Trip to Florida

Sorry for my blogging absence. I was hoping to have a few posts finished that I could schedule to post while I was gone, but the week leading up to my trip to Florida was pretty busy. I am trying to be a little more cautious regarding posting information about times when we will be gone. That may be silly or unnecessary, but it doesn't seem wise to me to announce to the world that I will be gone for a week, considering this blog is not anonymous. Anyway, I spent last week in Florida!!! It was a wonderful trip and I had such a great time. I went down to Eglin AFB which is located on the panhandle of Florida near Destin, an area I affectionately call "southern Alabama" because in truth it is more like Alabama than Florida. This is where we lived prior to moving to DC and we still have many friends in the area. In many ways, being there felt like going home. I love the warmth of the people there.

On my first night there, we had dinner at the Back Porch so we could watch the sunset.

I will never get sick of the beautiful white sandy beaches in Destin or the sunsets.

On Sunday, we got to attend our previous church and then have lunch afterward with some friends from our old small group.

At lunch, we received our first gift for Joshua! This beautiful quilt, done in a pattern called "Take Five" was made by our friends:

Later that evening we got to have dinner at their house and hear all about Tim's trip to the Congo.

On Monday, I got to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with Joia. She gave us this super cute outfit for Joshua. It says "Daddy's #1 Draft Pick." I love that it is the same style pullover that John likes to wear.

Later that evening, John and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary a few weeks early at Fleming's Steakhouse - so good!

 

The rest of the week involved dinners with friends, Wednesday night dinner at church, and attending the ladies Bible study I use to go to. 

At the ladies Bible study, they are doing a Beth Moore study on Psalms and the discussion ended up being on Psalm 127. I have previously written about my thoughts on that Psalm here and here. It was kind of a difficult discussion for me because Beth Moore makes the point that you can "mother" other children in your life even if you don't have children. Frankly, that whole idea just does not ring true to me and I find the words hollow and of no comfort whatsoever. The whole thing about being a spiritual mother is probably a whole post in itself, but how can anyone really compare the experience of parenting children and ACTUALLY being a mom to some vague notion of "mothering" other children (like in Sunday school class for example). Sorry, they don't even compare. There ended up being somebody who was dealing with secondary infertility in my discussion group and so I am glad I was there because I think it would have been even more difficult for her if there had not been someone else there who understood what she is experiencing.

The day after the discussion, I was actually feeling pretty down, so much so that I chickened out on going to see my friend Joia at the Cash in the Nursery sale. It just felt like it might be too much. I think I might need to get over my fear of the baby section at Target before taking on such an large scale event.

And last, but certainly not least, I got to meet Lisa of While I'm Waiting! We met at Beef 'O' Brady's and I think we must have talked for almost four hours. It was so wonderful to meet her and have a chance to get to know each other better. She has such a beautiful heart and such amazing faith in the Lord. I feel so blessed that through blogging, I would have a chance to come to know her as a friend. I was so excited to meet her though that I think I talked way too much : )

 

I was definitely sad to leave Florida again and say good-bye once again to our friends there. Good-byes are so hard. I was happy to say hello to our pup when I got back though - I missed her a lot!