Let the driving commence

In case you haven't noticed, I've been back dating all my blog posts. It's been a long time since all this stuff happened and here I am months later finally updating the blog. Part of that is because Michael had the computer while he was still in Florida and I was so far behind that it just puts me even farther behind when I do blog. One day my life will be calm and I won't have anything to blog about and maybe, just maybe, I'll be caught up by then. 

There's really only so many 'in the car' stories to be told, so it's all getting condensed right here. 

Leg 1: St. Cloud, Florida to Clarksville, Tennessee with a pitstop in Atlanta, Georgia. 13 hours driving, 800 miles - Wednesday

This leg went pretty well, once it actually got started. I was pretty anxious Tuesday night and didn't sleep well, go figure. I was up before my alarm and busy getting things ready. Michael and I had packed most of the car up the night before and only had a few last minute things to put in. I'm kinda glad he didn't come with me because I used his entire seat so that I could see out the back window of the car. We got the kids in the car, still in pajamas, and I was on my way. I put Chris and Laura's address into my phone and nothing happened. I tried google maps as well as the standard maps on my phone and still, nothing happened. I started driving, hoping that would kick things into gear. Still nothing was happening. Thirty minutes into my drive and I need to know where to turn. Now I'm getting really upset. I had all this anticipation built up for how the drive was gonna go and here I am not being able to even start! Grr! We have a GPS, but we only decided that I would move back on Sunday night. Which means I only started packing on Sunday night. I just wanted to make sure I brought back everything I needed to and didn't really put things in the most sensible places. I was absolutely sure that either one of my map apps would get me where I needed and that I wouldn't need to use the GPS. So I had no idea where it was. And here come the tears. Thirty minutes into my drive and I'm already crying. Great. I ended up moving some things in the passenger seat to get Charlotte a bottle and I found the GPS in the process. It was a miracle, the first of many that I would witness on this drive. Now we were getting somewhere. We stopped in at a play place for lunch, of course and made it to Atlanta around 3. We met up with Laura at the park then back to her house for dinner. I was adamant about avoiding rush hour in Atlanta as well as in Nashville. Even more so with Nashville, since my last experience left me in tears. It was fun to see Laura and her family again, especially since this is the most we've seen of each other, even when they lived just 3 and a half hours away in Utah. Funny how that works. We left just after dinner, no traffic in Atlanta (miracle) and got in to Clarksville around 11:30. When we got there, my mom was asleep (miracle) and we got some quality time with my dad before the kids passed out. 

Proof that the kids literally passed out. And they took up the whole bed. 

Singing Papa happy birthday. 

Thursday we spent time with friends and just hung out. My dad had to work, so we spent time with him in the morning, then headed out with plans for the zoo. My mom was still asleep when we left (miracle) and she had to work that night. So we just stayed with friends until my mom was gone (miracle) and came back when my dad got off work. Ivan loves his Papa so much. And my kids always have so much fun at his house. There's so much space to explore and so many animals to play with. We were at the store earlier getting some drinks to take to the zoo with us and Ivan said we should get a special treat for Papa. He chose cupcakes and we got to sing him Happy Birthday and have a fun treat. Then we all got to bed on time and were up and ready to leave at 6 Friday morning. We were hoping to leave before my mom got home from work, but just as we were about to pull out of the driveway, she came home. Luckily we were all buckled in and ready to go, so Nana gave hugs to Ivan and Charlotte and we were on our way (miracle). 

Leg 2: Clarksville, Tennessee to Lincoln, Nebraska. 14 hours driving, 700 miles - Friday

How does driving 100 miles less take me an hour more you ask? Two words: St. Louis. Seriously. There was a ton of traffic on the road that day. And even though I drove through 6 states, pretty cool, I felt like I was going nowhere. The scenery was all very similar, especially the view of all the semi trucks. Now lets talk about my kids. We've been in the car for a long time. 13 hours on Wednesday, 14 hours on Friday. The kids were angels (miracle!). I cannot explain just how good they were. It was incredible. Ivan hasn't thrown a single fit. Charlotte has been content with a bottle. We have watched 2 movies. That's right, 2 movies over the space of 2 days. You're probably thinking I'm lying, but let me make this clear, we watched 1 movie (over and over and over) all day Wednesday and a different one all day Friday. I kept asking Ivan if he wanted to watch something else and he would say no every time. The only reason we changed movies from Wednesday to Friday was because I was sick of listening to the same one! This made my drive that much easier. I could just wait til the credit were over and push play again instead of pulling over and switching out movies. Seriously, they were angels! 

The only bad part of this day, other than the out of control traffic, was finding a place to stay. I was going to make a reservation in Lincoln before we started out drive and decided against it. I thought it would be better to have some flexibility if maybe I could make it farther or if I couldn't make it that far. Turns out I could make it exactly that far. I stopped into town and drove by looking for places. Then we decided we were hungry so we got food and went back to look for a place to sleep. The first place we tried was booked. I called the next place and they were booked too. A couple more calls and they were all booked. Then I called in for backup. Michael helped me find a place. I called and made a reservation, just my name and that I'd be there soon. I show up and they can't find my reservation. Turns out there's two locations and I had called in to the other place. Oh well, I was already here, just get me a room. I'm thinking the girl was new cuz she had no idea how to handle my situation. About 10 minutes into her asking me who I made my reservation with "was it through booking?" What does that even mean?! And she kept going back and forth between the two computers she had and couldn't find anything. Now I'm really frustrated. I've been driving all day, it's 8 pm and I started at 6 am. I've got 2 crazy kids I'm trying to contain and I'm just really effing tired! Get me a room and be done with it. It's not like they were full, she just couldn't get over that I'd made a reservation and it wasn't showing up. Then I got short with her. I said "I don't care about the reservation, just get me a room." Her response, rather unprofessional, was "Ok ma'am, calm down, you don't have to yell at me." And here's where I gained some real pride in myself. I had not yelled, only spoken firmly and rather irritatedly (real word?) and decided to hold my tongue at this point. Boy was I ready to show her what yelling was. She obviously doesn't have any kids. And after a really fun phone call in the morning to the manager, I'm sure she got quite the reprimand. I mean, who makes it harder for someone to rent a room at a hotel, really? We had fun having a hotel room, but there was no bathtub. Who does that? And as many channels the TV had, none of them had cartoons on. Who does that?? So we ate chicken nuggets and jumped on the beds. Lights out at 9, even though the kids wouldn't sleep. It was so dark in the room that they were afraid to get off the bed. Works for me. I set an alarm for 5 hoping to be on the road by 5:30. Ha. Who am I kidding? I was really losing steam and need that extra hour of sleep. At 6 we got up, had breakfast, spilled a bunch of milk and juice on the table and had the nicest grandma come help me. I was really grateful for a kind spirit at that point. And at 7 we started again. 

This is Ivan crying at the first hotel we tried. He thought for sure we were going to stay there, so did I, and he was rather put out that we had to look somewhere else. He was very done in the car and I'm sure he thought we'd be sleeping there instead of at a fun hotel. And this is the second time I cried during my trip. 

Leg 3: Lincoln, Nebraska to Green River, Wyoming. 12 hours driving time, 700 miles - Saturday

Did you know there's parts of Wyoming that have 80 mph speed limits? Awesome. It's Saturday now and I'm about done driving. Like my body can't handle much more. I've had as many contractions in a day as the highest speed I drove. I've only endured one meltdown from the kids while in the car. Charlotte was very done with the whole carseat thing and she screamed and screamed for about 20 minutes. I'll admit I didn't do much to try and console her. I was driving after all. And since it was only about 10 in the morning, 2 hours into our drive for the day, I was not ready to stop. So she cried. Then she stopped (miracle). And suddenly we were in blissful napland. Oh heaven is here. Have I mentioned that Ivan likes to pee on things other than the toilet? This really helped during our drive. I would stop to get gas, ask if he had to pee and usually get a no answer. Then ten minutes later he would freak out and yell "I gotta pee" as loud as he could. So we pulled over, opened the door (to block prying eyes), and he would pee on the tire. Perfect. Now we're back on the road and I didn't even have to wrestle Charlotte in and out of the car again. What fun boys are! I can't count how many times that happened. And who knows, Ivan probably likes that better and figured out the perfect system to get what he wanted. I wouldn't put it past him. Another perfect day of driving was unfolding before me and I could not be more grateful for what wonderful children I have. Do you know that Charlotte hates the car? She would cry the entire drive from our Florida house to town, about 30 minutes. He composure and sheer contentment was a miracle all by itself. She was perfect. What's even better is we managed to keep away any diaper rash! Thank you Butt Paste, you are my favorite.

We got tired, me more than the kids, of being in the car. I was starting to swell and really just needed some fresh air. And we stopped in Cheyenne. We drove by this cute little park while trying to find a playplace. Turns out that particular McDonald's didn't have a playplace so we ate some food and headed back to the park(miracle). There was a birthday party going on and a bunch of kids were there too. Ivan thought that was the coolest. He even made good friends with one of the little girls and the girl's mom pushed them on the big tire swing. I even caught them holding hands while hiding from Charlotte. Haha. Ivan said he was an airplane and kept spinning in the swing til his feet were off the ground. 

And of course Charlotte had a good time playing too. There were a couple dogs at the park that she ran after a couple times. She's hard to keep up with when she's that determined. And the funniest thing happened while I was laying on the picnic bench, you know for the swelling. Well, these two little pug dogs came sniffing around me, unbeknownst to me. Then I moved and they barked like crazy. I literally screamed! HAHAHAHA! Then I couldn't stop laughing. The couple that owned them felt so bad. I had to explain I was a vet tech and really actually loved dogs, for the sake of my pride. But I've never been scared that successfully before in my life. Michael, this is one for the record books. 

Oh Charlotte. She would not let go of that soda. It was Hi-C, which is at least better than something caffeinated, but she must have drank at least half that thing. And she carried it everywhere. Whatever makes you happy I suppose. 

The end of this drive put us at Cindy and Tom's around 6:45 or 7 o'clock. Pretty good time if you ask me. We made it just in time for grilled pork, baked beans, and salad. Oh it was delicious not to have fast food. And the food itself was good (miracle), not just because it was homemade. Cindy had set up separate rooms for me and the kids to sleep in, but Ivan wouldn't go to sleep without me. I went downstairs to lay with him til he fell asleep, with the full intention of returning upstairs to have some ice cream. And ten minutes later I was fast asleep. Guess I needed it. We were in Matthew's old room and he loves wolves. Ivan was absolutely fascinated with all the wolf decorations. In fact, that's what I woke up to. Ivan was saying, "mom, look at the woofs." Then he would howl. It was cute. We hung out there until we were ready to go to Evanston for the baby blessing. 

Leg 4: Green River, Wyoming to Orem, Utah with a pitstop in Evanston, Wyoming. 3 hours driving time, 145 miles - Sunday

It was a little over an hour drive from Green River to Evanston. Not long at all. The drive was uneventful (miracle) and the kids got a tiny nap (miracle) in before we got out to go to church. I hadn't thought far enough into the future to realize I needed a church bag, so we borrowed some things from Cindy. The kids were so good and completely occupied during sacrament meeting (miracle). The blessing was beautiful and I had lots of help watching Charlotte during the rest of church. Then we had delicious chicken salad sandwiches. And we were on our way to Orem/ Provo/ it's all the same thing to me. The drive from Evanston to Orem was a little more crazy. There was some wicked rain. Like real rain. And it came while we were in the mountains. Of course there's some student driver clogging up the fast lane and semis piled a mile high in the slow lane. We slowed to 30 mph a couple times just because of the rain. At least the views were beautiful, when you could see it between the down pours. That only lasted 30 minutes or so. 

Once we got to Orem, we got nice and comfy. We planned on staying there til Tuesday or Wednesday.

Leg 5: Orem, Utah to Rexburg, Idaho. 3 and a half hours driving time, 280 miles - Tuesday

Made it home! Sort of. I stayed with a friend Tuesday night and moved in to the new apartment on Wednesday.