sorry

I will get back to the topics at hand (like anyone else but me cares) soon, but right now, my entire family is gone to IOWA and I am all alone....so I am cleaning, cleaning,cleaning. Did I mention, cleaning? HAHA...Stay with me folks. I will be back!

Day 5 continued

We get to the HILTON, check in, and then feel the need to bring everything into the two massive sized rooms. All our food, pillows, clothes, etc. I needed to sort it all out again by now, anyway, plus we needed munchie foods. And I like my own pillow, thank you very much. My kids are just like me. We get everyone situated into who will sleep where, and then start wandering around. We see alot of people who just look like they are with our group, but of course, I am too shy to break out into conversation. This hotel is huge, which is why I keep typing it in all caps. Way to foo foo for my tastes, and budget, but it was cool nontheless. They were two hundred dollar a night rooms, I might add. We got them for half price. We could have all fit into one, with room to spare, but they probably wouldn't have let us.

Get registered with the lady in charge, proceed to tell her about the whole "no more camping" thing, and ask to postdate the very large check...so we could make it back home without needing the local authorities to pay for it. She said fine. We mosied around again for awhile, then thankfully, it was time for dinner.

Pasta!!!!!! Yum...This fat chick loves her some pasta. Maybe I shouldn't eat pasta, and I would lose weight, but you know how that goes. Kids loved it, we loved it. Free soda and water and gatorade. Yummm...Then there was a music man who played guitar WAY TOO LOUD!!! I like music, but feel there is no place for music that hurts your ears. However, I digress.

Met a wonderful lady named Heather, who is the Ohio state rep, through which I may become the Oklahoma state rep...we shall see. Watched her kid and my kid dance like they were supposed to get married in a few years. They were so cute...he would walk up to her, and wiggle, and she would run. He would chase her, she would laugh. Too cute. She has actually passed the hurdle of having another child AFTER the disabled child...wonder how she did it? Her cutie was in a wheelchair, snoozing away. Don't know how with all that LOUD music going on.

Met the lady in charge again, and the Dr. spoke in front of the group. Watched a picture slide show that just wouldn't work at first, even though her dad is a computer guy, and my husband is a computer guy...they couldn't get it to run. She ran out in tears, she was so upset. But alas, it finally worked.

Got up to the rooms, and crashed. We had made it, but not without some serious exhaustion and stress. Have I mentioned, I hate traffic...and stuff falling off my van in traffic? Really, I didn't think I had.

Day 5 of the trip

This is the big one!! The day we will arrive at the HILTON!!! Too scary for me...Hills, and 4 lanes/5 lanes of traffic (on each side of the road!!)just about did me in. I drove because I am a control freak like that. In case you wondered. So, when we finally made it close to our destination, we just went...zoom, zoom, zoom. One interchange after the other. Not thinking, just driving. Well, that was a bad thing. 1695 miles we traveled thus far...fanny was fine. Our stuff was fine. Zooming up and down the freeway, on bad roads must have made things jar around just enough to make our ties loose. We are happily (NOT) driving down the road when suddenly people are honking and waving. We pull over, and discover that we have lost some of our load. In RUSH HOUR traffic. A kind gentleman pulls up behind us and says that some maintenance guys pulled it to the side and it should be fine. WHEW we think. Tony and Austin walk the half a mile journey, and discover that ha ha...no one pulled it anywhere. It was smushed beyond recognition. "IT" was our tent poles, our camp chairs, and a stroller. HA HA HA HA HA. Right?? Well, whatever. We retie what was left down, try to understand why this had to happen to us 5 MILES from our destination!!? Get there with no more incident, and proceed to empty the van into the Hilton!

Day three and four

Woke up FREEZING!!!!! At 5 am!!! What the?? It was so cold, no one wanted to get out of the sleeping bags, and even then, we were all shivering! Didn't realize this phenomenon happened. Got up and got dressed anyway. Left at 9 am. Better time than the days before. Woohoo!! We are becoming good at this. Driving to the painted desert, which is really cool! Petrified wood, and well, the painted looking mountains. Got in free because of our handicapped person card. That was a nice perk that we didn't know about until right before we left. Yeah, any national park that takes admission, we get in free. Got to Flagstaff, it was raining, so we decided on the first motel of the journey. Packed all 10 of us in one room. Like frugal Holly is gonna pay for 2 if Holly doesn't have too?! We fit fine actually. Two on one bed, two on the other, one in middle of bed, one on side of bed, one in crib, and three along the floor. Cooked on the propane stove in the hotel room, much to Tony's fear that we would be arrested or something. Man, that guy is a killjoy.

Day four...towards the Grand Canyon!! Again, free...woohoo. I love that perk. Raining off and on all day. Rode the tour buses, met some foreigners that thought Nathan was the end all be all...The kids all became jr. rangers, Left at about 4pm. Drove to Kingman Az and got motel #2. Didn't want to get wet or freeze again, you know? Why was it raining everywhere we went? Goodness....Nathan woke up with his first ever night terror. THAT was fun, let me tell ya!

Day two

Took off from Amarillo bright and early (yeah right....about 10:30 is more like it) and headed westward. Went to the Cadillac Ranch, and painted our names on the big caddy's in the ground. That was sort of fun...one had to walk a long distance to get to them, and then there is the whole paint fume things. Hopped back in. Still no problems except we discovered a dinosaur museum that looked awesome, but ha ha...closed on mondays. So, sad children had to keep on traveling. The night before, Tony's friend had splurged on Fazzolis spaghetti for us, and we took the left overs with us. We stopped at the New Mexico visitors center and had lunch. The whole place smelled italian. Yum...No messes and good kids helped the people not get upset at our large group eating at the tables. Left, and headed on. Nothing more really to report except Albuquerque traffic made me completely lose my composure No, really. I cried. It was stressful. You have to understand that the reason I feared this trip is because of the traffic and whole fear of dying in a car crash thing. We made it to a KOA and set up camp. Cooked our dinner on the camp stove (chili dogs) and the kids swam. Stayed up till about 10:30 and hit the hay. Went to sleep in the heat, sweating, but wait until you hear about the morning!!!

Day one from the trip

Okay, this will only be interesting to me, in posterity, but feel free to read anyway. LOL. A recap of the time we were gone in 5-4-3-2-1!

Left on Sunday the 14th of June. Had to come back a couple of times for a couple of things we forgot. Tee Hee! That ALWAYS happens, so we laughed about it. Finally got on the road about 10:00 I would say? Drove to our hometown, which was 3 hours away and decided to stop for lunch with Grandma. She met us at a park and the kids enjoyed seeing her. Stayed for about 30 minutes, and then got on the way again. I should preface all this with telling you that we packed for a trip with 10 people. Food for a couple of weeks were in a huge cooler, and everything else was packed around it. Then all the stuff on "aunt fanny" which only makes sense if you have seen the cartoon movie with Robin Williams. So, anyway, I say this to let you understand that when we stopped, it was an ordeal to get everything we needed out, and then back in. It got better the more we figured out some things, but in the beginning, we were floundering.

So, back on the road again, and having a good time. No movies, no games, just us and the anticipation of the trip. Almost made it to Amarillo, and decided to call an old friend of Tony's. She said that she wanted to feed us dinner, and that we could stay at her parents home. WoW! We get there, a freak storm rolls in, but leaves. Get to her parents house, and decide to repack the van. Waiting on dinner to come, we unloaded everything. We kinda rushed the packing in the first place, and it showed. Kept trying to rain again, just enough to be annoying. Finally, we were mostly repacked and wondering whether or not to put up the tent in their backyard. We decided against it, and boy and I glad. As we were getting settled in his shop floor, the floodgates opened, and all the water fell! It stormed all night long!!! It hardly ever rains there, according to her father, so that was strange.

But we slept, and that was all that mattered. Day one was done!

Stay tuned for Day 2.

Tidbits from our 16 day journey

the rainy Grand Canyon




The loaded down Aunt Fanny as we called it.Not long after this pic was taken, the thing snapped, and we promptly lost our stroller, chairs, and tent poles on the Califonia Freeway.In rush hour traffic.They were toast.





Rachel really, really wanting to swim.Or touch the water, rather.She goes nuts!!And Nathan in the bottom, getting wet from the waist down only.




Lil Miss Rachel posing for her shot at the microcephaly convention.Which was fun, and informative.More later...still processing, and unpacking.