Five years later...

Christa and I first met five years ago today. Most of our family/friends already know the details of that fateful day in the library. (If not, you can see the link on the right). That day was the beginning of a miracle.

C.S. Lewis said "This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted."

I'm not extremely articulate (one of the reasons that Christa usually writes our blog) and I don't want to get all mushy. But I wanted to create this tribute for Christa:

Three little Wiggies came to Cambridge

Even though we're happy to be back on this side of the ocean, we've definitely been missing parts of our England life, like how we could just walk down the river and hang out with the Wiggintons!  

So, after a summer of missing this cute face,  Rob and I were thrilled to hear that the Wigginton's had booked tickets on the Fung Wah to come see us for a long weekend.   Once they got here, it felt like no time had passed...especially for Rob and Talmage.  They were still bffs, as usual!

 "Oh, hey Rob, old buddy!  What a funny coincidence meeting you here...inside this tunnel slide!"

And, since it had been over a year since we'd been able to go, we HAD to take the Wigginton's (and my sister, Katie, who was also in town) down to the North End for some pizza from Regina's...

...which really is good enough to fight over.

And then we forced them to make room in their stuffed bellies for my favorite italian treat: a cannoli from Mike's.

After one bite, Talmage was ready to dig deep and eat whatever cannoli was sent his way.

Here he's already had almost 1/2 of a big cannoli, and he's making the sign for "MORE!"

Because there is a lot more to experience in the greater Boston area than the excellent food of the North End, we also did some historical sightseeing.  We toured the Longfellow House, home to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (also, previously home to General George Washington while he was commanding the Union troops).

Later we drove out to Lexington and Concord to learn about the beginning of the American Revolutionary War...from the lips of Paul Revere himself.  Who knew he'd been aging so well?

We were so happy to see the Wiggintons again!  Thanks, guys for making that loonngggg haul up to see us!  We'll have to plan another reunion before too long.

From TX to MA via Gettysburg

To get from Houston to Cambridge (with our car), we decided to make a short stop in Dallas to see Matt and Natalie and their kids, meet up with Mark in the middle of Arkansas for dinner, go to church in Tennessee, then spend Rob's birthday visiting Gettysburg, PA, before finally ending the road trip.

View Trip from Houston to Cambridge in a larger map

So, about 1600 miles into our trip, we stopped for the morning and took a tour of the battlegrounds. 

If anyone is thinking about doing this (touring Gettysburg, not doing a crazy road trip), I highly recommend hiring one of the tour guides that will drive your car around and give you a personal tour of the sites.  For 2 people, it's about the same price as doing a generic bus tour, and for more than 2 people it's a steal.  

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1-3, 1863 and was the battle with the largest number of casualties (killed, wounded, or missing) in the Civil War.  It was really interesting to imagine how the battle progressed from day to day as we learned about how the landscape, communication (or lack thereof), and the different personalities involved shaped history.  

Our guide did a great job helping us understand and appreciate why these men were at war.  I'm grateful for their sacrifices, but it's so sad to think about the huge waste of life that was a result of that war.   Gettysburg is a very neat place.