Miles and Miles and Miles and Miles...

Okay, so my "Lovebugs" post elicited some comments about our travel. Well, actually, about the frequency of our travel. Can I just say that I am t-i-r-e-d of the travel?! These are the "Texas Trips" we have made in the last 10 months:

• November '07 to Singleton/Dallas/Singleton (1014 miles)
  
• December '07 to Abilene (1204 miles)
  
• January '07 to Singleton/San Antonio/Singleton (1052 miles)
  
• April '08 to Singleton/Glen Rose/Singleton (1008 miles) We got to skip February & March because I was HUGE pregnant and then because Joey was teeny tiny.
• May '08 to Singleton (704 miles)
  
• June '08 to Singleton/Glen Rose/Dallas/Glen Rose/Singleton (1142 miles)
  
• July '08 to Singleton/Glen Rose/Singleton (1008 miles)... then again straight to Glen Rose (944 miles)
  
• August '08 to Singleton/San Antonio/Singleton (1052 miles)
  
• As of now, Bret will be going to Abilene (1204 miles) in a couple of weeks, and we will all be going to Singleton/Benbrook/Singleton (1034 miles) in October.

That's a total of 11366 miles already traveled. Now that I've spent way too much time figuring all of this up, I'm not only feeling tired but...well...crazy?! (No, not all of those miles were on the good ol' trusty mini-van. We flew a couple of those times.)

I share all of this not to brag, not to complain, but to share my gratefulness. None of these trips were willy-nilly-for-the-fun-of-it-trips. Every single one of them has either been in relation to church planting or to join our families for significant moments (weddings, funeral, graduation).

I am also thankful that it does not look like we will be evacuating for Ike. I must admit that was very heavy on my mind as I drove back from the Gustav evacuation. What a lot of energy I wasted worrying about that! Hopefully the energy I am now spending worrying about our friends and family that are now in its path will be wasted, as well.

When we first moved here, we thought that visits back to Texas would be few and far between, that we would hardly ever see our families. We have gotten to see one or both of our families at least once a month for the past year. What a blessing that has been!

...and what a blessing it will be to see them perhaps even more often than that...and for those opportunities to not involve hundreds (wow, I guess I could actually say "thousands" there!) of miles, hundreds of dollars in gas, and 10+ hour road trips...