America Trip 2017

Y'all - trying to catch up on the blog. Challenging. I took a break for the month of July (besides the girl's two year birthday post) and while it was nice to relax, I am wishing I had been a bit more on top of keeping up. I've mentioned before, but I print this blog yearly as our album so I want to make sure and capture the amazing summer we experienced.

Therefore, I've included links below to the posts from this summer as a way to help me organize and include everything.

Our adventure began on Saturday when my friend Tricia and I flew the girls to New York directly from Baku. That was a 12.5 hour flight - the longest the girls have experienced. There were some drink spills, disobedience, on-and-off sleeping, but we survived it and the trek over to our hotel for the evening. (And PS - who the heck volunteers to help you fly with three under four?! She's crazy. And amazing.)

We had to change airports and wait the following day for our flight to Houston when I'd have help from our dear friends the Meehs. The girls were up bright and early (okay it wasn't actually bright since it was like 3 am, but definitely early!) and after a morning nap, anxious to get out of the hotel. I discovered there was a small zoo not far from the hotel and so we ventured out for a couple hours to get some much-needed fresh air and stretch our legs.

We spent a little over one week in Houston seeing friends, going to various doctor and dental appointments, and Madi got to have her first Vacation Bible School experience at CEPC.

• See Houston

Then we headed to Oklahoma for a couple of weeks, followed by Colorado for about a week. We got to see two sets of grandparents in Oklahoma since my Dad and Mary flew in to see us along with seeing my mom and Jeff. The drive wasn't pleasant and the change in altitude was felt most by Olivia and her ears hurting, but we arrived safely. There was a great stop with a Qdoba, Starbucks, and playground en route. Everything you ever needed. ;-) Oh and beautiful clouds.

This is not normal playground behavior. :-/

• See Oklahoma City Part 1
• See Oklahoma City Part 2
• See Oklahoma City Zoo
• See Colorado

After our wonderful time in Colorado we headed on the l-o-n-g drive back to League City. We stopped about two-thirds of the way in Wichita Falls to help break-up the drive. The girls had a blast with sleepovers with their cousins and lots of laughter.

Delicious homemade beef jerky. 😋

During our last week in League City, we had a couple more doctor appointments and massive shopping/packing. We also were blessed to see all of our families one more time as they all traveled out to Houston for Evelyn and Olivia's baptism at CEPC! We left early Friday morning before Hurricane Harvey hit and feel blessed to have made it out before the storm hit.

• See League City

We flew to New York again and had one night's stay before making the long flight back to Baku. We had so much luggage we had to rent a 15-passenger van to transfer from one airport to a hotel at the other airport. 😳

We had some sleeping on the flight and this brilliant (if I do say so) Pinterest idea to turn a small craft organizer into a snack box. The girls loved having their own personal snacks and seeing what was in each compartment.

And then - jet lag. Y'all. There are few things worse than toddler jet lag. Thankfully the girls got over it pretty quickly, but we did have a couple middle of the night parties. Including this one - BYOB. Bring your own banana. 😂

Our six weeks in the United States was busy, but plentiful. We felt so blessed by all the family and friends that opened up their homes to us and prioritized spending time with us while we were available. We love you all and miss you so much!! Until next trip! ❤️