Meandering the Midwest

  We spent our final days of summer, in Missouri, hanging out at the pool and the super cool playground at Basswood RV park. 

  We also had a nice home church, everyone was asked to share a passage and what it meant to them... We utilized the RV parks movie screen as our stage.

  Our main objective and mission on the Missouri/Kansas border, was to get the first week of school under our belts.  I didn't have any scheduled classes, so we could really focus in on getting it right.  
  We pretty much hid out at the Hillsdale lake all week, focusing on school all morning, swimming all afternoon, and hiding out from the storms every all night. We were in a flash flood warning several times! And BIG ol' thunderstorms, ahh, welcome back to the Midwest! ​  

​We started school Monday morning, bright and early. Sophie is always my little school helper, close by at all times.

  After school and lunch each day, we pretty much spent the rest of our time here, just fishing, swimming and relaxing...

  I cooked most of the week, but Thursday night we took the kids out for dinner to celebrate a GREAT first week of school. 
  We went to the #1 Trip Advisor restaurant, Joe's Kansas City.  WOW! Yummo.

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  Have you ever made the Million Dollar Spaghetti that goes through facebook all the time?
WOW.  Was it ever good!  Serve it with a HUGE green salad to make yourself feel better for eating all those amazing dairy fats. Cream cheese, cheese, cottage cheese and BUTTER.  4 main food groups, right?
  I used this recipe, but did linguini noodles, a lot more seasonings, including seasoning up the cream mixture.  Everyone went crazy for it!
​
http://sugarapron.com/2015/10/21/million-dollar-spaghetti/

The highlight of our time in MO/KS, was reconnecting with some friends we made along our journey this past year.
  Meet the Fercho's.......

  So we are in Texas last Spring, waiting for the Midwest to thaw out enough for us to go back home for a while.  We are just chilling, enjoying the Texas sunshine and teaching classes.
  We park for a few days at an RV park and as we awoke, look over to see a family our age, piling out of an RV.  Everyone else is in school, so right away, the kids are intrigued.  They have kids! They have kids! they shout to us.  

  Dale walked to the bathhouse and noticed they had Kansas tags, and struck up a conversation with the dad, who handed him a cool Meet the Fercho's calling card.  Dale looks down at it and says, That's funny, our last name is Ferguson.  
  The conversation proceeds to, my name is Dale.  Oh wow, my name is Dawson.  
  What's your wife's name? Tonya.   What? My wife's name is Tiffany.  
 Crazy.  Turns out, they too, hit the road for a year of Adventure with their 3 children.  They too, were road schooling and seeing the United States from the comfort of their RV.  

 WHAT are the odds?
    
  We all go about our day, and the next morning, Dawson Fercho, walks up to Dale Ferguson, and says....
 OK, what's your middle name? 
Dale says, Lamar.
 Dawson, No way! Mine is Lee!!!!
​
DLF meet DLF.  

  Hahahaha!! HOW crazy! :)

  Our families spent the next 3 hours together talking as fast as we could get words out, before we had to pull out to head to classes in Amarillo.  We had so much in common!!!! Their 3 kids, all similar ages to our 4.   We found we had so many things alike, even down to their dog named Summer and our dog named Sophie.  White and big, black and small, but still "S" dog names to match the theme. :)    We love how the Lord works to bring people together!

Turns out, we had literally been staying at the Florida Sun N Fun RV park the same week, and just never met.  Thankfully the Lord brought us together in the Lone Star State! 

 Well, as soon as we pulled out, we knew we had to get the Ferguson's and the Fercho's together again ASAP!

  Fast forward 5 months, and here we are, within 30 minutes of our new friends home base.  We HAD to see them!  
 The kids were shy around each other for like .5 seconds, then went right back to where they left off.......

  We spent the day at the lake, then the evening having pizza at their place.  We stayed way too late, and had way too much fun.  We could barely drag the kids apart by the end of it all. 
​ Love love love this family, and how the Lord just brings Brothers and Sisters in Christ to encourage and fellowship with each other, in every state we go to.

  We are already talking about some winter trips, Ferguson-Fercho Style!  Love this crew!

  Bye friends, see you soon!
​Hugs, T