On the ice? No thanks!

When we were in France, I'd ask for ice with my Coke. They'd look at me and say, "Ice Cream or Ice Cubes?" I don't know if it doesn't translate well or if lots of Americans like Coke Floats!

2pm-ish:
Another exciting day! To avoid the ice and impending missing electricity, we decided to head south to Dallas. We can be impulsive, no? We packed, checked the kids out of school, and took Lexi to Gigi’s for her to babysit. We are now in Texas after a long trip. We’ve enjoyed driving in borderline temperatures-it’s quite the adventure! In the 28 degree zone, we had icy windshield wipers and side mirrors (meanwhile wondering if we’d made a mistake). We’re now into the warmer 33 degree zone.

Clay and Mary Claire have done well (as long as they are fed, watered, and entertained!), but Ethan has had finer moments. He had about an hour of crying, saying, “pee, pee!” Of course, I wondered if he had a urinary tract infection as we were driving away from the only doctors we knew… We changed him a couple of times, and he seems to be better now. We stopped off at a Wal-Mart in Durant, OK to let the kids run around for exercise(no Chick-fil-a in sight!), bought a movie, and tiny toys to entertain them, and got a few snacks and drinks. We got gas, and headed out on the road again. I guess this is a preview of what’s to come when we drive to Nashville at the end of March. This is only six hours, and it’s eight to Nashville!

We have talked to Mom several times since we left; she’s keeping an eye on the weather (and temperature) for us! We have the phone numbers for the Arkansas and Oklahoma road conditions at our service. We discussed going on to Houston since it’ll be a sunny 71 degrees tomorrow, and they have the space museum! We also considered San Antonio for the Alamo, Sea World, and the (msn.com rated) five star Children’s Museum! We decided we couldn’t take another four hours just for the warmer temps. We are really just getting out of ice, and Dallas will get us there (plus we already have reservations!).

We’ll see how the evening goes… We have to find dinner, check into our hotel, and get ready for bed. Ethan only slept for one hour (hence the crying!), so he should go to bed easily (knock on wood).

Tomorrow our plan is to explore Dallas’ Children’s Museum, check out the Aquarium, maybe the Railroad Museum, Science Place Planetarium, or the Museum of Nature and Science. We know we can’t do it all. We have half the day on Wednesday also-we’ll see how the weather at home goes. If there’s still no electricity, we may stay another night. Heck, we could go on to Houston then! : )

9:51pm:
Well-we had dinner at Chick-Fil-A, so the kids could play then made our way towards Dallas. We are here now, Ethan had an hour bath (surprised? He came in, located the tv, played with the dishwasher, then made a beeline to the bath, and started stripping off his clothes!), the kids are all in bed (none are asleep!). I’m really not surprised! It’s been an adventure, and it took a while to settle down. Ethan is still getting out of the pack-n-play, coming to see us, playing with his new ball…. We tried letting him sleep in our big bed (with the ball) but that didn’t work either.

We actually have a nice room. We always stay at the Residence Inn by Marriott since they have separate rooms and a kitchen. I think they gave us a larger room though! We have two bedrooms (with doors!) with two bathrooms and the middle area is a living room (with fireplace) and a kitchen/eating area. It reminds me of adjoining dorm rooms. Clay and Mary Claire are in one room, and Ethan is in the other in a pack-n-play (well, sometimes). We’ll go to sleep in there when we wind down. There is a fold-out bed in the sofa-but they always suck-they are so thin. And there’s a big king size bed with 6 pillows calling my name…

Or is that Ethan? “Da-ee? Mama? Da-ee? Mama?"

10:19pm:
Update: They are now all asleep! : ) Goodnight!