Memory Lane

It was strange being in Virginia knowing that it would be the last time I would see the house I lived in for 15 years.  Walking around seeing the marks on the floor from when I wore my roller skates in the house.  Seeing the stains in the carpet from when we had a HUGE party for a family friend when he got back from Dessert Storm.

Although we were in Virginia to help my parents pack and get moved, I made sure to try to stop by a few places that I figured I wouldn't see again.  Among them (in no particular order):

Carousel Ice Cream Shop

The church where we got married (we happened to drive by on our 14th anniversary).

Wegman's (our favorite grocery store because it has great prices and awesome bread).

I also made a point to see some of our friends.  We went to our old church and saw a few friends there.  The kids and I got together with my matron of honor and her daughter.  We also got to see another set of friends, my hubby's grandparents, as well as my brother-in-law and his family.  Let me just say, my nephew is growing up WAY. TO. FAST. 

Of course we will go back to Virginia to visit family as long as they live there, but they don't live very close to our other friends.  The good news is that we live in Florida so if any of our friends find themselves down our way (we're only 2 hours from Disney folks), we'd love for you to swing by our house or we could even meet you.  Just give us a call in advance  ;-)

There was one place we wanted to try to see but didn't have time for and that was King's Dominion (an amusement park for those not familiar).  That was where hubby and I said goodby to each other the summer we met.  It was also where we went for our 1st and 2nd anniversary.  I guess the good news is that it's pretty close to where hubby's grandparents live, so perhaps we will find ourselves there at some point in the future.

Adventures in Moving

Aside from our slow start, we had numerous other adventures while we were traveling to help my parents move.

My sciatic nerve pain came back (and hasn't completely gone away yet either).  SO much fun when your leg goes numb while you are trying to carry a heavy box.

While cleaning out the shed, my hubby reached in and as he pulled out his hand this snake bit his glove.  Thankfully he had the glove on because it turned out to be a copperhead (no worries folks, it's now dead).

On our way back to Florida we had a caravan of 3 vehicles.  A Uhaul, a truck pulling a utility trailer, and a minivan.  My mom, the kids and I were in the minivan; my dad drove the Uhaul; and hubby drove our truck.  The thought with this arangement (aside from the fact that my mom and I didn't want to drive the big stuff), was so that if the kids needed potty breaks we didn't have to stop at truck stops or rest stops.  That worked out great!  The other reason was that we were going to be the "rabbit" and scope out areas ahead of the big vehicles. 

Driving 900+ miles in one day is just not feasible, so as the rabbit vehicle, we were able to find a motel that allowed us to park the Uhaul as well as our trailer near our room before the guys even got there.  The most important criteria for our stay was that at least one room be hidden away so we could run an extension cord from the trailer to the room.  Why?  Because we needed to plug in a freezer FULL of food and that's not something you can ask the person at the reservation desk.

We also had issues with the tarp that was on our trailer.  It kept ripping and flapping in the wind so on day 2, hubby fell behind.  Day 2 also found the rabbit vehicle falling behind because of the number of bathroom breaks the kids wanted to take.  Because we were able to skirt a traffic jam we passed my dad about 20 miles from our house and caught up to hubby as we pulled into our driveway.

My dad decided he wanted to stop for dinner a few miles from our house and almost pealed the top off the Uhaul when he accidentally went down a drive through lane.  Luckily he was able to get the person behind him to back up so he could get out without any damage.

Moving is never a dull thing, but thankfully this time no one ended up with a cracked rib (it happened when we moved once).

Funny Meeting You Here

First let me start off by apologizing for not posting for so long.  My family has been away from home for almost 3 weeks and rather than announce to all the world that our house was sitting vacant, I decided to go silent till we got back.

Now that we are back, I will take a few posts to recount our trip.

Traveling (especially traveling with kids) can be problematic.  Luckily we got the drama out of the way early.  We hadn't even made it 1/2 mile from our house when we realized we'd forgotten something.  So we decided to use a parking lot to turn around.  We were in our pick up truck so that would not usually be a problem, but we were towing our trailer.  That can make it harder to make certain turns.  The big issue was that we weren't counting on the sand along the edge of the parking lot being about 5" deep.  So hubby had to get out of the truck and put it in 4WD and after a bit of rocking back and forth we got out. 

Needless to say, we got a much later start than we wanted to that day.  Add to that the fact that kids and their bladders don't always cooperate with our plans and we were just hoping to get close to 1/2 of the way through our 900 mile trip.

Towing a trailer necessitates stopping strategically.  We can't use a drive thru for meals and we can't just park at a Burger King to use the bathroom either.  We've found that rest stops at the state line are usually pretty clean and has ample truck parking for us to fit in.

On our way into the GA welcome center bathroom, my kids pointed to a car in the parking lot and said, "Mom, I know them from Lego class."  I looked at the child in question and said, "It can't be them, but it does look like them."  On our way out of the bathroom, we walked by the car again and I saw the mom and guess what?  It was them!  What are the odds that we would see someone 250+ miles from our house.  And then to find out they were headed to Virginia as well (150 miles away from where we were headed).

When I think about it, if we hadn't had the delays in our departure, that wouldn't have happened.  Interesting how things work out.