Yeah, so I can no longer remember the end of the trip or for that matter the last six weeks. My Facebook status will have to act as a journal.
Nov. 28th - Is awarding Nora comment of the day with her declaration "mommy, I will pee my pants if we don't stop in ten minutes. I promise." Tonite we call OKC home....tomorrow Albequerque.
(Loki decided to hide under the bed platform at the hotel. We had to disassemble two beds to get her out!)
Nov. 29th - taught the kids about wind farms, plateaus, orange construction zone signs, stock yards, and mountains today. Trying to keep the preschool learning going on the road. Nora then told me to 'slow down' at the orange diamond and ask if she was going to ''eat that cow'' as we passed the stock yard.
(Not so impressed with ALQ, or at least the part we saw. Awesome full moon over the mountains)
Nov. 30th - Gives Trent most embarassing comment of the day. "Mommy!!! A piiiirat! Arrrrrrr!" After he saw a man with an eyepatch. He also wins most demanding child. "Mommy. Wanna chicken nungets! Wanna get out! Wanna gas station!" Yea, that was all one sentence. Got to McD's, "Wanna paygound...ohhhhh man. No paygound!" Love him!
(oh yeah! Our credit card isn't working in the middle on NM. Nevermind, CC frozen due to erroneous charge of $3 in the UK. Awesome)
- any mommies awake with Croup experience?....Our little man woke up ''barking'' at midnight. (This ended in a trip to urgent care 48 hrs after we arrived in California)
Dec. 1st. - comment of the day to Nora....''mommy California doesn't look so good.'' as we crossed the state line. Don't really blame her, nothing but barren mountain and valley ahead.
- Is "home" after 2348 miles with 2 kids and the cat. And Rich too.
Dec. 3rd. - Is confused. This is the sunshine state, right? Because three days of wetness has Nora telling mommy she lied about all the sunshine. In better news, we got all our stuff today! Falling into bed worn out. (ok, not the Sunshine state, but I was promised sunshine!)
Dec. 5th - if anyone was wondering how much your 'stuff' might weigh and the insanity in moving. The truck load was 13,900 lbs! Not including the ridiculous amount of stuff in my in-laws basement or the MANY donations that were made to the Goodwill.
Dec. 6th - has held out for wine, but can not any longer. One kid to urgent care, one cat to urgent care, meet with cable and internet people, meet with workers to reconnect washer dryer and uncrate breakables, grocery shop, mail out sold order off Etsy, find Nora's new preschool, and unpack what feels like the clutter of the world. Just a glimpse into the last 48 hrs.
Dec. 8th - being emotional rock for my children is wearing me out! Love them and so want them to find happiness here. We are making little steps every day trying to find our normal again.
Dec. 11th - ending an awesome day. Nora had a great day at preschool, errands run, laundry done, kids to playground twice, hubby home early, a small nap for me, and wake up to Rich making dinner. Awesome.
Dec 18th - mommy comes down with EPIC stomach virus that sends her anxiety into a tail spin.
Dec. 18th - has no words, what do you say when your 5 year old tells you, ''mommy, I'm going to unload the dishwasher so you can rest. I don't want you to do anything." LOVE her, there are days like these that I don't how we were so blessed.
Dec. 19th - Nora gets stomach virus from mommy
Dec. 20th - is thankful for the kindness of strangers. Trent pointed at a older bearded man and said, ''mommy it's Santa Clause!'' The man completely played along and actually admitted to being a for hire Santa. He was there buy candy canes for a job. He waited for us to leave the store and asked Trent to be good for mommy this year and handed him a candy cane. Thank you sir for showing some love in the world this week.
Dec. 21st - has discovered a problem with the new house. Trent can OPEN the fridge, this results in him eating like a hobbit all day and surprising us with his food choices.
Dec. 24th - is most blessed this year with a loving husband, awesome kids, and my health. Sometimes this little things like being able to piggy back your giggling child to look at Xmas lights is all the joy you need to make the season. Merry Christmas friends, may you find many blessings.
Dec. 27th - had an evening of oddities. Trent tells me he needs to eat lots to make his tummy and legs happy, Nora is scratching her tummy with a megablock, and we just had a discussion on whether or not sitting on the subwoofer is an appropriate time out spot.
Dec. 30th - sitting in a house full of family, soups simmering, Trent playing cars with Poppie, Mimi reading a book and Nora crafting....ahh, this is the part of the holidays I love.
Jan 31st - mommy's head is going to explode, or at least the right side of my face! Worst. Sinus. Infection. EVER! (This marks the 3rd New Years Eve in a row of illness)
Jan - 4th - has a little boy with 10 stitches in his hand. He tried to help sister make a lemonade stand on the driveway. In his own words, ''I get the coins, I fall down, mash a piggy bank, get a big owie on my hand.''
- has found that the phrase 'Stop doing 'X' or you might get a BIG owie' has taken on a new meaning for after Trent's stitches. My little daredevil might believe me now and slow down!
Jan 7th - Trent gets the stomach bug
Jan -8th - Daddy gets the stomach bug.
(If you notice the girls and boys got sick at the same time. Showing the solidarity in illness!)
Jan 9th - is in agreement with Rich, the barfing has got to stop. We have had more projectile liquid incidents since moving to California than in the 11 yrs we lived in Georgia.
Jan 10th - is having a great day. Errands with Trent, went to Mission Hospital to donate toys, Nora had a great day at school, mail store, chores, hanging pictures, and now coloring with the kiddos. My favorite part, giving toys to the pediatric ER that treated Trent's hand last week. Their treasure box overfloweth.
That should just about summerize it up till now.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Thursday, December 20, 2012
This Trip
Well, here we are.
The drive was less stressful than expected.
We left Woodstock, Georgia Tuesday, Nov. 27th at around 5:15pm. Our time table was all flipped because the loaders were a lot slower than promised.
There was the passing of Trent to neighbors to babysit on the fly. And trying to make sure the midget wasn't squished like a fly wandering around the house.
Nora coming home from preschool to find her room packed up, first excited then panicked to find all her shoes packed! Three pairs packed in the luggage was just not going to be enough. Mmmmm, I have a shoe diva on my hands.
We had a kerfluffle with the kitty cage not fitting in Rich's car how we thought. Ooops. Funnier, we had a conversation two days prior about testing it out. We had not executed the plan.
And so began our journey.
Rich had meticulously mapped our entire route across the country. Near destinations with hotels if we got tired early in the late afternoon. Long destinations if we wanted to burn some midnight oil. From the start we were leaving about 4 hrs later than anticipated so we had to punt on the first hours of travel.
Atlanta, like most large cities, is a commuter nightmare. After the emotional toll of two packing and loading days we would lose our minds in stop and go traffic. We opted to go north to Nashville, instead of west towards Memphis.
Both us were powered only by adrenaline that was overriding the exhaustion. I likened it to giving birth, you are so tired afterward but can't sleep for hours caught in the excitement of it all.
The kids behaved most of the time. There were fights about who was holding the DVD player or touching something, but hey that can happen on a normal day in our house.
The lights of the city fascinated at night. Lulled into a state of peace by the twinkle of lights and promise of sleep we rolled into Nashville.
Our thoughts the next morning were only of getting on the road. Get the kids dressed, get breakfast, find the cat in the hotel room. Secure cat in cage. Pack all the electronics and travel hoopla up. Away we go.
Ring, ring,,,''Yes?'' (I need to mention that I was in my car with the kids, Rich had the cat in his car. We drove tandem across the country)
Rich, ''Loki has escaped.''
Me, ''what?"
Rich, "Well, I looked back to talk to her and isn't in the cage. And what's freakier is I didn't hear her get out!"
Me. "Where is she in the car?"
Rich. "I'm pretty sure shes squished under the passenger seat."
Me: ''Ok, she probably feels safe there. Loki and the great houdini escape. Ahh.....tick that one off the crazy adventure list.''
And so started located Loki in the car before making a well thought out car exit.
I spent the rest of the morning listening to Toy Story on repeat, trying to counteract it with some Andrea Bocelli in the front seat. Occasionally, I would be told to turn my music down please, ''we can't enjoy the movie''. Sigh......background noise of my life, children's cartoons.
In contrast, Rich was listening to ''Lord of the Rings'' book on cd. Sweet necture of mental driving bliss that it is for him.
We stopped in Arkansas for lunch at a McDonald's. Blech! But they had an awesome playground. We stayed for 1.5 hrs to get the wiggles out of the kids. They were behaving so well, almost angelic. The memo about no craziness, no whining, no screaming being allowed had somehow gotten translated. They laughed, they played, they were in awe of the new landscapes. Nora cheered with excitement as we crossed state lines.
Mommy and daddy just tried to focus on the road and not think about how much farther we had to go.
We put our sights on Oklahoma City, mental braced for a long long afternoon and night. Rich's matrix of travel had OKC as the stopping point the second day of travel. Sheer determination was going to get us back on schedule. We wanted to make a point to ourselves, that we could do this. Some people suggested that we were crazy for driving in two different cars and we were going to prove them wrong.
That it CAN be done, you just have to be ready for twists and turns in the road.
(story continued in another post, must cook dinner)
The drive was less stressful than expected.
We left Woodstock, Georgia Tuesday, Nov. 27th at around 5:15pm. Our time table was all flipped because the loaders were a lot slower than promised.
There was the passing of Trent to neighbors to babysit on the fly. And trying to make sure the midget wasn't squished like a fly wandering around the house.
Nora coming home from preschool to find her room packed up, first excited then panicked to find all her shoes packed! Three pairs packed in the luggage was just not going to be enough. Mmmmm, I have a shoe diva on my hands.
We had a kerfluffle with the kitty cage not fitting in Rich's car how we thought. Ooops. Funnier, we had a conversation two days prior about testing it out. We had not executed the plan.
And so began our journey.
Rich had meticulously mapped our entire route across the country. Near destinations with hotels if we got tired early in the late afternoon. Long destinations if we wanted to burn some midnight oil. From the start we were leaving about 4 hrs later than anticipated so we had to punt on the first hours of travel.
Atlanta, like most large cities, is a commuter nightmare. After the emotional toll of two packing and loading days we would lose our minds in stop and go traffic. We opted to go north to Nashville, instead of west towards Memphis.
Both us were powered only by adrenaline that was overriding the exhaustion. I likened it to giving birth, you are so tired afterward but can't sleep for hours caught in the excitement of it all.
The kids behaved most of the time. There were fights about who was holding the DVD player or touching something, but hey that can happen on a normal day in our house.
The lights of the city fascinated at night. Lulled into a state of peace by the twinkle of lights and promise of sleep we rolled into Nashville.
Our thoughts the next morning were only of getting on the road. Get the kids dressed, get breakfast, find the cat in the hotel room. Secure cat in cage. Pack all the electronics and travel hoopla up. Away we go.
Ring, ring,,,''Yes?'' (I need to mention that I was in my car with the kids, Rich had the cat in his car. We drove tandem across the country)
Rich, ''Loki has escaped.''
Me, ''what?"
Rich, "Well, I looked back to talk to her and isn't in the cage. And what's freakier is I didn't hear her get out!"
Me. "Where is she in the car?"
Rich. "I'm pretty sure shes squished under the passenger seat."
Me: ''Ok, she probably feels safe there. Loki and the great houdini escape. Ahh.....tick that one off the crazy adventure list.''
And so started located Loki in the car before making a well thought out car exit.
I spent the rest of the morning listening to Toy Story on repeat, trying to counteract it with some Andrea Bocelli in the front seat. Occasionally, I would be told to turn my music down please, ''we can't enjoy the movie''. Sigh......background noise of my life, children's cartoons.
In contrast, Rich was listening to ''Lord of the Rings'' book on cd. Sweet necture of mental driving bliss that it is for him.
We stopped in Arkansas for lunch at a McDonald's. Blech! But they had an awesome playground. We stayed for 1.5 hrs to get the wiggles out of the kids. They were behaving so well, almost angelic. The memo about no craziness, no whining, no screaming being allowed had somehow gotten translated. They laughed, they played, they were in awe of the new landscapes. Nora cheered with excitement as we crossed state lines.
Mommy and daddy just tried to focus on the road and not think about how much farther we had to go.
We put our sights on Oklahoma City, mental braced for a long long afternoon and night. Rich's matrix of travel had OKC as the stopping point the second day of travel. Sheer determination was going to get us back on schedule. We wanted to make a point to ourselves, that we could do this. Some people suggested that we were crazy for driving in two different cars and we were going to prove them wrong.
That it CAN be done, you just have to be ready for twists and turns in the road.
(story continued in another post, must cook dinner)
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Pause
And now there will be a brief pause in blogging due to unpacking the 13,900lbs of stuff we moved across almost 2400 miles.....back in a few days with tales of our venture.
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