Day 4 of 4

I'm sitting in the extended stay hotel that we will be staying in until we find housing! So excited about that! We were able to bring Gary in as well as she's excited about that too! Poor thing has had a pretty crazy trip!

The morning started off late again. We (again) forgot to set out alarm. We packed up as quick as we could and set out. This was our worst day out of the four as we made SO many stops. First we had to stop because Marcus didn't tell us he had to pee until he was crying because he had to pee so bad. Then we stopped because we could have sworn Jamesen had pooped, but apparently he was just really gassy... Then we stopped to get gas and again for lunch and to let the boys play (in Tupelo, the birth place of Elvis Presley!) and again because Jamesen was being really really fussy.

I went to pull him out of the car and one touch alarmed me because he was burning up really bad. Sabe went and got him some meds since all of ours was packed and poor thing fell asleep on me inside a super cold mcdonalds. I slept for most of the rest of the way. When we woke up he was acting like he wasn't feeling well, but he wasn't fussy either, just looking around. Poor thing. I hate to see my babies sick.

Anyways, short post tonight as we're all really car lagged and tired from four days of driving. There's a pool here so we're going to hit that up tomorrow as well as go grocery shopping since our room has fridge and stove. We'll probably start looking at off post housing too, to see if we can find anything we like. We'll see I guess!

Day 3 of 4

We are in Jonesboro, Arkansas!

We all slept in this morning! It was nice to not have an alarm clock set and a crazy strict schedule to follow for the morning. We almost missed the lame breakfast the hotel offered because of how late we got up. Being ahead so many times zones makes me feel like the boys are sleeping in rather than getting me up at all crazy hours of the morning even though...really.... it's crazy hours in the morning in Las Vegas!

Anyways, so we went to the zoo today. It was a rather small zoo, but ended up being perfect. Jamesen fell asleep on the way to the zoo and woke up just before we went inside. His nap was maybe 10 minutes at best so he was super cranky through out the entire zoo and didn't want anything but for me to hold him. By the time I was so done and ready to leave, we had run out of zoo to look at and left. It was perfect timing!

After the zoo, we hopped back into the car and started our drive. I've fallen in love with Missouri. It's so green and alive! It's such a beautiful state (the part that I saw anyways) and is my favorite state so far. Kansas City was a bit hairy to drive through, but it was still a really beautiful state. When we got into Arkansas, we hit a crazy rain storm. there was one point where I couldn't see anything but rain on my windshield and two dip little specs of red that were Sabe's tail lights. I was so petrified of getting into an accident that we pulled over a few minutes and waited for it to stop. Well, it didn't stop, but it let up ever so slightly and we decided to push forward. The slowing was go (yes I really wrote that. it's called a spoonerism and they're funny enough for me to leave for you to laugh at) so we didn't make it to our third destination point, despite making great time and everything. The zoo, coupled with crazy storms, caused for a bit of a delay. We COULD have made it to Memphis today, but decided not to since it was still raining when we stopped for dinner and was getting dark by that time as well.

Nothing really crazy today except a couple of older kids beating up on Marcus a bit at the park at the zoo. We finally had to walk away because Sabe was about to punch some kid out, lol!

We should be in GA tomorrow. It's only 400 or something miles away. Can't wait to see you there!

Day 2 of 4

We're making really great time! We're in Springfield, MO, about 650 miles away from Fort Benning!

Last night was rough. It really was one of the roughest nights of my life. The boys slept like angels but I sure didn't! I'm an extremely light sleeper the stupid hotel we stayed at was just full of noises (like clicking water pipes!). It didn't help that I was sleeping next to Jamesen who kicks and flails in his sleep, as well as having each of the other 4 occupants in the room snore me out at one point during the night, among the noises of people taking showers (at 3 in the morning), flushing toilets, letting their doors slam and other noises. Glad I brought RockStars with me!! I really needed it today! I've been really crabby though, my poor family :( Hopefully I get a good night's rest tonight so I'm not as grumpy.

The morning started off ok. We got the kids up and breakfasted, packed the car and headed out. Jamesen has been fussiest in the morning both days so I think it's a trend... We made it through though, with lots of movie changes and shoving of snacks in his face (most of which ended up on the floor after being played with... another trend). Not too long after we started (maybe about an hour and a half/2 hours into the day) Jamesen started to get really fussy, so we stopped to let him stretch his legs. He was being so cute walking around with me. We found some toy planes that you pull back and let go to make zoom and they fell in love, so we had to get there. Cause for much less screaming coming from the car seat behind me, thank goodness.

We got stuck waiting for a train. I bet we were the only car waiting for that loooooooong train to go by that were actually happy to be there watching the train go by. It was sooo long and the boys loved every single second of it. Lots of "Train!! Choo choo!" coming from the seat behind my mom and giggles and pointing from the seat behind mine. It was so fun to just see how excited they are during something that before kids, I would have been so annoyed about! I swear I was more excited than they were when I realized a train was coming!

We stopped for lunch in the city we had planned to stop for the night in when we charted out our route 2 days ago (Kansas City, MO), which was really exciting. We almost stopped at the zoo since we got there at 3 pm, but apparently there was some shindig going on and it was closed. I was pretty sad about that since I'm a collector of zoos. I hope to get at least one zoo from each state under the boy's belts in their lifetimes. I was really bummed we were missing out on it. Sabe asked someone where a park was and they sent us to a "frisbee golf" field that had an old rusty swingset and lots and lots of bugs. Not exactly what we were looking for... We made the best of it though and took the boys for a walk looking for the train tracks we could hear trains passing by on (with no luck!) and eventually pushed on a bit further.

We made it to a town with some weird name.. can't remember what it was and were going to stop there for the night until we actually stopped there. it was like a modern ghost town, it was kind of freaky. It was like one of those places that you stop and stay at the one hotel only to get axed down by some crazy during the night. Needless to say, we left quickly, dodging a few cops along the way and made it to Springfield.

I was pretty bummed about the zoo in Kansas City so I decided to see where the closest zoo was to us and was excited to find out it was 12 miles away from us! Since we've been making such great time, we've decided to stop by the zoo for the morning, eat lunch and then head out afterwards, which I'm so excited about!!! I love the zoo :)

Gary is doing great. She was freaking out and meowing pretty much the entire way from Vegas to Utah, but since has been doing great with Sabe. We brought her into our car for a bit to help entertain the boys while we were driving the 60 miles from freaky ghost town to Springfield. They were so excited to see her and kept giggling and laughing as they pet her. She's very loved in this house!!

So far, this drive has been going 100 times better than I was expecting and I'm actually having a lot of fun. The boys are doing great, my mom and I are having a great time chatting and making fun of each other and we're all just enjoying the time we've got together. I don't know where we're going to end up tomorrow. Our original plan was to make it to Memphis, TN, so I'll probably write you from there tomorrow!

Day 1 of 4

I'm very pleased to say that day one is done with and that it went smoothly. We're in Nebraska!

When Sabe and I were planning our route last night, we broke it up into 500 (give or take a few) mile chunks. It's about 2000 miles from Eagle Mountain, UT to Fort Benning, GA. There were quite a few routes that google maps gave us and of course we chose the fastest one. It brings us north into Wyoming, cuts all the way through Nebraska and then goes down towards Georgia from the Nebraska/Missouri border. Our day one destination was set for Sidney, Nebraska.

We got a tiny bit of a late start since we forgot to set an alarm. The boy's woke us up at their customary 730 and we scrabbled to get everything together since we wanted to leave at 8. 815 rolled around and we were pretty satisfied that we were packed. After saying our goodbyes to Jared and Amber (love you guys!! Thanks again!) we headed out (with Gary in tow this time!)

Jamesen started out fussy, even before we made it to Wyoming. He was pretty fussy and sleepy after just an hour in the car and I thought that was pretty foreboding. He fell asleep right before we stopped for some gas so we tried to make it quick, but since Marcus refused to pee in their self flushing toilets, we took too long. Since the car wasn't moving, Jamesen woke up after only about 20 minutes. Lucky for us, it wasn't really a bad thing, since he was pretty happy after at that for another hour and a half.

We stopped for lunch somewhere in Wyoming... I can't remember. The only place with a play place was McDonald's. I usually HATE McDonald's, but honestly this play place was so awesome!! It was big enough that I even fit comfortably in it and could go through the tubes fast enough to chase the boys. At one part I could even stand up straight without hitting my head. The boys loved it! Sabe and I snuck some Subway in though... I don't really do McDonald's.

After lunch we hopped back in the car and kept driving. After a movie or two, Jamesen was back out and Marcus kept getting excited over the trains we kept passing and seeing Sabe's truck in front of us. He went ON AND ON about "Daddy truck!" and kept saying, "Hi Daddy Truck!" So. Flippin. Cute. After Sabe being gone for 11 weeks, he gets all antsy when he thinks Sabe is leaving again, so he was very happy to see Daddy's truck driving with us and see Sabe whenever we stopped.

After Jamesen woke up from his nap, he was pretty fussy, but we kept changing movies on him and pushing snacks on him, until we finally made it to Sidney at about 7 pm Utah time. We stopped for dinner and asked someone where a park was so we could let the boys run around. After failed attempts at getting them to eat dinner, we decided just to play. Sidney is pretty small. their "man road" has 2 lanes on each side. Anyways, it was small enough that we got a lot of weird looks by the other people at the park. Apparently it's one of those "everybody knows everybody" places and people were a bit put off by the fact that some strangers were barging in. the park was great though. It was a bit old, but the layout was awesome and it had such a variety of things that the boys just ran from thing to thing laughing and giggling.

Once dinner and the park was over, we decided to hop into the car and drive some more to get a head of our schedule. Tomorrow is our longest day and we wanted to get a good chunk out of it down. We managed another 100 miles since the boys fell asleep and are staying the night at North Platte. Our next destination is Kansas City, Missouri. Cross your fingers we have another great driving day with no incidents or fussy kids!

First leg down!

Well, our first leg of our journey is down. We made it to Utah in one piece!! We started off great and I was thinking to myself "wow, for once we made it out on time!" only to have Sabe go "Did we grab Gary?!" and we had to turn around and go find the dang cat we left behind! That added an extra hour onto our trip and sapped most of Jamesen's nap.

Marcus did amazing. He really is such a great little traveler! He didn't make a negative peep at all! Only happy squeals and exclamations from time to time. Jamesen on the other hand... has a time limit. He'll be quiet and watch a movie for about 2 hours and then we can pull another half hour out of him with constant distractions from other things and then the constant crying starts and he's inconsolable until we pull him out and let him run. Once he gets the chance to run around, he'll start his clock over again and give us another 2 hours of quiet. It made for a long trip to Utah. We got here at 11 pm Utah time and we were hoping to be here by 7 pm Utah time.

4 hours difference! Can you believe that? Leaving Gary, Jamesen being fussy and pulling a heavy trailer behind us really cost us a lot of time! Luckily we won't be pulling trailers on the way to Georgia and I hope we don't forget Gary. The fussiness is to be expected, especially since we're going to be driving for 3-4 days.

Wish us luck! We leave on the 9th. We could really use some prayers that the boys do well. 4 days of driving is a ton for an adult. My poor boys :( I hate to put them through that, but it will be SO nice to get into our own house and just settle in for the next 3-4 years!

Enunciation

We are starting to get clear and precise words from Marcus. I know most of you might shake your heads at that seeing as how he's almost four, but that just shows you how amazing this is. He was so far behind and in the last 6 months has almost caught up with his peers. We've still got a ways to go, but he's speaking in sentences frequently (though he usually leaves out some of the "filler" words) and is really talking up a storm. He said tomatillo and giraffe clear as day today. Makes my heart leap with joy.

Another thing that makes my heart leap with joy is Jamesen's word count. He's been saying "Hop up" a lot lately (what we say when we want the boys to "hop up" in their chairs for dinner or anything you climb and sit in/on) as well as pickle, airplane, and a few others I can't think of at the moment. He's also behind his peers, but so far ahead of where Marcus was at this age that my heart just sings.

We're getting ready to start out treck to Georgia. I can't believe how fast these weeks in Vegas have flown. Sabe comes home late Friday, the boys will wake up to him Saturday and then we'll have a wonderful day of being a family. Once the boys are in bed, Sabe and I will pack up as much of the outside toys and my bedroom as we can. Sunday we'll get the moving trailor and the hitch to attach it to my Pathfinder all before lunch, then have lunch and leave for Utah where we'll spend a few days with my brother and his family (who I and my kids just adore!). We'll drop the trailer off, have the army come and inspect all of our stuff in the storage unit and then they'll pack it up and take it all over to GA to wait for us to get there. We'll leave the next day (the 9th) and get to GA as fast as safely possible because those two boys will not be happy about so much driving!

Our plan is to wake up in the morning, drive 3-4 hours, stop for lunch either at a place that has a play place, or find a park and let the boys run around for an hour or two and then hop back into the car for another 3-4 hours. If we time it right, it should take us driving all of the 3 days and then another 3 hours into the 4th day to get there, depending on traffic, weather, potty breaks and speed limits. Please keep us in your prayers that the boys will cooperate!

It seems a bit surreal...

that Jamesen is coming up on 2. I think I'm still in a bit of denial that he was born, let alone almost 2!

When I first had him, I had a really hard time bonding with him. I had terrible PPD and it didn't help that he screamed a lot for the first 6 months. I felt so terrible for ruining Marcus' life. I'm so glad Marcus will never remember life without his best playmate and friend. It's hard enough remembering it myself.

They are SO CUTE now days. Jamesen really has become Marcus' partner in crime/playmate/best friend. They hug, they kiss, they hold hands, they share, they laugh, they wrestle, they giggle, they play, they eat, they sleep, take baths... you name it they do everything together. Jamesen has recently taken to climbing into bed with Marcus which is a bit interesting since Marcus' bed is only a toddler bed. One toddler can barely fit a toddler bed, let alone 2! Specially when Jamesen is basically the same size!

Speaking of size... the jayster's barely fitting his 2T clothes we moved him into right before we moved here. The shorts are too small around the waist and the head hole in the shirts are getting to be too snug, as well as the shirt itself being to small. Glad we'll be in GA soon so I can switch Marcus to 4T and Jamesen to 3T. Marcus is teetering on the edge of 4T, so I think it will just fit perfectly to move them both up to the next size at the same time. I don't have enough 3T stuff to clothe two kids!

The weather in Vegas the last week or so has been chilly and wet. It's made me think of Autumn and pumpkins and halloween and trick or treating. I can't wait. Silly of me? a bit... but holidays are SO much better with kids and fall is my favorite season. I'm hoping the GA will stay warm most of the year so that the boys and I can play outside til we explode.

I recently went through all my pictures and picked out all of my favorites from the last 2 years. I'm going to make a mosaic of pictures on one of the walls in our new house. Hopefully we've got a large wall that I can use. I'll buy a bunch of different sized frames and just fill them with pictures. Any empty ones will be filled as we go . I'm so excited to put pictures up and decorate for holidays and watch the boys play with the new puppy we'll be getting when we get there. Life is going to be blissful, lemme tell you!

Sabe comes home in less than 2 weeks. He's doing really really well in his classes and is in the run for honor grad! I'm so proud of him :) Can't wait to be a married mom rather than a single mom though! I'll make sure to post pics of the boys waking up to daddy :)