Back Home

I didn't post this before our trip, because I don't like advertising to the internet that I'm not going to be at home, but the girls and I just got back Monday night from a 10-day trip to Ft. Knox to visit hubby over the Thanksgiving Holiday.

We drove up on Friday, 20 Nov - it was my first real distance trip with the girls. I was a bit concerned that they'd be able to hang on for the 7 hours it took us to get there, but they did just great. Once we were about an hour or so outside of our area of the country - everything was new and exciting.

We made our first stop at Casey Jones Village, around Jackson, TN. This is the home of Casey Jones, it has a train museum and a quaint little general store. When you walk inside the doors of the little general store, there are about a dozen huge oak barrels full of candy. Yes, lots of ooohs and aaahs from that one! Decorations and knick-knacks are everywhere - recipe books, Christmas ornaments, homemade fudge, a real soda fountain - more than the eyes can take in. So I spent about 45 minutes or so letting the girls relish in all the goodies and pick some souvenirs!

Then we were back on the road; next stop was at my best friend's home outside of Nashville. We've been friends for about 18 years now - she had offered for us to stop by for a lunch break. The girls had never been to her home - more oohs and aaah as she had it all cutely decorated in the kitchen area for Thanksgiving. She'd picked up nice sub sandwiches for us and had even picked up a little cake so we could celebrate my birthday (which was the previous day). We took about an hour break here and the girls had a fabulous time, especially seeing her two little Yorkies!

From Nashville it was about a 2.5 hour drive to hubby's home on post at Ft. Knox. He was standing outside on a little grassy area to show us the final turn to his house - the girls were so excited by this time!

I felt like I spent about 2 days before the trip packing just about my entire house to head up there - I knew I'd be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for all of us plus several other soldiers who were not able to get home for Thanksgiving - plus packing all the clothing and essentials for the 4 of us and a few things hubby needed me to bring up for him - but it certainly didn't take long to get it all unloaded that night! Wonder why it is it takes sooo long to pack, but just a blink to unpack? Kind of like Christmas day - takes just a flash to get those presents unwrapped!

Anyway, we got the truck unloaded that night, went out to dinner, and then to the store to let the girls each pick up a few things to make their "rooms" seem like their own.

Hubby is assigned to a 2-story duplex for his housing on post - it has 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, living room/dining room combo and kitchen. One of the bedrooms is furnished, the other 2 are not. He had purchased an air mattress for each of the older girls to use and they got to have their "own" room while they were there. They each picked out some neat "clings" to decorate their walls, a lamp, a clock and a little set of plastic drawers to keep their personal things in. My youngest daughter slept on a smaller air mattress in our master bedroom.

The trip ended up being somewhat of a mini-vacation for us, as hubby ended up having some time off over Thanksgiving and we were able to take some little excursions. We went to the Mammoth Caves area and explored 2 caves; we went to the 3-story Bass Pro store just across the border into Indiana; we went to the Creation Museum just outside Cincinnati; we had a very blessed Thanksgiving dinner; we did some Christmas shopping; we went to the Patton Museum; we went bowling; decorated hubby's house for Christmas - it was a good time.

I'll be posting more on each of these activities, complete with photos, throughout this week - but now we have to catch up on some school-work, get unpacked, catch-up on laundry and get our own Christmas decorating done! More soon!