Thursday, May 8, 2008

Finally in Pennsylvania...

...and not planning on piling everyone into the van anytime soon! Well, we won't be going on any long road trips anywhere for at least a week...not until I can vacuum the inside of the van!

We began our 2-day journey towards the northeast Tuesday morning (after getting everyone and everything loaded into the van and uhaul trailer and then filling up with gas, we were on the road by 7:45 a.m.). We ate our breakfast of banana bread and milk in the van and then picnicked for lunch at a service station with our chicken salad sandwiches. We ate at O'Charley's for dinner because I was dying for some fruit and vegetables by that point. By Tuesday evening we stopped at a Comfort Suites hotel in Cookeville, TN (between Nashville and Knoxville) around 11:00 p.m. The kids did great and they were so excited to be in the hotel room. We all slept very hard that night and woke up a bit before 7am so we could hurry up, get out the door and eat breakfast at Cracker Barrel!

We then spent the majority of Wednesday driving up I-81 through Virginia. I thought I was going to lose it if Christopher asked me one more time, "Are we in Maryland yet?" John then began to joke with him and said, "Ya know, I think we took a wrong turn...we're actually in North Dakota." I was laughing so hard I was crying...guess ya had to be there. You've got to understand that this was not the only question that Christopher relentlessly repeated throughout the day...it just happened to be the one that pushed me over the edge into slap-happy insanity shortly after the drive-thru dinner to which I reluctantly consented. It's a good thing Virginia happens to be a beautiful state through which to drive an entire day.

So after 1,420 miles, lots of filthy rest stops (for some reason, Arkansas does not believe in having changing tables in their gas station bathrooms), a couple diaper blow-outs, several outfit changes for Hannah, lots of crumbs in the van, listening to the sounds of competing Leap Frog leap pads and Christopher's nagging questions, and LOTS of money poured into our gas tank, we finally pulled into my mom's driveway around 11:15 p.m. Thankfully my kids were so excited to be there that they woke up enough for me to toss them all in the tub and scrub them before allowing them to collapse into dream land. I had to wake Hannah up at 9:00a.m. this morning and she still took very long naps today.

We are relieved and happy to be here and looking forward to the month ahead, which involves several reunions with family and friends. But for now...I am going to get some sleep!

2 comments:

Richey Goodrich said...

We rejoice that you got there safely. We will be praying for a restful, renew, and fun time. We are eager for you to get back so that John can baptize Hadassah!

Mindy McCracken said...

Hooray!! I can't wait for that either! Although, I have a feeling that we'll need to pass the tissues around the sanctuary during that one! Thank you for your prayers for us!