I have been trying to figure out how to write this blog for a while. It should be 4 or 5 posts I think, and please don't have us comitted after reading it! We recently decided to test our sanity by doing every insane thing we could think of; aside from getting married when we were 12 and having an insane amount of little boys who keep us well known in emergency rooms.
We decided to set out on an "adventure" over Christmas. We started our journey on the day before the world was supossed to end...again.
Micah and Kyler were in the back seat fighting over a dvd, Caleb, Liam and I were in the middle seat where Liam had promptly filled his diaper before we were out of the driveway. In the front was my husband and little brother who were already half asleep from spending the previous week ripping up my kitchen floor and putting in a new one. Every other space was filled with Christmas presents, diapers, dirty underware stuffed suitcases, stuffed animals, winter coats, flooring tools, extra bottles of shampoo, jug's of milk, secret pacifiers...well you get the picture.
The time estimated for the end of the world was drawing closer as we drove through Colorado and Kansas in the dark. Suddenly we noticed red flashing lights all around us. Ryan started screaming that they were coming for us and cowered in the front seat more upset that he wouldn't get to see the Broncos win the Super Bowl than missing his 20th birthday in just a few hours. A few hours later, out in the middle of Kansas, we were surrounded yet again. By this time I was driving and praying that they really were coming for us so I wouldn't have to drive anymore!
Kevin looked it up on his phone (he was concerned about that Super Bowl as well) The answer we decided to accept was that they were beacons for the mother ship. (They were windmills, which I had, for the record, said all along)
December 21st came and I was still driving, Ryan turned 20, and there were 6 more spills between all 4 of the kids. 24 hours later we got to mom and dad's in Greensboro North Carolina, FINALLY.
My sister and her husband arrived and we spent a day posing for some fantastic family photos, where Liam cried the whole time, Kendall, Ryan, Kevin, and Brian begged to leave to catch the Bronco's game and Kyler got impressive grass stains all over his good jeans.
Christmas came even though my boys thought it NEVER would! My sister decided to help my brother with his Christmas shopping and so she ordered all his gifts, including hers and had them sent to him.
She took the gift with an innocent I-have-no-clue-what-this-could-be expression.
As she opened it she gave us an award winning puzzled frown. Hmmm what in the world is in the box??
NO WAY!!! This has to be the best present EVER!!
Proudly showing off her new boots!!
After Christmas we all took turns with the flu. Anyone who had walked into that house wouldn't have wanted to do so without a gas mask and maybe some ear plugs from all the awful coughing!
Next we loaded our van with all of the opened Christmas presents, a pack n play, a new scooter, nerf guns, more dirty laundry, a dog kennel and lots of diet Mountain Dew, and drove to Virginia to stay with Yolanda and Brian.
Keep in mind that Yolanda and Brian don't ave kids yet. Within our first few hours of arriving Caleb spilled an entire mug of coffee all over the floor. Thankfully aunt Landa has a nifty little mop close by. We celebrated our second birthday of the trip, Liam's first birthday. He LOVED his birthday; of course he could have just been high on all of that sugar we let him have.....
The next day several people smiled through gritted teeth as we loaded our crazy little butts back in the car to go see an ocean in 40 degree weather, because mommy wanted to walk on the sand.We were there 20 minutes before Kyler wailed loud enough to rouse the coast guard that it was cold and his nose hurt and why would we go to the beach if we couldn't swim???????
We went back to Aunt Landa's house where we spilled an entire glass of chocolate milk on the floor. Out came the nifty little mop. We pinched each other and threatened each other and when all else failed, some of us were tied down to make sure everyone stayed up to see the new year.
The next morning we loaded up a toy car, a scooter, more dirty laundry, more diapers, some blackberry jelly, and a lot of sandy coats, and because we couldn't leave without seeing that nifty mop just once more we spilled another cup of chocolate milk on the floor before waving goodby and heading East, no wait West, no wait.....
Our next destination was Minnesota. We made a slight detour to see our nations capital. Kevin is a history lover and so as we were driving in he was getting excited. "Look there is the Pentagon. Oh there's the Washington Memorial! That's the Capital Building!!" I got excited too. "Oh oh look there's Macy's!!"
We set off after a few hours of exploring. 2am found it being my turn to drive. FYI, diet caffeine free Mountain Dew doesn't help much to keep one awake, however my van passengers know that just because you have ear phones in doesn't mean no one else can hear you singing the song at the top of your lungs! We arrived in Minnesota where it was a balmy 7 degrees. We celebrated our third birthday of the trip with Luke Johnson. Him and Kevin grew up together. When I met Kevin, I honestly thought they were conjoined twins. It was a special treat to celebrate his 30th birthday with him!!
Because we were in Minnesota we had to see the largest mall in America!! I almost fainted! You could have shopped for a week and never shopped at the same store twice! Now I know why Luke and Elise packed their stuff up and moved clear across the country to Iceland!!
The Lego store was Micah and Kyler's dream come true!
We again packed up our car with snow covered shoes, bottles of Children's Motrin, cheese curds, dirty laundry that could have walked home by itself and more diapers and headed.....um another direction.
We got to Grandpa Troyer's with exactly 1.5 pairs of clean underwear each.
We ate an awesome Grandma Troyer supper, played some Skipbo, convinced my uncle to try eating a spoonful of cinnamon, and picked up our new puppy.
17 days after setting out we pulled into our own driveway. We had seen 4500 miles and 15 different states!
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