October Vacation

Randy and I just had the best week of vacation, and the girls did too! We are so thankful for a church who values staff families and allows wives to go on conferences with their husbands. Randy and some of the staff were planning to go to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta last Thursday and Friday, and I was able to go with him! Since we were already flying to Atlanta, we decided to add on a couple of extra days of vacation on the front end. We drove from Atlanta to Asheville, NC and were able to go to the Biltmore Estate. So this is what our week looked like:

Last Friday, we drove up to Ft. Worth. We stayed with my Dad Friday to Saturday and then went to my Mom's Saturday night. Randy preached at our old church, Bear Creek on Sunday morning, we left the girls with my Mom and David and drove back to Houston Sunday evening. On the way, we were able to stop in Livingston where our friends and former pastor, Brett and Joy live now. We had a great visit with them! We stayed near the airport Sunday night and caught our flight really early Monday morning to Atlanta. We drove to Asheville on Monday, went to the Biltmore on Tuesday, and then took our time driving back to Atlanta on Wednesday. The rest of our team flew in Wednesday night and then we went to the conference Thursday and Friday. Saturday we flew home. Meanwhile, the girls were with my Mom and David until Tuesday night and then moved to Randy's parents. They drove down to LJ on Friday and were there when we got home Saturday! 

Here are some pictures from Asheville. We loved our drive there and back from Atlanta - through the Great Smoky Mountains. The leaves are changing and everything was just beautiful. We slept late every day, ate wherever, and just enjoyed being together. It was great! The Biltmore was awesome. We totally recommend going if you are ever close to Asheville. So much cool history and we just loved touring the house and grounds. It was the home of George Vanderbilt and his wife and was built in like 1898. It has 240 rooms, 43 bathrooms, a bowling alley, indoor swimming pool, and like 50something fireplaces. It was just amazing. 

 The whole estate is about 8,000 acres. We were able to drive over a lot of it and everything was just beautiful.

 Loved actually getting to see leaves changing color!

We loved being at the conference in Atlanta, too with our staff. Great worship and awesome speakers like Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel, Christine Caine, Matt Chandler, Geoffrey Canada, and Jon Acuff. Michael W Smith was even there leading worship part of the time! It was just a great time of rest and refreshing.  

While we were doing that, here's what the girls were doing! We were able to facetime with them one night - funny pictures:

Cooper was a little sad when we left Mom's Sunday morning. She told Randy, "stay, Granny's house." Mom and Kendall distracted her by taking her to put on make up. 

When they finished she said "Show Mommy." Sweet girl!

On Monday they got to go to the Ft. Worth zoo! Papas met them for awhile and they had lots of stories to tell us from their trip to the zoo.

They loved telling us that they saw a baby giraffe and a mommy. Cooper kept saying "raff!!"

After the zoo, they got to have a picnic! So thankful they were able to enjoy the pretty weather and have a fun day with Granny and Papas!

While they were at Mom's, they also got to go see her class, go see my Grandma and Grandpa, eat at Chick fil A, and swim in the hot tub. They had so much fun!
Tuesday night they moved to Gigi and Peeps' house. They had a lot of fun there and got to spend lots of time with Gracie and Evy too! Gigi texted us that they were playing a new game. It was called:

The game was to have Kendall try new foods each day. Here is what they started with: :)

She ate that! The next day she said she wanted to try either a hamburger or spaghetti. So they went to McDonalds and got a hamburger. Not as successful as the ice cream. She did eat the bread!
While they were there, Cooper and Evy got to go to Build A Bear like Kendall and Gracie did when they were younger. Cooper was excited to pick out a bear and she picked one of the most colorful bears they had. :) She got a little scared of the loud machine that stuffed the bears, so she stayed close to Gigi.

Gracie and Evy helped her wash her bear,

and she picked out a cute pink outfit for it! She loves her baby and named it Tiny Baby.

Another new food: doughnut holes. Check out that face! Have you ever seen anyone more sad to try a doughnut hole?! She ate a few bites and said she didn't like it. At least she tried it!

All the cousins at McDonalds. This is when Cooper ate her food, as well as Kendall's hamburger and fries. Little one can eat!

Friday they drove down to Lake Jackson, and even brought Molly with them for us! They had quite the adventure and were glad to finally get to our house!

I mentioned earlier how thankful we are for our church, but we are even more thankful for our wonderful family that allows us to have time away and takes such good care of our girls. My friend Amy and I were talking today about how thankful we are that we actually feel like we are doing our parents a favor when we ask them to keep the girls! We were away for six whole nights and never once worried about the girls. Thank yall so much for taking such good care of them and for allowing us that time away! They already are ready to come back! Love yall!!