Road Trip Part One

We're officially West Coasters again and from our point of view....WEST IS BEST! 

We were up cleaning and packing until Sunday, April 29 at midnight and were exhausted.  (I think I over-cleaned, but owell)  We got about 7 hours of sleep that night and then the movers came bright and early Monday morning at 8.  It was so exciting!  While they tagged and loaded up the truck we loaded up our truck and did finishing touches.  They finished about 3 in the afternoon.  Right as they left, so did we!  We headed for the 3 hour drive down to Dathan's for the night.  We got to play a game of Sequence and laugh together one last time.  Kellie made us a little travel tote for our 3300 mile road trip and we were very thankful.  She loaded it up with our favorite snacks.  Thanks Kel!  Monday morning we woke up bright and early and loaded up again and lucky us it was raining.  Kel and Bray said that mother nature was crying.  ha ha.  We said a pretty quick goodbye and headed for our first stop at Erie, PA.  Each day was from 8 1/2 hour to 9 hour drives but when you add in stops for feeding, gas and food we usually were on the road about 8:30 and stopping nearly every night at 8.  THEY WERE LONG DAYS! 

Highlights from Day 1 (Pelham, NH to Erie, PA)
-Rain!  Izzy had to ride in the truck   -Izzy stepping on Hadi's head and all 3 of us girls crying at the same time
-Izzy chewing the panda bear making Jaycee cry then making Craig reach back and Izzy growling at him
-Swimming in the pool and Jaycee trying to swim on her own  -Feeding Hadi from the backseat  ha ha
-Finding a Chili's-To-Go for dinner and having to sit at the bar by myself to wait for the order (awk)

Highlights from Day 2 (Erie, PA to Davenport, Iowa)
-Traffic and road construction: at one point the GPS asked if we wanted to switch to walking pedestrian mode
-Hot & humid!   -I drove for 3 hours and was really hyper   -Chicago deep dish pizza for dinner
-Swimming in the pool and this night Jaycee had the swimming learned and wouldn't let us hold on to her.  She's so smart.  (She did have her floaties on)   -Outrageous tolls: at one of them was $24!  

Highlights from Day 3 (Davenport, Iowa to North Platte, NE)
-Iowa is gorgeous!  It's pretty humid but such a pretty state  -Jaycee and her baby cow pooping; we were laughing so hard   -stopping for lunch and Izzy was tied up to a tree and how bad I wanted to just leave her there   -Jaycee doing the potty dance in her car seat and having to stop on the freeway to let her pee in the grass.  As Craig was pulling up her pants she told him there was a bug on her pants-it was a tick!    -The really nice hotel that quickly got a bad taste in my mouth because of the freakin fire alarm going off all night!  -Swimming in the pool again but the water was SOO cold

Highlights from Day 4 (North Platte, NE to Roy, Utah)
-Worst drive ever! I thought Nebraska was bad but I'd say Wyoming is worst   -Our hearts and stomach dropping when we started seeing mountains; we were back home!  -Driving an extra hour for dinner to wait until we could get Costa Vida....mmmmm....    -Would this day ever end?  Those miles were coming off sooo slow   -Dawn meeting us at dinner and Izzy about ready to bite one of her kids  (can you tell I do not like our mean dog)   -Finishing off the night at Craig's parents house and we were so tired.

Jaycee playing in the truck while we load up to leave

 That's a really big truck.  We had been talking about it to Jaycee for weeks so the day it finally came her face was so funny for her to realize it really was here.

 Last piece of furniture-our bed!

 I told Craig to give me a face of how he's going to miss Maine and our home on Detroit St... ha ha

 I was so so so excited.  Let's leave!  Although the day before on Sunday was a very emotional day for me.

 This car drove by as we were waiting for the truck and we were laughing at it and then realized it was the truck driver's helpers.  ha ha.  Gotta love Maine and their backwoods living

 Loading up

 One last picture as I was driving away.  I really did love our experience and home in Maine, but in the end was glad we only had to live there for 2 years.

 Stopping for lunch one of the days.  It was Hadi's turn to drive some-she's such a free loader sometimes. ha ha.  And yes, that is my Dew.  My 30 day streak of no caffeine or soda quickly got ruined when sitting in a car for 12 hours.  That was my only regular and I was good to at least stick with diet.

 Hadi enjoying the ride.  She loved having Jaycee sit beside her the whole time and would just stare at her most of the time.  Jaycee even got her laughing so hard at being silly.

 Jaycee posing for a pic with her glasses on

 They would love it when I would sit in the back with them for a few hours.  We would read books, do puzzles and play together.  It worked out nicely.

 Getting ready to go swimming.  She's getting so close to sitting up

 Smile my beautiful girl

Overall it was a pretty good trip.  I didn't get tons of pictures since we had already done the drive across the country 2 years ago.  Jaycee did SO good and only had the one time that she needed to do an emergency potty trip.  She kept entertained and never complained once.  Hadley did awesome too.  The only time she would cry was when it was time to eat.  Craig did pretty much all the driving and I'm sure he'll never want to do that again.  It's kinda depressing when you put in the address for the hotel and it's like 700 miles away.  Ugh.  I think if anything I had the hardest time.  I got bored and I can't do much on the road because I get car sick pretty easy.  When I was bored I would facebook, drive or play with the girls.  I was just so glad when the day would end.  And Izzy....well she was Izzy-causing trouble, being mean and mostly slept.