THE Trip From...

As you may know, last Saturday my mom, the girls, the dogs and I started out drive to Kansas from Maine.  First we went to Disney on Ice in Portland and then at about 1pm EST, we started our journey West.  And let me tell you - was it ever a journey...

Our original intent was to drive straight through.  Ha - that's funny.  Anyway...  Things started out smoothly.  Light snow in Maine, but nothing to slow us down.  We made it through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut before things got crazy.  After 3 exits to find an "Easy On, Easy Off" fast food option, we finally took a "tour" of Danbury, CT, just to get dinner.  From there we traveled through New York and into Pennsylvania where we were greeted by snow.  Somewhere in PA, at around 10 at night, Aria was complaining that she didn't feel good.  We pulled off at a gas station and I climbed into the back just in time to "catch" her puke.  Fabulous.  (I think that she only puked because she had so much junk draining into her throat and she gets really upset easily when she doesn't feel well.)

After I got Aria calmed down and Brielle changed, we continued on.  However, by 1am, my mom and I were both too tired to continue driving.  I had only gotten about 4 hrs of sleep the night before because both Aria and Brielle had rough nights.  I was also not able to nap in the car because - without fail every time I would fall asleep - one of the girls would wake up crying - thus waking the other child and anyone else in the car.  We pulled off the snowy roads and found a Super 8.  They accepted dogs and said they had a crib for Brielle, so we were golden - or so we thought...

It turns out that they didn't have a crib of any sort after all.  So we had to block off a section between both beds for Brielle to sleep.  By now, it was 2am.  I finally got Brielle down and Aria quiet, when I then tried to get some sleep.  However, Brady (my Corgi) had other ideas.  She started puking, but neither my mom nor myself got up in time to get her out the door.  This began an ENTIRE night of her puking.  The only person that slept in those short 4 hrs, was Brielle and she was woken up by Bailey (my lab) jumping down into her "pen" and sitting on her.  When we got up, we found 8 piles of yak from Brady.  L o v e l y...  Then at 6-something, the car alarm on my van randomly went off.  I had to go out in the bitter cold and snow and try to figure out how to get it to turn off.  (Mind you I had no boots or winter attire because I was headed to warmer Kansas where I wouldn't need that.) 

By about 8am EST, we finally had the puke cleaned up, the two cranky kids, the three dogs and our stuff all loaded back into the van to continue our journey.  My mom and I had decided that we wanted Subway for breakfast, so we took the first exit that said it had one. 

They didn't open until later. 

Dejectedly, we continued on. 

We tried another exit and the person that made the sandwiches was not in the store yet.  (Dumb - turn off your "Open" sign then...)

Third times a charm and we FINALLY found an open Subway an were able to get some food. 

After that, the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful - after we got out of snowy PA.  We were dead tired and delirious by the time we arrived at my parent's home at 1:30am Central Time Monday morning.  We unloaded what we needed and wearily climbed into bed.  Too bad the kids didn't sleep in the next morning though...

It has taken me most of the week to get out of the "jet-lag" from that trip.  For those who are calculating - it took us over 36 hrs to get here.  I had to reset the passwords on both of my email accounts because I couldn't remember them at all.  I've been walking around most of this week in a fog.  Hopefully that fog will lift and I can enjoy the rest of my time here.

And we better not experience a repeat-performance on the way home...