day we ventured over to the Naval Air Museum. For some this might have been a bore, but Little Bear being the aircraft fanatic that he is had a grand time looking at planes, jets, helicopters, ships, and more. This was the perfect entertainment for this young man, not to mention his father and "Uncle J."

After a nap for some and a run along the oily beach (on the sidewalk of course) for others, we headed to a local fish market for some Gelato...sound odd? It was. If I breathed too deeply, the chocolate flavor started to taste a bit like halibut, but if I simply inhaled through the mouth in between bites it tasted divine! Mmmmmmm!

After we'd had our fill, back to the house we went. Our hostess had prepared herb crusted pizza dough while I sliced up tomato, mozzerella and basil for a grilled pizza dinner. Once again, Mmmmmm!

As you can probably imagine, we left a few pounds heavier, but we had such a terrific time visiting our dear friends.

Since the beaches were closed, we ended Friday night with some musical post-dinner entertainment. Little Bear was only slightly amused.

Reunited!!

We made it to Montgomery in one piece and hit very little rain getting there! What a blessing considering the forecast!

I can't remember the last time I heard Little Bear laugh so much as when he and Daddy Bear were playing Wednesday night.

Thursday morning we got up BRIGHT and early for Daddy Bear's graduation.

Then we hit the town for errands, lunch, and the mall. We thought we might be able to find an indoor play area at the mall for Little Bear to wear himself out a bit before the drive to Pensacola, but all they had was a carousel. So LB had his first carousel ride and then we headed south.

All of my blogs from the trip will be in past tense from this point forward as things got too busy and we were having too much fun with Daddy Bear for me to go sit at the computer and blog. So here I am back home, giving you a little taste of the rest of our trip.