Road Trip

Recently, we took a road trip from Charlotte, NC to Wheaton, IL to attend a Josiah Venture training for MITs (missionary in training). That's right--27 hours in the car with a 10 month old.

Actually, it went really well thanks to Sid the Science Kid (a PBS show that we bought on DVD). Yep, I let our 10 month old watch movies in the car; I'll just go ahead and add that to my I Will Never list.

In fact, I was pretty amused as our road trip began. Each of the Stephens' family members had their own headphones. Brian is listening to an audio book, Cece is watching a Veggie Tales, and I'm listening to a Podcast. Are we cool or what?

Our first stop was Florence, Indiana. LONG STORY. However, the gist of it is that Brian's brothers, brothers-in-law, and Father WERE going to go to the Kentucky Derby, but changed their plans (no problem, right? Well, Brian forgot to cancel the hotels for that tentative trip. We did have to pay SOME money, but don't you worry because we ended up with four vouchers for four hotel rooms at the Belterra Casino! And, we used them all!!) Luke and Anna live a few hours from there; Rollie and Cait took a slight detour on their way home from Nashville.

From there, we headed to Fort Wayne, Indiana were we lived for the first six months of our marriage. We saw dear friends there, and we drove past our first house.

After that, we headed to Wheaton, IL where the Josiah Venture North American Headquarters is. We stayed with some dear friends there as well, but I forgot to take a picture. We trained alongside four other couples, all of whom are headed (or currently living) to Eastern Europe. We are just soooo very excited to serve with them soon. Two couples are headed to Poland, and Brian and I are really excited about that (I offered to trade countries, but . . .). Look at all those Macs--what a beautiful picture!

We also had time with Nate and Emily who already live and serve in Czech. We are going to live thirty minutes away from them, and we are thrilled. Some of the highlights of their friendship include: Emily knows how to do hair, and said that she would love nothing more that to have at Cece's (I almost cried I was so excited--like she can braid!!!!); Nate and Brian like the same movies; Emily likes to shop (Brian and Nate are scared); Nate showed me this super sweet way to organize my iTunes music. Seriously, we love them already!!

So, that is a glimpse into our week. Believe it or not, that was the short version!