I ran the 4 mile race on Saturday, then on Monday LMS and I left to visit family and friends in the west. We were gone for almost 3 weeks, and 7 days of that was in the car. Yikes!
Luckily LMS does quite well on roadtrips, so the worst part was all the sitting. There was a lot of sitting. I'm going to the chiropractor in the morning...
The whole trip went really well and we had a good time. We didn't have time to visit everyone (we never do, unfortunately), but we enjoyed spending time with those that we did get to see. LMS got to play with all her cousins except for my brother's kids (they live too far away for us to visit on this trip), and got to see all her grandparents and most of her aunts and uncles.
I had two purposes in mind when I planned this trip: visit family and friends (check!) and bring back the pieces of LMS' Little Tikes playhouse and climbing thing that had to be left when we moved because we ran out of room on the truck (not check).
The day before we left to come back, we drove half an hour to pick up a small U-Haul trailer (I wasn't happy about this, since I wanted to pick it up in town, which is 10 minutes away. They claimed there weren't any available- I made the reservation a month in advance, what's the point of making a reservation if the equipment I need isn't available where I want it? But I digress....) then drove to the grocery store in town to pick up some dry ice. During the drive, I noticed that my turn signals stopped working. When we got to the grocery store, I could lock the car, but I couldn't alarm it. When we finished at the grocery store, I started the car, but I couldn't get it out of park.
I stress big time when my car doesn't work properly, so the next couple hours while I waited for my dad to get home from work weren't enjoyable. We checked all the fuses, and it turned out that 3 were blown, including the ABS fuse, which is why I couldn't get it out of park. At that point, there was no way I wanted to spend the next several days pulling the trailer across country, always wondering if my lights were working and waiting for more fuses to blow.
I packed our suitcases and stuff in the car and the next morning my mom towed the trailer to the U-Haul place in town and I told them I wasn't going to be keeping it and they could deal with it. They were pretty nice about it all and said they'd refund my money, but it doesn't change the fact that the toys are still at my parents' house :( Now I have to figure out another way to get them out here.
However, driving half an hour to pick up the trailer turned out to be a good thing, since if I'd only had to drive 10 minutes the fuses might not have blown till I was on the road the next morning. At least this way we didn't have to sit around and wait for someone to come rescue us from the middle of nowhere.
The trailer snafu was the only blotch on the trip, though. We had fun visiting friends and family and did some shopping (organization stuff and Christmas presents). This trip did require a lot of planning because of our dietary restrictions, but because of my planning I didn't have any problems, and I've even lost a few more pounds!
LMS had lots of fun and keeps asking to go back and play with her cousin who's only a few months older than her.
"Are we going to N's house, mama?"
"Sorry, kiddo, we're driving home, N lives in the opposite direction."
LMS frowns and pouts.
She keeps saying she's hungry and she's eating tons, so I think we're heading for a growth spurt. This would actually be kind of nice, since I'm afraid to buy pants right now. The 3Ts are just right, but if she grows any they'll be too short. On the other hand, 4Ts are still way too long. In the meantime, we'll keep wearing lots of skirts.
Glad you got your car fixed before you were driving home!
ReplyDeleteMe too! LMS was sad she didn't get to play with your kids- she kept asking about them.
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