Home Sweet Home

We arrived home at about 9:00 last night and were very happy to sleep in our own beds after more than 3 weeks away. Actually, the kids slept downstairs because it was Friday night. (They can sleep wherever they want on Friday nights. We didn't watch a movie though.)

It's funny to think that we had prepared all those movies for the kids to watch in the van and they only watched one! I'm glad we all enjoyed our audio dramas so much and didn't "need" to resort to the videos. Our gps had figured we'd drive 102 hours and we actually drove 131 hours. Mexico was much slower than we expected with all the toll booths, speed bumps, etc.

We are SO happy with our van! We didn't have one problem. We love Toyota! It's funny that when we had our oil changed in Wyoming, the guy listed our odometer in miles rather than kilometers. He must have thought we were crazy driving to Mexico with so many miles! I suppose some people think we're crazy for driving with this many kilometers, but we had a Toyota guy totally check out our van before we left, got new brakes, new shocks, all that necessary stuff, and we're very thankful to have had no troubles. After we crossed the border last night, Curtis & I both recalled our last big road trip (to Disneyland a few years ago) where we limped across the border and barely made it to our mechanic the next day! (What a great mechanic, by the way. How many people have a mechanic who prays for you and your vehicle on your trip!) We ended up scrapping that van (Mazda MPV) in exchange for a year's worth of bus passes for Curtis. What a difference in this Toyota Previa. Curtis really did his research before buying it and it was a bit hard to find because people want to hang on to them. We didn't see any vans like ours in Mexico and had someone offer to buy it! They'd probably have trouble finding parts though, not to mention the fact that then we'd be stranded!

Well, I'd better put the clothes into the dryer and get another load going. Tomorrow we're off to Creation Camp in Falkland. We'll enjoy being in one place for almost a week, and are sure to be inspired and edified by the great teaching. Have yourselves a great last week of August!