I have to apologize for confusing anyone as to where we are currently since I am about a month behind on posting our travels:( !!! Sorry about that! Since the end of April we have been in Raleigh, Charlotte and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Then, we traveled to Virginia, West Virginia, and back to Virginia again. Just last weekend we stored the RV and took our mini-van on a road trip to Nashville, TN for the Show Hope 10th Anniversary Celebration weekend. We came back to Virginia and soon we will be heading to Delaware. After writing that out, it makes me realize why I am so exhausted this week! It has been wonderful to see friends and all kinds of historic and fun places, but we realized after this month, that we need to find a travel route with more down time. That is a big reason why we are on the road full-time in our RV. We love doing ministry on the road together, seeing and exploring America, but we also want to have time to just relax, go fishing, hiking, build a campfire or play a board game together. Hopefully we will have more time for that this month!
So- back to the end of April...we stayed in Raleigh, North Carolina where we held a parenting seminar at Emmanuel Baptist Church. Below are some pictures from the seminar. During the seminars, I actually do participate with Alan through a few skits. (I get to play the role of the teenage daughter in two scenes.)
Here I am being all dramatic...(OK- I know my family will recognize this. Yes- I may have thrown a few fits as a teenager...ha ha!)
The church also had a great program for the children during the seminar that Saturday. The boys made some new friends and had a blast! The leaders taught Bible story lessons, helped the kids make crafts & Mother's Day gifts, and played games outside together. If you live in Raleigh or you will be moving there and you are looking for a church home, we highly recommend visiting this church!
We had the blessing of staying the whole week on the parking lot next to church in our RV. It was a very convenient location, and we had the chance to get to know many of the people at church. We had such a wonderful time during our stay here! The staff was incredibly generous to us, inviting us over for dinner and taking us to lunch after church on Sunday. Everyone was SO friendly and kind. Our boys LOVED the children's program on Wednesday night so much that they went back to attend AWANA on Sunday night as well. Thank you again to the people of EBC, for welcoming us with open arms!
During our time in Raleigh, we toured the capitol building that was built in 1840 and learned some history about the state of North Carolina. In the front of the building is this statue which shows three U.S. presidents that came from North Carolina - James Polk, Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson.
Every capitol building that we have toured so far has had the famous dome inside...
This capitol building housed all of the North Carolina state government until the 1880s. The building is still occupied by the governor, lieutenant governor, and their immediate staff. In the past 10-20 years, the Capitol was restored to its 1840-1865 appearance. The stonework, ornamental plaster, ironwork, legislative desks and many of the marble mantels are originals!
It was a great visit, but after all that walking around, the boys got just a little tired:)
This is a statue of George Washington inside the capitol. We have never seen one of him like this before! It was designed by the Italian artist Antonio Canova in 1820. Canova had never met George Washington and so he based his sculpture from a marble bust of Washington done by another Italian artist. Interesting!
While we were in Raleigh, we also had the chance to meet up with some friends from St. Louis!!! They were in town visiting family and they drove out over an hour to meet up with us for dinner! Tom and Sally are dear friends who have blessed our family so much! They are great mentors, friends and they have taken care of our boys many times. We have all missed them very much, so it was so wonderful to see them! (Thanks Tom and Sally - and your sisters too- for driving to see us while you were in North Carolina!!!!)
We had to get a silly picture too of course!!!
During our week stay here, I was thrilled to find this really cool playground not too far from the church for the boys one afternoon!
The boys had a great time making new friends here. They had a blast playing tag, having contests jumping off the swings, and playing hide and seek.
And then it was time for another silly picture...
We really enjoyed our stay in Raleigh, North Carolina! It was a great week of ministry, visits with friends, making new friends, and exploring the area. We hope to come back again to visit someday!
Blessings to you and yours,
Jill and the boys:)
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