We're back....

2 weeks home and we are still trying to get warm. You don't really appreciate the beautiful sun and warm days until get back from a three month vacation in 70 degree weather and get thrown into 20 degrees of freezing cold! Not to worry though there should be a light at the end of this freezing tunnel soon .. we hope:) This past weekend Owen and I went to Cleveland for the weekend with no kids. It was for our 11 year anniversary. My parents decided to watch the kids... wait, actually they decided to watch ALL the kids.. all 8 of them! Yes, they had a "cousins night".. I tried to talk them out of it knowing that they had no idea what they just got themselves into... 8 kids under the age of 6 all staying the night at grandma and grandpa's house! But they insisted they knew what they were doing and could handle it.

The kids all had fun playing with dress up clothes and grandma's shoes.

The next day Owen and I picked the kids up and were very happy to see my parents were alive, a little worn out but well. Of course Sage was the child who would not go to sleep . In her defense ,she did get to spend the night with all her cousins, she got to spend the night at grandma's house, she got to have juice and goodies that mommy does not have in the house....I mean with all that excitement who would want to go to sleep. I think around midnight she came down to lay with dad on the couch (i think he thought she would fall asleep easier..hahah hahaha little did he know).When mom came to check on them dad was out snoring away and Sage's eyes were wide awake..Fooled him:) But besides a few little bumps all in all it went fine.
Owen and I had a great time out. Three months in a 500 square foot condo and a small mini van with three toddlers can be lot for anyone to handle. So it was a very relaxing and QUIET weekend away. Thanks mom and Dad for giving us a kid less night:)

Yesterday we went to visit the other cousins. The kids were so excited ! They love their cousins. Isaac had called Owen to come over to play him in chess. So we packed the kids up and headed over to visit Owen's sister and the family.

Jimmie and Kaden
Dreama
The future musician in the family
Isaac

Abby

signing off

We will not have interent service till Monday.. ahhh the joys of coming back home from a three month vacation..... so I may not be back on till then. Our next destination will be Warren OH....Arrival time is around 6:00pm on Friday night.....Back to REALITY:(

To sum it up....

After leaving Alabama we then headed to Nashville TN. St.Louis was a little out of our way so we decided it would be best on our sanity to start heading toward Ohio instead. I have never been through Nashville before and was excited to see the city. It was around 11:00pm when we stopped just outside of Nashville and walked into a Days Inn.... . I had commented how nice the room looked compared to some of the rooms we had stayed in so far(little did I know). It was around midnight and the kids had finally fallen asleep and I was watching a movie on my laptop while Owen was playing cards on his computer. When all of a sudden I felt something crawl across my leg. Owen was in the other bed with one of the kids so he didn't know what I was screaming about. I jumped up and turned on the light and looked down at the bed .. To my absolute HORROR there were hundreds of little bugs crawling all over the bed!!! Brown bed bugs and little white ones that bite and suck blood(we later googled it)... I was furious and sooooo grossed out. I had to go in the car to the office since were were a building down. The desk clerk of course apologized and gave me another key to a room a couple doors down from ours. Owen and I both went in and checked it out while the kids were still asleep .... We pulled back the covers and there were blood drops and dirt smeared all over the sheets... It had looked like someone had there shoes on and jumped all over the beds. So now my blood pressure is rising a bit more...I just could not believe these rooms. I get back in my car drive to the office of course the lady at the desk was as surprised as we were and apologized once again. Being the nice person I am ..I began explain how crazy it is that we have to get a third room and that I have three toddlers sleeping and I am going to have to wake them all up and start the whole process of getting them back to sleep again...Trying to get it through to her how frustrating this is..I am not sure what I thought she could do for me, she was only the night desk clerk... If only she could feel the pain and disgust I was going through!.. I mean I had hundreds of little bugs all over me!!! It took 2 hours for the kids to fall asleep and I am tired! Didn't she get it!! So she nicely gave me another key to a room a couple doors down again. We went into the room looked at the beds ... seemed ok ... slowly and quietly moved the kids over... dragged our luggage over... Pulled down our bed covers and would you believe it!! BUGS EVERYWHERE!!! That was the last straw we woke the kids up ...buckled them in the car and headed across the street to a nicer hotel .. Everything was so clean and no bugs anywhere... I do have to say I did leave my mark at that Days Inn...... I think I was so flustered and grossed out that I was not paying attention to where I was backing out after leaving the office the second time and I hit the huge cement pillar holding the awning up over the front door .... cracked that dang pillar all the way up...oops .... it just scuffed our bumper up a little but left a 6 foot crack and dent in their pillar.....I must say even after a very looong shower and scrubbing it took me a very long time to go to sleep ...


The next morning we made it into Nashville and to Owens dismay(only because he wanted to get on the road again) we made a stop at the Grand Ole Opry House and walked around for a bit. We were not able to go inside to see the grand stage where some amazing singers have graced there presence but we did go in the gift shop and walk around.









After Nashville we were on our way to Hendersonville, North Carolina. This was the first time I have driven through the Smokey Mountains. It was beautiful. It was a little overcast but around 70 degrees. Owen had met a pastor, Curt Crist who has some great Bible teachings online and who has a church in North Carolina. Owen has had a few phone calls with him but this would be the first time meeting him and his wife in person. We both had a great time talking and hanging out together. They are so full of passion and excitement for God. They have around 400 people a month that receive the Sunday message on CD through the mail and around 50 -75 church members. They also travel and speak at several Grace Bible conferences. We were actually going to just spend the day with them and get back on the road but they insisted we stay till Sunday in a house that they owned but no longer lived in ,which was right up in the Smokey Mountains. It was so beautiful up there!. So we decided to stay but only for the one night since they did not have Internet and Owen needed to get online to do some work soon.


Heading into the Smokey Mountains.

Packing up and heading to OHIO!

Another pastor from California had given Pastor Curt this RV to use for the ministry. They use it to house guest that come through and to travel in when the speak at different conferences. If you look closely on the right side of the picture you can see Owen little head sticking out as he is reveling in his dream house one last time before we take off. To say the least Owen was in heaven when Curt said he could go in and look around....hummm .. maybe someday Owen:)



So 11 days on the road and our next stop will be Warren, Ohio!.. Brrrrrr. Just thinking about it gives me hypothermia...... but it will be great to see family and friends again!

Marketing the Mystery

5 sermons and three days later ....... Owen finished up his last sermon Sunday night at Grace Bible Church. It was such an amazing time. We had around 25-30 people at the services. The title of the sermons for the weekend was Marketing the Mystery. Friday night was about what our gospel( or good news) is and how we share this gospel with people today. Saturday night was an introduction to understanding your Bible. The Sunday school message was about Jesus and the Kingdom and Sunday morning service was a part 2 of understanding your Bible. Then there was also a Sunday night service were Owen went through practical tips and ideas to help share the Gospel with unbelievers . It was a very busy but exciting weekend. Grace Bible Church has always been so nice and welcoming when Owen and I are here. The kids schedule this weekend has been so crazy but they have adjusted so well . I think the average bed time for the kids has been around 11:00pm .. Which is normally unheard of in the Gaines home:) I think because I can close the curtain to the hotel room to make if very dark in the room that they have been taking 2 hour naps each day. Which has helped a ton. Kaden and the pastor's son Titus played so well together. I thought it was so funny Saturday when Titus came up to Kaden at church with a look of awe and said" Wow !Your hair looks really cool!" Then his face immediately dropped and he rubbed his head and said" I'm bald"...hahahahah...... I think Kaden will be floating on cloud nine for weeks now with that comment.. He worked so hard to get the perfect "Hawk". ... Anyone who can appreciate the "Hawk" is a friend for life! I think Kaden's face was stuck in a silly grin rest of the night. He defiantly made a new best friend here in Alabama. The sermons from the weekend will be posted on http://www.gbcfairhope.org/ soon. For most people these sermons may stretch a lot of beliefs or ideas you have but I encourage you to study and look up the passages.
2 Timothy 2:15 is about rightly dividing the word of truth. It is important for us to separate what is for us and what is actually written to us as believers. God has commanded us to study and be diligent in studying his Word. So the sermons are at the web site if anyone is interested. I will also be posting more pictures of the weekend when I get them from a friend .

We thought the sign was so funny... The church was so excited for Owen to come back and speak this weekend . They had printed up a ton of flyer's and bulletins and passed them out in town. They had also spread the word through facebook and several friends too. The other side of the sign said Marketing the Mystery but then side just said " Don't miss Owen"

...hahaahaha.... Owen ? Owen who? don't miss him? hummmm ..must be someone important? .. I better go check it out!.... (we just got a good laugh out of it:)


Titus and Kaden with his silly face...

Best buds!

Here we are leaving the church and headed back to the hotel room to start packing our things back up... On the road again..... St. Louis or Hendersonville, North Carolina? Not sure yet but will flip a coin tomorrow morning.......LOL...that's just how we roll....

The new hairdo

We arrived in Fairhope AL Wednesday night. It is actually a nice size room compared to what we have been staying in lately. The kids have been great playing together in the room with their toys ... Last night we got together with some of our friends from the church at a restaurant then headed over to the pastor's house for some ice cream. They have a little boy Kaden's age , Titus , that they adopted from Haiti . Kaden and Titus were so cute playing together they had so much fun . Kaden later asked us if we could move by Titus so they could play basketball together...

Kaden has been in this new stage of styling his hair. I know ,sounds crazy .. I thought only girls go through this but apparently Kaden does too. I think he must of saw something on TV about it. We were in this restaurant a couple of weeks ago and there was a group of boys in the booth behind us that were around 10 years old. Kaden came over to me and whispered very seriously " See that boy over there I want my hair like his" I had to do everything in my power not to crack up laughing .. because he was so serious I didn't want to hurt his feelings. The boy had his hair grown out to his ears and it was real spiky .. almost surfer/skater style...

1. it was so funny that he observed the hairstyle.
2. it was so funny that he was so determined to have that "same hair"...

So since that he has been styling his hair in a spike style as best as he can. Since his hair is not that long yet he informs me that it looks great right now but it will be better when it gets longer .. I am not sure how long this phase will last but right now Owen and I are getting a good laugh out of watching him fix his hair and of course his brothers too since Torin also has decided to have ..as Torin says " his hair stick up". While all this crazy hair styling is going on Sage is in the corner laughing her head off telling the boys there hair looks funny and is sticking up .. I don't think she understands that that is Kaden's goal... even through all of Kaden's explanations of why it is sticking up...Kaden looks at me and says" she doesn't get it" ...

This is the "spike" style....

This is the " Hawk " style...which he explains to me, is like a windshield .. it stops the wind from blowing back and forth on his head.

On the Road Again...

Monday we went to Tampa Fl to visit a couple of friends we met on an online Bible study group. We met at a pizza place since we had the kids with us . It was a great time and very fun to hang out and meet each other in person. Since we didn't meet till 6pm that evening , Owen and I took the kids to Dinosaur World. for the day. It was a big park with recreated life size dinosaurs placed through out the park. They had some very unique stuff for the kids to do. They were able to dig for real fossils and they also were able to play in a giant sand box with a dinosaur skeleton underneath that they could uncover. Of course the kids were ecstatic over the life size dinosaurs . It was so fun listening to them have discussions about what each one did and what they like to eat ..even Torin gave his two sense when Kaden and Sage would let him get a word in...

There was a very unique sandbox that the kids were able to play in. They had a whole dinosaur skeleton under the sand and the kids could dig and shovel the sand away to discover the bones.

They also had a fossil dig for 10 minutes for the kids . The were able to keep three items they had found. Kaden found three shark teeth that he wanted to keep. Sage and Torin found shark teeth and some fossils of snails and small shells.







We all had a great time walking around the park but after the park we were soon back on the road headed towards Fairhope Alabama.....

Day 1: Tampa FL

Day 2: Some where between Tampa and Tallahassee FL

Day 3: Fairhope AL