Our Trip

I have been hesitant to add to my blog because I am overwhelmed at the thought of writing down all that happened on our trip across the country, but I fear that the longer I wait the more I will get behind and forget things too. So I am taking it on.

We set out on the 21st of April. Matthew's birthday, Miles as ten days old, and I had been a BYU graduate for about 24 hours. The last bit of packing up is always hard and this time was no exception. I was feeling so many things at the time all I wanted to do was stop the clock. I wanted to enjoy my new born and I wanted to adjust to our life with him and to help Lydia welcome her new little brother. I wanted to enjoy some time without homework, quizzes, classes and exams. I wanted to relax and to rest my body and allow it to cope also, and yet we were packing up our home and rushing to leave! It was pretty emotional, I'm not going to lie. So many kind people brought us meals and helped us wherever possible, and I am so grateful to them. Miles was [is] a beautiful baby and I was soaking up as much as I could. Nursing was going really well and I was pretty excited...that is for the first week or so. Then things went exactly as they did with Lydia, and I took it pretty hard. I pumped the whole way across the country because nursing was too painful (pumping really isn't a whole lot better, but bearable).
We didn't actually make it out of town until about 12 noon! We had planned on leaving around 8:00! Chris had to drive up to Salt Lake to get our temporary license for the trailer. We finally set out and drove to Denver to stay the first night. Lydia got to play in the pool a little bit before we settled in for the night. Miles handled the car perfectly; Lydia...well she's three....she did good for the most part, but definitely had her melt downs and tantrums. The next night we were planning on staying somewhere in Kansas, but decided we'd just save on the hotel and make the long push to Marcella's house in Oklahoma. We ended up not arriving at Marcella's until 5:00 in the morning! So we went in and slept as long as we wanted and woke up to warm, Rich welcomes.
At Marcella's we played lots at the park, Marcella took Mom and I to get pedicures...wonderful..., jumped on the trampoline and visited and relaxed.
We hit the road again Tuesday and stayed in somewhere..I can't actually remember where. The next day we were driving through Tennessee and we stopped at a State Park called Burgess Falls State Park. It was gorgeous! We hiked through and saw some beautiful waterfalls. The woods and the river and the fresh air was very welcoming after driving so much. The waterfalls were majestic and refreshing! Lydia enjoyed stretching her legs and Miles enjoyed going along for the ride.
When we returned to our cars to get back on the road, our jeep would not start. We tried several times and it was not the battery that was dead, our engine just would not start! We decided that we would say a prayer before we sent for a tow truck. Mom said the prayer. It was good to teach Lydia about prayer and why we were praying. After the prayer was finished, we tried the jeep again and it started right up! It was a blessing from heaven. We did not have to pay a tow truck to come out, which would have been expensive and it would've been a problem because we were pulling our trailer and everything. We made it all the way into town and thought to try shutting it off again to make for sure that it would keep running. And sure enough! After we stopped it, it did not start up again, but now we were at the dealership place so they could fix it. They were able to fix the problem and by that time we decided to just find a hotel close and stay the night. Lydia got to go swimming again and we were a little behind on our plans, but our car was all right and we were glad to have a slow day of little driving. The next day we were hoping to make it to Roanoke, Virginia, but we ended up only making it to Bristol, just across the border. So our drive the last day, Friday ended up being much longer than we had anticipated and also because we had a grand delay around Charlottesville due to construction. The drive was beautiful and we finally made it home safely Friday evening.

I didn't get very many good pictures of our trip there just wasn't very many opportunities for pictures. But I did try to just document a little bit about the ins and outs of the long trip just so we could remember. 

Lydia, probably begging Grandpa for treats and being told no....

The whole crew by the Burgess Falls Trail Head. Notice Miles's face. He has been winking ever since he was days old!

Family Picture by Burgess Falls the trail head.

Lydia is adorable and she was quite a trooper, that girl.

The story of the trip for little Miles and me...

Burgess small falls

Grandma and Grandpa takin a stroll down memory lane with Miles baby.

Lydia blowin the dandelions while we were trying to start our car.

How many men does it take to push a jeep up a hill...? Does Chris stand out or what?

Burgess Falls Big Falls

Burgess Falls Small falls

Lydia was actually being naughty in this picture. She is running away from Grandma.

She's being good here...she liked sitting by the stream.

I forgot to include our running out of gas story...haha. I'll add that below*.

Lydia got to go to her first day of preschool with Natalie and Miss Marcella.

We got to eat lunch with Hannah and Garrett at their school. I think Hannah was a little embarrassed to have everyone there. Garrett sure didn't care though.

It was no use trying to get one of these every state we crossed...I couldn't get them in time and half of them were after dark..but I did manage to get the "Welcome to Kansas" on camera.

Kaleb was so sweet to Miles. It was very precious.

Natalie and Lydia

Lydia enjoying some of the small forms of entertainment we provided for her (pipe cleaners...)

Miles's job...he was good at it. Sweet little dude!

We had sandwiches and wraps for lunch most days.

Chris likes a clean window.

It took us a very long time to get things settled in here and situated, but we are moved in now and all is well! We are enjoying time spent together with family. We are grateful to have had a safe trip with little trouble. I did begin to worry about Miles's belly button at one point. (that sounds random...but it isn't when you're a new born!) It hadn't fallen completely off yet and it was beginning to get rather oozy and smelly! I called the pediatrician and she said it sounded fine for now, but to have the doctor look at it when we got here just in case. We have not visited a doctor here yet because we cannot afford to without insurance, but his belly button seems to be doing just fine.

* We were driving one night and Chris mentioned at one point that we needed to stop for gas, then a stop came and Dad asked if we could make it a little bit further. Christ thought he could. After passing several more places to exit, we had simply forgotten that we were in need of gas and just neglected to stop after that, so when the car just stopped, Chris knew exactly what had happened. We were luckily by an exit so we thought, "Great! We'll just coast off..." Yah, well this exit was probably the longest exit ramp I have ever seen! We coasted for a LONG time, but the road wrapped up and around this big loop before entering the rest area. So we ended up stopping right around one of the big bends. It was a narrow one lane road and we were holding up traffic majorly! Big Semi trucks were honking at us and were not very happy! We were finally able to convince them that moving was not an option for us at the moment and they were able to scrape past us by going up on the curb a little. A state trooper came and warned traffic since it was right around a turn and they couldn't see us very far in advance...and then it started raining a little. :) Dad took the car off the dolly and found a gas station. That put some unseen delays in our schedule too, but we are all safe and it gave us a good laugh.