Winner!

DH won first in his category, and we suspect he was second in line for best ship. The guy who did get best ship also won best in show over 2500 models. It's nice to be home, but somewhat of a difficult adjustment, especially for our tired kids!

Time to hit the beach!

I've never been much of a beach bum, but the beach here is great! The water is warm and doesn't have all the seaweed that I'm used to at a New England beach. It's a blast to ride the waves and let them carry you along. I even tried "surfing" with DD's little pink floatie-ring last night! It probably looked silly to see a grown woman laying on the little thing in the water, but who cares! It was very fun. Tonight we find out how Joe's model did at the contest. There are SO MANY ships! They judged last night and likely split up the categories further, which will affect how he does. He would love to get "best ship" but even winning 1st in his category would be an honor with all the great stuff that's out there.

Yesterday we went on the battleship USS Wisconsin and to the children's museum in Portsmouth. It's a really nice area here. We feel like with all the history, we could spend weeks going through everything! Hopefully the nationals will be back here in a few years and Joe will have 3 weeks vacation.

Virginia Beach - We Made it!

After a car ride that took considerably longer than it was supposed to, we are happily landed in Virginia Beach, VA, where DH is competing in the IPMS National model contest. The trip took longer because just outside Charleston, WV, a chemical truck overturned on the highway, causing it to close for many hours. Normally, when a highway closes, you get off at the first exit and find another road, right? Well, not in the mountains of West Virginia. We scooted down the breakdown lane for a mile or so and got off at the next exit. There was only one other road - a small two lane thing that went through a mining town. And everyone else was trying to get through the same little road! So, that wasn't much better. We prayed and prayed, asking God to get us out of there.

After a little bit, one basic need became aparent. I had to use a bathroom and soon! There were no restaurants and no gas stations. There were mining opperations all around, so ducking into the woods didn't seem to be a very private option. Just as the situation was appraoching critical, I noticed a lone port-a-potty on the side of the road! We pulled out of traffic and found that it was unlocked and even relatively sanitary! Hah! God answers prayer. After we all used that, we noticed on the car's nav system (praise God for that, by the way!) that there was a TINY little road that paralleled the one we were on. We found it - no more than a one lane alley behind a row of run down houses. But it worked! We saved some time by goin around the mess of traffic that way.

Pretty soon that ran out and we had to rejoin the endless line of traffic inching along the road. We felt stuck to the point of despair. Were we going to send the night there? In the car? It was about 5pm by this time. Traffic strted moving a little better once town officials overrode the traffic light ahead of us and we slowly made it to a fork in the road. Everyone was going straight, rather than turning right. We prayed for wisdom and took the "road less traveled". We flew! We were out! We were able to reconnect with the highway past the point tht it was closed. We had the highway completely to ourselves for many miles. We found out later that the highway was backed up for 12 miles! We passed about 6 miles of vehicles which were parked on the highway.

God certainly provided for us, even if He didn't make the mess miraculously go away. He provided for us in the midst of it.

Here's a picture of us after we got out!