Since Tim and I are married... and especially since both of us rarely update our sites... we have combined/merged into one, brand new site...

http://www.xanga.com/kzoohaines

Come stop on by for a visit : )

Laura Haines

  A short update... finally!  Tim and I are currently in St. Louis (a view from our first night here)...

We arrived on December 27th after a short 7 hour drive.  Since then we have been very busy attending sessions, studying deeply into Ephesians, and meeting new people.  Here is a view from the main sessions we have in the morning and evening where we get to hear amazing speakers and sing with 22,500 people!...

It is truely amazing!  Well, I must get going to go to our evening session tonight.  This evening we will be hearing Rick Warren speak... it should be interesting!  Have a great day!

Yes, I was able to find wireless internet for free : )  I'm at my sisters house taking care of her kids while she is in the hospital.  You can be praying for her and the family.  She essentially has no amniotic fluid left for her baby.  The doctors say that she could deliever at anytime, but then again, she could keep baby in for quite a while longer.  Pray that she is able to have a late July delivery!  It is all up to God right now as to when it happens.

Now, on to part two of the saga of the trip Sarah and I took out west...
We arrived at the campground late in the evening on Sunday night.  Since we had no propane, and were a bit tired, we set up the tent then opted for quick sandwiches.  After looking at the stars a bit longer, we headed for bed.  In the morning, I woke up to find that someone had visited our site... someone small, with small feet, someone who enjoyed climbing all over our car!

Can you see the small footprints among the glare from the sky.  We had many of those footprints stay with us throughout the trip, mainly because we never took the time to wash our car.  That day we traveled through all of Missouri and part of Kansas.  These areas are rather flat!  Although the beginning part wasn't too bad, the trees disappeared and the grasslands began.

Yes, I actually took this picture, and many others while driving... it doesn't require much concentration when you have cruise control on and the road is straight!  Sarah also found ways to occupy herself during the many hours of straight road and flat landscape...

She was originally just playing with her computer, but then pulled mine out (notice the little bit you can see on the floor in the second picture) to see if she could network them together.  We nearly had it done... but must have missed one step because it never worked for us.

We traveled for quite a while, stopping very rarely for breaks.  Most of our stops were either at a state border to collect maps and other information pertaining to attractions and camping places or else at a random rest area for lunch.  But our lunches weren't the boring ol' sandwiches and chips.  Instead, we usually fixed something on the grill.  This lunch consisted of grilled pizza sandwiches, carrots, pringles and marshmallows (I think) for dessert.  Most of our lunches were of this variety. 

We cleaned up from the meal and continued our trek across the west.  Finally...

We're not in Kansas anymore... We reached Colorado... the first part of our trip was nearly done.  After a few hours of driving through the same type of dry, flat, rather uninteresting landscape, finally in the distance... can you see them?

Mountains!  We had nearly arrived in Colorado Springs where a friend of ours lives... the main reason for the roadtrip!

More later... I need to take care of the kids now.  Naps are done and they are anxious to play with us.  Have a great day!

We have returned from our travels... and what a trip it was!  Sorry, there are very few pictures yet to show you, mainly because uploading many pictures on a dial-up connection would take much longer than I care to take right now.  Instead, I shall visit a Panera (or some other wonderful place that has free internet access) and upload more of them at that time.  Until then, enjoy the stories of the first leg of our trip...

We left later morning on Sunday, June 11th.  It took a while to get packed up, but we finally made it out of the house around 10:30ish.  The first leg of our trip took us through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and into Missouri where we visited the infamous Arch.  We were curious at first about how easy it would be to find.  Bear in mind that we had made no plans or arrangments as to how to find it... nevermind even determining where we would stay that first night (this was to be a trend we continued throughout the trip... hardly making any plans at all).  Nevertheless, we found the Arch... it is rather difficult to miss!  And it was a beautiful day for seeing it! 

However, actually getting to the Arch proved more difficult than we thought, so we ended up crossing the Mississippi River a few times in our attempts to make it to the Arch.  Once there, we were in awe!  It's huge... I took so many pictures, just trying to wrap my head around it, to capture how big it is.  However, we still had the issue of determining where to stay.  So I asked a stranger who looked rather official if he worked there.  He replied that he didn't, but said that we could ask the national monument rangers down below the arch and they might tell us where we could camp.  We didn't even realize there was something under the arch!

But there it was... an entire museum under the arch, along with a gift shop and a candy store.  I was excited to see an exibit on the architect who designed the arch.  They had all sorts of neat things to illustrate his story. 

The drafting teacher in me came out as I saw all the information about him... I see a project in the future of my architect students next year : )  Besides that, we could have even gone up into the arch, but since it cost $10, we decided we were too cheap and like the view from the ground enough to stay there.  Long story short, after talking with a ranger for quite some time, we were directed to a small state camp ground a little west of the Arch, but not too far from the road we were traveling.  It was a nice place to stay... but we had a surprise waiting for us in the morning...

Long dramatic pause... so long it will have to wait for the next entry when I can upload a few more pictures! : )  Aren't I mean... hehe

Have a great day!