Road Trip!

Update: We are now on boring old Highway 69/75 headed south to Dallas (to avoid the nasty weather headed home). We checked the kids out of school, and have been running from ice ever since. We are finally in the clear, but it was much like last year! We kept an eye on the weather, with Mom’s help (see below), as our teensy iPhones are too tiny to read. Yes, Ches is already requesting an iPad! ‘I could be working!’ ‘I could be checking the weather!’ ‘I could …’ He thinks he needs every new iToy. And he can’t wait for the second, much better version with the bugs worked out. Nope, have to have the First. When we get it, I’ll let you know all about it. If I ever get to touch it.

Well. I have been given the okay to talk about my mom now. There is a whole world of possibilities open to me! I’ll try to keep it mostly positive, and somewhat wholesome. Heh heh.

She is constantly censoring my pictorial (more this) and editorial (little less this) content. But now you can know her kinda like I know her.

We’ve been talking on the phone for four hours on and off. She slept in (because Dad didn’t wake her!), and yes, I explained she could purchase (and set) an alarm for herself if she got good and ready. Or she could use the one on her fancy little phone. She sure knows how to set her calendar alarms (even better than me!). So, I cannot let her blame Dad for her sleeping in. Anyway, she hadn’t had breakfast, and we were eating chips in the car, so she had some chips (are chips at three breakfast or lunch?). She’s been guiding us through the weather-as the iPhone isn’t helping so much. We have GPS in the van (but without weather), and we have weather on the iPhone, but without the map. If you are creative, have computer experience, I want you to merge the two and invent a GPS with weather!! Brother? That’s you!

We just crossed into Texas, so we’ve made some progress. Both physically and mentally. The kids have finally settled in (three hours in at least?), and are calmer. Ethan is asleep, Mary Claire is listening to music I just put on an SD card for her DSi (I found a new SD card reader/writer on Ebay for $3.99!! I feel like I just got the best buy of the century! I was prepared for $50!), Clay finished watching a movie and is playing DSi now. The first two hours were full of ravenous children (they ate their lunch box lunches in the car, then had McDonald’s, then were still hungry, ahhhhh!), and noise, and movie complaints. I’d forgotten all about road trips (or my Mom-mind blocked out the pain!)

I remember taking road trips when I was young. We would go to Rod Runs (yeah, maybe you can google them? They were like car shows for pre-1949 cars where we played games, ate together, had dances or bands at night, etc.), and all the way there we listened to what Dad liked: Eagles, Hall & Oates, and lots of country. I think we all learned the words to every song, and sang them at the top of our lungs (as we didn’t have a/c, so the windows were down-kinda like my first blow-out). I don’t remember taking stuff to do. We just knew it’d be hours (well, the longest trip ever was only like 4 or 5 hours) of nothing. We didn’t complain (that I remember…), and didn’t even have movies, games, or anything to entertain us besides the number of phone poles! : ) Still good memories. Wonder if they compare to all the iPhones, DSi’s, DVD players, ha!

Update to the Update: Here (Lewisville, Texas), in hotel, had dinner, and kids are swimming happily, we’ve already been locked out of our room, and lost a phone (but found it). Ah, just like home.