Day 2: Three States 375 Miles

Thankfully today was a short day! We got up and out of Gallipolis, OH fairly early--7ish but I had been up since 5:15am hoping to get out of town really early. Stephen is kind of slow to get ready. :)

We drove through some really erratic weather--one moment it was snowing like mad and the next it was just windy and sunny. The worst snow was in Indianapolis as we were leaving. We made a quick 4  hours and some minutes trip to Indianapolis to see some of our "old" Des Moines friends who live there now. It was a short stop but really great to catch up and see their kids.

From Indy we made the 2 hour trip to Champaign, IL to meet up with Grandpa Harding. Overall a pretty lame day. The fuse blew in the plug in part of the DVD player (did you know it had a fuse? Neither did I!). So around the 3 hour mark when the girls were bored to tears I tested the DVD player out to find out it was not working. Yikes! Poor Avery is like her mama and gets car sick when reading, drawing or looking at ANYTHING while riding in the back seat. Poor kid. So we played several Kindermusik CDs, the girls told stories to each other with sock puppets and I read off every city or name I saw and they told me whether or not it was funny. Some funny words: Toledo, Keowee and Kickapoo. Some not funny words: Indianapolis, Xenia and Dayton.

Meeting friends and then family threw us off our clean eating routine rather quickly. We did start off the day with our usual green smoothie thanks to Stephen's genius idea to bring along our Vitamix. So far that is going well. We found some bananas at the hotel and we had packed kale, blueberries, raspberries, coconut water and yogurt. We ended with Chipotle for dinner at 5pm and Stephen is off getting our "midnight" snack of a vegetarian salad bowl and his crunchy tacos. It is an hour earlier here so a second dinner at 8:58pm isn't that weird, right?

I did have a bit of a revelation when we first entered the good ole midwest (or nearly the midwest) the air is so much cleaner and crisper smelling... of course it is also socolditfreezesyoureyelidsopenmotherf@%!ingfreezing so maybe that cleanses the nasty from the air. HA. Either way- the cold felt great for a bit until I had to carry both of my children into Target for our midway walk around break!

We aren't driving anywhere tomorrow. Just hanging out at the hotel with Grandpa Harding. The wind is whistling right through the hotel windows and the forecast says it will be 8 degrees tonight. Still NO snow to play in so this cold isn't even the "Fun cold" Avery has been waiting for.

Day 1: Four States 490 Miles

The Route: We didn't get a very early start on our road trip...leaving at 10am. We did arrive at our planned destination- Gallipolis, OH around 7:45pm. On this leg of the trip we traveled through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and are just barely into Ohio at our hotel. It took only an hour of me driving the girls by myself before books and music were no longer entertaining. Thus, the DVD player was turned on. If only they could reach the activities more readily I think they would be happier longer. When we entered the mountains of West Virginia I just couldn't hand them new things or reach things they had dropped anymore. The fog was so thick we drove with our hazard lights on for over an hour. It was hard to see much more than a car in front of me and the semi trucks were going very slow in two lanes. Their large bodies made more overspray from the torrential rain so it was nerve-wracking driving beside them. It continued to pour the entire drive to the hotel. It was 74 when we left NC and it was 54 when we arrived in Ohio. I think we are finally out of the warm winter zone.

The Girls: Pistachios and the organic vitamin C lollipops seemed to offer the greatest entertainment. Ainsley ate more in the car than she normally eats in a week--"baby" apples from Trader Joe's, pistachios, dehydrated strawberries and organic animal crackers plus echinacea tea. Ainsley got pretty tired and goofy- she tried pulling her hair down to her mouth while pushing her lips up to her hair saying she wanted to bite her hair. Avery asked "when will we be there" every 15 minutes. Midway through the day they both cried for daddy off and on until we finally stopped for the night. They crashed after a bath at 8:30...hopefully they wake up extremely early so we can get going.

For Tomorrow: We have a long haul and the potential for hazardous roads ahead but the sweet reward of seeing some friends and one grandparent.

I'll update with photos later.

Marital Consequences When Moving

We just wrapped up the packing and loading part of our moving adventure. I have yet to decide if we will ever use a moving company again. Our move out here was absolutely terrible as far as our marital head-butting goes. We were downright evil to each other leading up to packing and loading and through the unloading. On top of that, we had so much work to do while managing a 2.5 month-old and a 2 year-old. It was a long and stressful 5 day drive as well.

We decided to use a moving company for this move. While it hasn't been without issues, our marital consequences have been null. In fact, we have been a team when faced with conflict. Instead of attacking each other we have been attacking others together! Between no-longer-neighborly neighbors and lackadaisical packers we have had to go toe-to-toe (literally in one instance) with people who threaten the success of this move. Our physical  effort has been greatly reduced. I can't say our time expenditure has been cut by much. So a DITY move (that is- do it yourself) vs. a moving company seems to be an even draw on the comparison chart. Perhaps the unloading segment will break the stalemate.

This is THE year 2013

Boy do I have plans for 2013! It will be the year that makes up for 2012, 2011 and at least half of 2010. There were plenty of good things that happened in those years. Well, maybe not plenty...but a few...like the birth of Ainsley and making new friends...but the rest was kinda crappy for the whole family.

We are oh so close to getting on the road to our major cross country road trip. I'm sure there are a lot of families out there who trek across 15 states in less than a month...but this is our first. It will be our first family vacation too with several days at Lake Tahoe.

I moved so much growing up that I absolutely detest moving. I get anxiety about it...I become a complete blubbering mess because no matter why I am moving--it always feels exactly as it did when I was little. That sucked worse than anything. A lot of crummy things happened to our family way back then but moving hurt the most...as did being the new kid every single year with buck teeth, caterpillar eyebrows, a horrible sense of fashion and long stick legs. But...

2013 will be different. I really can't wait to get out of New Bern, NC. I think everyone I have come in contact with in this town refers to me as "That negative lady who hates New Bern". Actually--they are probably too nice to think of me that way...because the people here really are nice times 1000. I've met some of the best families. Stephen and I like both the husband AND the wife in several households here. Leaving them and their adorable munchkins behind is going to be rough. I sure hope we can make friends like this again in the future.

Leaving behind Avery's amazing teacher and Montessori school will be the other extremely difficult thing about this move.

But the silver lining- there is so much to gain in heading to the heavenly state of Washington so we are focusing on that. Dad has promised his little girls (and me!) a dog. It may take us a year or two to find the right one--but just knowing that we have the "ok" to get one...is making the move extra exciting for the girls. Everything that we enjoy is there...and not just within the state but within a few miles of where we will be living. After living in New Bern...this will be so huge. SO HUGE.

The adventure begins on Jan 30. 2013 will be the best year yet...it just has to be.