Great News for Tim and Carrie! August 3, 2007

On Friday, we drove from Redding to Portland. Definitely the longer of the drives we have taken. Sometimes, we would get in a good rhythm and drive for a long time without potty or stretch breaks and other times, it felt like we stopped off at every exit. It was long and when we came into Portland, we hit 5:00 p.m. rush hour traffic. On the way up, we stopped at an enormous truck stop that had a lot of colorful people. Of course all the boys had to use the bathroom, so I took them in. There was a guy in his 30's who had a lot of tattoos on his arms. I saw Noah glance his direction and knew what was going to happen. Noah said, "Hey Jonah, look at all those pictures on his arm," as he is right next to him. All the boys ran over and started asking him questions about his tattoos. He had a Statue of Liberty and a motorcycle. At least there weren't any naked ladies or bad words. Noah asked to touch them and the guy thought this was great. This made the kids day. That is all they talked about for the next hour in the car. Noah now wants to get a tattoo and Jonah said he wants to become a tattoo artist. Wow, I am glad that the driving trip has opened up the children's mind for future employment.

We finally made it to our good friend, Tim's house. We had stayed with him on the way down. When we arrived, his new fiance, Carrie, was also there. We had talked to him the day before and he had told us the good news, but the kids didn't know. We thought we were all sneaky, not mentioning anything in front of the kids. When we arrived, we were standing in the doorway and the Jacob walked by and said, "So Tim and Carrie, you heading off to viva Las Vegas to get married?" Rebecca and I looked at each other and said, "Jacob, how did you know that?" He replied, "I heard you and mom talking about the whole thing in the car." We all busted out laughing. Rebecca and I think we are so sneaky having our conversations up in front of the car, but really, Jacob hears all. Then Jonah came in five minutes later and said, "so I hear that you guys are getting married and heading off to Vegas." So much for keeping it from the kids for awhile. It just goes to show you that kids pick up on way more than we give them credit for. Anyway, we are very excited for Tim and Carrie. We all ordered pizza that night and had dinner. The kids went to bed early that night and went right to sleep. The adults were able to stay up and talk and have a good time catching up. It was a nice end to the day. It is always very comfortable for us to crash at Tim's place. It was a great last stop before coming home.

RnR