Count Your Blessings (even on the worst day)

You get the ending first. To save you from turning to the last page. We are successfully in Little Rock, after a very rocky start. Horrible, maybe?

Here's how it started...
I got up, got the kids bathed, packed all the bags (requires 5 now!!), showered, and found out that Ethan had stuck CoiNs in our van's dvd player (new warning to be printed on front: Not to be used as piggy bank). Sooooo, let's just say Ches came unglued. And he's normally so calm. Ok, it wasn't just that it was in need of repair, it was that we were headed to Nashville. Today. And needed entertainment. For the small bored ones!!! What were we to do?? Well, not cancel the trip quite yet. Jenifer, caring about our sanity, brought us her dvd player with two screens. Thinking our day was saved, Ches began getting them set up, asap, so we could get out of town.

Well...Ethan began to scream, "Bye-bye!!", and I could tell it was going to take a while. I went ahead and put him to bed. He was asleep in an instant (first blessing). Back to Ches: the screen that was working suddenly went blank. I told him to start the car, (this all happened so fast!) then we couldn't shut the doors, then none of the lights worked, then the engine wouldn't turn over. Just, "uh, uh, uh, uh," like grinding metal kind-of. We hooked it up to the battery charger (dvd crisis temporarily on hold..), tried to start it (nope), tried to jump it (nope), then let it charge for a good long while (while I FB'd the agony..). It finally started! (second blessing!) and Ches let it run awhile to recharge. He drove it to get the battery and alternator checked before we left town, then ran to Collier's to pick up Mary Claire's strips for her meter (we were on the last vial!!), then to Stereo One to see if they could fish out the coins (yes, for $65 next Thursday, takes one hour), then to Target to get Jenifer new dvd player(s) (now you get two dvd players & 2 screens! and they are bigger!).

He got home, we got the players to work (it was the cord that wasn't working, not the dvd player/screens!)(third blessing!). Then, decided to load up and go. We borrowed a dvd remote from Susan to get the van screen to play what was on the portable dvd player (you can do that!), then got the heck outta dodge!

We made it with almost no weather trouble to Clarksville to a not-so-nice Wendy's (MC loves their frosties!!). Ches didn't eat, and told me later he thought he'd get food poisoning. Seriously. He said he got a vibe (could say two things here, trying to refrain). So he ordered OUR food, and watched us eat. Yeah, so we could all get sick. Umm, refraining again.

Then more, "Are we there yet?" and "How much longer??" till we made it into Little Rock to our hotel (same one we stayed at almost five years ago when we had to do training to learn to use Mary Claire's pump) (and she stayed up till midnight, stripped off her shirt, and opened the drapes to watch cars go by-yes, midnight. Oh, the memories.).

So, we ordered a pizza, Ethan examined the new tub (from inside the water), played with all the kithen utensils from the bath, jammied, brushed teeth, more stories (Gems and Junie B, One Man Band, chapters 1-4 *cause I like her sooo much!).

Now all is quiet. Precious babies sleeping so soundly. Resting up for tomorrow! We are Nashville-bound in the morning. We'll get ourselves together, make the drive, and hopefully have time to make the children's museum tomorrow evening. If it doesn't happen, we have time.

I just know God had a plan, and He was working it out today!! We were not supposed to be on the road early for some reason. It was too weird. After things started coming together, we felt it was okay to resume our plans. What were we spared from? We may never know. Maybe we were to be here at the right time. Only God knows. I'm just thankful for the unknown tonight. And it was still so much better than a kiddie haircut. Seriously.