so blessed.

I can't believe the blessings we receive! Our wonderful Life Group leaders have offered for us to use their timeshare in April. Which is perfect because Loren's leave starts in April. He can take from the 12th to May 10th. But we're taking a week. He wants to save up as much as he can for the end of his term.

Their timeshare is in several places. We could've chosen Florida, or Missouri. But we're going to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge. While Loren was still deployed, I wanted to plan a Gatlinburg trip for us but didn't know when we'd be able to take it, so I held off on it. But now I'm in full planning mode.

And the fact that we don't have to plan for a place to stay is amazing and takes off a lot of pressure. We can drive there with the kids, always a bonus. And there's a ton of stuff for families to do. We were going to try to go to Dollywood, but we'll probably wait until the kids are older. Even though there are plenty of things for Theona to do, her ticket would be over $40!

So instead we're going to do the Ripley's stuff they have. You can buy a pass for the aquarium and several other attractions for a cheaper value. For that and 2 other things, for all three of us it's only $102 and change. And we don't have to do it all in one day either. So we can take our time. We'll be gone from a Monday to a Friday. Just enough time to get in a lot of stuff, but not long enough that we'll go crazy with the kids.

And we won't be there on the weekend! I hear that can be a little too much excitement. We don't need any huge crowds.

First they loan me their spare car when mine went kaput and now their giving us a vacation basically. We've never been anywhere as a family before. Sure we've visited our own families and stayed with them, but we've never been able to go somewhere by ourselves.

I am SO excited!