Day 2

I did want to mention that we are driving through 6 states on our trip: Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Arkansas was yesterday's trip and it just seems like there is NOTHING in Arkansas. It is a very pretty state but when you spend 5 hours driving diagonally across the state and hit less than 5 major cities it is pretty boring. Pretty, but boring.

Isaac woke up this morning limping. At first we thought it was an ant bite on his foot but as the day wore on he could not walk on his leg without crying. We have pretty much narrowed it down to his fall from the bed but we are not sure where exactly the pain is coming from. There is no bruising, swelling, or redness anywhere. We have felt all along his leg and feet but he does not cry out at a specific place. We are perplexed! As the day wore on I noticed that he was probably running fever as well. His cousins had some fever virus last Friday and they played together all morning. We discovered right as Ewan was going to bed that he has a fever as well. Thankfully it is only fever but you all know how fever makes you feel. We were praying that they wouldn't get sick on this trip.

Anyway, here are the high points of our trip today:

1. Leaving Arkansas
2. Entering Memphis, Tennessee--what a beautiful city! We couldn't resist stopping at a few places on our way through.


We went to Graceland and spent $36 in 36 minutes. We paid for parking, took some pictures, bought an Elvis CD, and saw the actual house from the road. We would have had to pay $25/person and wait forever to get to the house. We didn't have time to do that nor did we want to pay that much.








Next stop: National Civil Rights Museum. We saw the hotel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. We got some cool pics and went into the museum part just to see the lobby. There is an amazing sculpture in the entry way and the whole feeling of the museum is powerful. I felt a powerful wave of emotion just standing there. We both want to go back to the museum and see the whole thing. If just standing in the entry was powerful, I can't imagine being able to see the whole thing. It was really fun to tell Ewan, in kid terms, about MLK about what he means to us and how he is one of our heroes.













Final stop: Sun Studios--where Johnny Cash got his start and recorded his first record. Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbisson, Johnny Cash...all those guys got started there. They were playing Johnny Cash as we walked in and Isaac said, "that's Johnny Cash." The workers got a kick that a 2 year old would know that. We didn't have time to go on the tour but we did get to poke around a little, get some pics, and got a t-shirt. We all had fun together at Sun Studios. Johnny Cash is part of our family culture and it was fun to go and celebrate that part of history together.












3. Seeing Tennessee, Beale street, and the Mississippi river.

4. Air conditioning in the car.

5. The boys napping for an hour!

6. Magnetic "fishing" puzzles by Melissa and Doug. My mom put together fun packages for the boys and we pulled out some new books and these puzzles today. They LOVED the magnetic puzzles and played with them several times throughout the day. Go Mom!!

7. Driving along the river near downtown Louisville to find dinner. Apparently we are staying close to the river next to a very posh area. I suggested that we find the hotel and then find a place for dinner nearby. Little did I know that as we drove down the road we would be passing country club after club and mansion after mansion. We were beginning to think that even if we DID find a place to eat it would cost an arm and a leg but finally we found a local joint and ordered food there. It was quite the beautiful drive though. Who knew that Louisville was so pretty?

8. Getting to the hotel.

9. Two boys who are real troopers.

Low Points

1. Isaac's limp required him to be carried everywhere today.

2. Both boys running fever at the end of the day.

3. Totally tired and sick boys=whining, complaining, and just not feeling good.

4. Sitting in the passenger seat with the sun beating down on me for about 3 hours. Thank God for air conditioning!

5. Having to leave our fun dinner find right on the river because we realized both boys were way too tired and not feeling well to be civilized. It was such a beautiful day to sit outside and enjoy the end of the day. We got our food to go.

6. Still feeling emotionally constipated.

7. I forgot to mention this in the last post. As we were about to head out on the road we got a call from the truck company telling us that our truck would arrive in PA over the weekend and would not get dropped off at our house until Monday. We were hoping it would get there on Friday which is why we decided to arrive by Thursday. That means once we get to PA tomorrow we will be on air mattresses for 4 nights. We knew that could possibly happen but were hoping for the best. We will have quite the adventure living in an empty house! It will give us time to paint the boys rooms though before the furniture arrives.

8. The time zone change means the boys didn't get to bed until almost 9:30 again (WAY past their normal bedtime). I am ready for normal life to start again!!!!

I think that summarizes our day--I gotta get to bed. Please keep praying for us. Overall, everyone is doing well and having fun together. We need those boys to get better quickly. Tomorrow is just 6 more hours of driving. We aren't making any fun stops so we can get to PA early enough in the afternoon to run all our errands.

Blessings to you and good night!